If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Amazon finally has a reason for why its newest Fire TV Sticks won’t run any software you didn’t buy from Amazon. The reason is “malware.” Aidan Marcuss, the company’s vice president of Fire TV, went on the UK site Cord Busters to defend Vega OS, the Linux-based system now loaded onto the 2026 Fire TV Stick HD and the Fire TV Stick 4K Select. Both sticks kill sideloading, the ability to install apps from outside Amazon’s own store. Pressed on whether sideloading does any real harm, Marcuss went straight to security. “Apps that facilitate piracy, and other apps, can carry malware,” he said, adding that there is “a good amount of evidence that apps can carry unwanted code and behavior on them when they’re sideloaded.” More: https://reclaimthenet.org/stop-renting-access-to-your-own-movie-collection There is always some risk in sideloading your own software onto a device. It is also a tidy excuse to seal off hardware you already own. Sideloading gave Fire TV Stick owners the run of their own device. You could install an app Amazon never carried, swap in a launcher that hid the ads stacked across the home screen, or run an ad blocker Amazon would rather you skip. Vega ends all of it. The company that fills your screen with promotions now blocks the tools built to clear them away. Soccer broadcasters like DAZN and Sky Sports have blamed Fire TV Sticks for feeding illegal streams, and Amazon has already started reaching into people’s existing Fire TVs to remotely switch off sideloaded piracy apps. If you set aside the malware talk, what’s left is a familiar Big Tech move. Amazon built a cheaper, more locked-down box and removed your choice to use it however you want. Most buyers will never notice, because most buyers never sideload anything, and that is exactly what makes the change easy to push through. For now, the older Fire TV Stick 4K Plus and 4K Max remain the last models that still let you sideload. When those sell out, the door closes on Amazon’s side of the streaming market. Anyone who values an open device can still reach for Google TV hardware, where installing your own apps counts as a feature rather than a threat. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post The Malware Excuse Behind Amazon’s Locked-Down Fire Sticks appeared first on Reclaim The Net: Free Speech, Privacy, Digital Rights.