Amazon blames piracy apps with malware for killing new Fire Stick sideloading

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.