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Amazon Backpedals On Encryption, But Fire "Still Sucks"

Posted by timothy on from the gift-for-one's-enemies dept.

Just a day after it made headlines for announcing that it would remove encryption from its line of FireOS devices, reports Ars Technica, the company has reverted the change, and says that encryption will again be a user-selectable option, with an update to come sometime this Spring. Judging from comments here on Slashdot, that ought to please a lot of people. However, encryption isn't the Fire's only problem; Ricki Jennings at ComputerWorld has collected some of the user reaction to the change, and says that anemic hardware means that even with this small course correction, the Fire tablets themselves "still suck." I'm not so sure; I bought one of the low-end Fire tablets and returned it, disappointed not in the hardware (seemed not bad at all for $50, with a decent screen, snappy video, and sound that was better than reviews had led me to expect) but rather by the intentional limitations of the OS itself.

3 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Review notes by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's entirely the shitty Silk browser at work there. Sideloading google services and Chrome improves that experience quite a bit. I suspect it's all the telemetry that Amazon loads.

    --
    "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
  2. You can de-limit the operating system by Robotech_Master · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's actually very simple to get Google Services, including the Play Store, on the Fire. You don't even have to root it—just enable developer mode, activate USB debugging, install some drivers on your PC, and sideload a software package. Then, boom: you've got the Play Store and nearly every app I've tried works just fine. (Oddly enough, Google Inbox is one that doesn't.) As a side effect, it also disables Special Offers for free.

    I gather you can go further with further hacking, outright replacing Fire OS with CyanogenMod or whatever, but I've never felt the need to. I have other pure Android devices, and this Fire the way it is is good enough.

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
  3. Re: Review notes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I picked my fire up for £30 an amazons black friday sale (its starting to become a thing in the UK). The other day they emailed me to say they were recalling the charger as they were unsafe, and offered me £12 credit to buy my own. I've never used their charger, so for £18, I think this is the best value tablet I have ever bought. Sure it suck, but a no-name knockoff for that price would be aweful!