A new update for Amazon Fire TV devices, such as Fire Sticks, has introduced egregious full screen video adverts to users. Occuring at the start up of Fire TV devices, the full-screen adverts take over the streaming experience.
Amazon had previously announced that more adverts were coming to the Fire TV platform, including banner ads in search. However, nobody expected the service to introduce startup video advertisements to the platform.
Via FlatPanelsHD, users are now experiencing full-screen video advertisements for TV shows such as The Santa Clauses as the Fire TV device powers up. After the advert, the streaming service loads the main user interface.
It is currently possible to disable Fire TV video adverts playing on your device by turning off multiple settings. By turning off the autoplay option and personalised ads setting, your Fire TV won’t load up the video adverts at the time of writing. However, this may be fixed in the future.
Users of the Amazon streaming devices have already complained about the egregious addition of full-screen video ads on startup. Amazon’s video adverts have been deemed “unacceptable” by users of the cheap streaming hardware.
Amazon isn’t the only company shoving advertisements into its streaming devices. While the Fire TV ads are — at the time of writing — the most egregious, the majority of streaming devices (outside of the Apple TV) are swarmed with advertisements.
For example, most Smart TVs, including Samsung and Tizen displays, are rife with ads. Furthermore, Google TV and Roku devices are both adding more adverts into their systems with new updates.