Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by baggachipz 265 days ago
Apparently the only redeeming quality for FireTV Sticks is the ease of piracy. Easily flashed with Kodi or whatever with all the pirate streams pre-configured. I had a FireTV Stick once and never again, their OS is some franken-android monstrosity.
1 comments

I had kind of hoped when I bought it, that I could put a better launcher on it without the almost-full-screen ads, which aren't always appropriate in a home with children, but they've blocked the ability to change the default launcher; there are ways to have one launch after a short delay, but that just annoys the missus and confuses the kids when it launches just after they've started scrolling around the stock launcher.
There's currently a exploit which allows for system user access. This allows disabling core FireOS features like forced updates (which intentionally break custom launchers) and also allows setting a custom launcher. It's simple and can be done with just an Android phone (or ADB).

I've set Projectivy as my launcher and now it starts directly instead of the ad-ridden Amazon launcher.

https://xdaforums.com/t/system-user-fireos7-os8-all-fire-cub...

What kind of ads inappropriate for children were shown by it?