Amazon plots major change to millions of Fire Stick gadgets – and users are divided

AMAZON is reportedly working on a new operating system for its Fire TV Sticks that could attract more advertising and prevent “sideloading.”

The new system, set to replace the company’s Fire OS, could land on gadgets as early as next year.

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According to a report from LowPass, it is nicknamed “Vega” and is already being tested on Fire Sticks.

It will be a “more web-oriented application model” that will help offer more services to low-cost devices, the report said.

However, according to industry insiders, Amazon is also considering integrating more ads into the system.

Amazon’s plan reportedly involves reaching “hundreds of millions of eyeballs on a variety of low-cost devices” in order to “monetize those eyeballs with advertising and services.”

Vega OS is also expected to be the death knell for third-party app sideloading, a practice that involves downloading unofficial apps from outside the native Amazon store.

The original Fire OS uses Android’s open source code – and has done so for years.

But that means that Amazon is always lagging behind Google’s in-house Android developments.

Amazon is likely to change this by developing its own software and providing more current updates to customers on its own terms.

This will allow Amazon to further distance itself from Google and create space for new hardware partnerships.

This applies not only to Fire TV Sticks, but also to tablets and Echo products.

Viewers on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) believe this could be the case a “game changer” for app development.

But others are disappointed that Vega OS could create sideloading apps.impossible“ – even though it may be an unsafe practice.