Amazon Stops New Fire Stick Models Supporting Sideloading, Cites Malware Threat

Amazon is blaming the threat of malware for its decision to stop releasing new Fire Sticks that support sideloading apps from outside Amazon’s Appstore.

Amazon has released two Fire Stick models that use its proprietary, Linux-based operating system, Vega OS. Previous Fire Sticks ran Fire OS, which is an Android fork based on the Android Open Source Project. One of the biggest differences between Vega OS and Fire OS is that the former doesn’t support sideloading.

It wasn’t surprising when Amazon released its first Vega OS-based Fire Stick. Although many tinkerers sideloaded apps, especially from the Google Play Store, for added functionality, sideloading had also become largely associated with streaming piracy, especially of sporting events.

For years, stakeholders, including UK soccer channel Sky Sports, England’s Premier League professional soccer league, and the world’s largest European soccer streamer, DAZN, blamed Fire Sticks for a lot of streaming piracy. In May 2025, a report from Enders Analysis, a media and telecommunications research firm, said that Fire Sticks enabled billions of dollars’ worth of streaming piracy.

Amazon no longer making new Fire Sticks with sideloading addressed that concern, particularly as streaming service providers like Amazon display heightened interest in live events to make ad sales.

Additionally, running its own Fire Stick OS gives Amazon greater control over the devices, including ensuring that users can’t circumvent ad placement on Fire Stick software—as well as supporting new features, including Amazon’s subscription and generative AI-based chatbot, Alexa+, and managing app support.

Malware threat

Yet, Aidan Marcuss, VP of Fire TV, advertising, and Appstore, didn’t mention these direct impacts of Vega OS when discussing motivation for the new software. In a recent interview, Or Goren, editor-in-chief of Cord Busters, a UK-based streaming news outlet, noted the negative reaction to Vega being a closed OS. Marcuss responded, per the publication, by saying that Vega OS was Amazon’s opportunity to “innovate and deliver more capabilities, even on the least expensive devices.”

He also said that making a platform around security and privacy was “sort of utmost in my mind.” The statement is somewhat ironic, considering Vega OS blocks custom launchers and other third-party apps that helped users avoid Amazon tracking and ads.

Goren asked whether Amazon had evidence that sideloaded devices caused users harm.

“Apps that facilitate piracy, and other apps, can carry malware,” Marcuss responded. Marcuss also said that there is “a good amount of evidence that apps can carry unwanted code and behavior on them when they’re sideloaded.”

Marcuss didn’t provide specific examples of Fire Stick users being hurt by sideloaded apps. There are some potential examples, though. In 2025, Amazon claimed to blacklist (which blocked the apps from being sideloaded to Fire Sticks) four video streaming apps for malicious behavior. At the time, AFTVnews reported that two of the apps served as residential proxy providers and were considered riskware, and that the other two had APK files that were flagged by virus-scanning tools. Safari and Chrome also flagged one of the apps’ official websites, the publication reported. And in 2018, a botnet that infected Android devices with cryptocurrency-mining malware appeared on some Fire Sticks, per discussion on XDA Forums.

That said, Amazon also has a history of disabling apps that let users circumnavigate its home screen that Fire devices, including Fire Sticks and Fire TVs, have increasingly used for ads.

While Vega may, technically, better enable Amazon to try to prevent cybersecurity threats from landing on Fire Sticks, it’s also apparent that there’s a financial incentive for Amazon to use its OS to push ads and track user activity. Amazon has long sold Fire Sticks at a loss; it’s reasonable for it to seek ways to monetize the popular devices.

That said, Vega OS devices aren’t up to par with Fire OS devices when it comes to support for features like Dolby Vision and USB storage or apps. For instance, in the UK, the two Vega-based Fire Sticks available support about 3,000 apps, compared to the Fire OS-based Fire Sticks’ 40,000, per Cord Busters.

“No customer is actually downloading 50,000 apps. The question is whether the apps they want to watch [and] the content that they’re looking for are there,” Marcuss said, adding that customers can stream “the vast, vast, vast majority of content” on Vega-OS Fire Sticks.

Developers who register their devices can still sideload apps onto Vega OS devices.