YouTube For Fire TV Goes Dark Early As Amazon Pushes Browser Workaround

By now, the feud between Google and Amazon should be fairly clear. The disagreement between the two has been simmering for a couple of years at this point, but things have started heating up in the last few months. The culmination of all of this is that YouTube will be leaving Amazon's Fire TV devices on January 1, after Google previously disabled YouTube on the Echo Show.

Though the appearance of some Amazon listings for Google's Chromecast devices had us believing that the two were close to resolving their differences, those listings are now gone and YouTube is still scheduled to go dark on Fire TV. However, Amazon has a workaround for those users who will be affected by the removal of the YouTube app.

With no end to this quarrel in sight, Amazon has started suggesting that users access YouTube through the Fire TV versions of Firefox and Silk. While this isn't the most ideal solution, the presence of those web browsers will allow users to still access YouTube content on their Fire TV.

This suggestion comes with the realization that YouTube has already been disabled on Fire TV devices. As Fast Company points out, opening the YouTube app will merely surface a prompt that tells users to access YouTube.com through either Silk or Firefox. It isn't clear at this point who between Google and Amazon is responsible for this early YouTube shut down, but judging from the nature of this notification, it seems that Amazon is making a preemptive move here.

In any case, this is the solution that Fire TV users will have to deal with until Amazon and Google can sort something out. Recent reports claim that Google and Amazon are attempting to hash out their differences, though when a solution will come is anyone's guess. Stay tuned, because we'll have more for you as it becomes available.