New Auto-Play Ad Feature for Amazon’s Fire TV Units Unveiled

Amazon’s Fire TV devices are displaying ads in a completely new way lately, and people aren’t happy about it. At this point, we’re all used to seeing ads everywhere, but now, reports are coming in about Fire TVs automatically playing fullscreen video ads.

Nearly every smart TV platform or streaming service has slowly experimented with ads anywhere you look, and things aren’t slowing down. Earlier this month, we reported on how Amazon Fire TV ads are getting worse , but this takes things to an entirely new level.

Apparently, Amazon’s Fire sticks and streaming devices have begun automatically playing fullscreen video ads, with audio, as soon as they’re turned on. This happens automatically and without any input from the owner. Complaints are piling up all over Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), with people trying to figure out what’s happening or how to turn them off.

Keep in mind that ads are nothing new on Amazon’s Fire devices, especially at the top of the screen. However, previously, you had to manually navigate to those top banner ads or accidentally land on one using the remote. To make matters worse, it sounds like they’ll ignite on their own now and immediately start playing when a user turns on a Fire TV. Instead of the cursor being below the ads so you can scroll around and find a TV show, the default cursor location as devices wake up is on the ad, making it automatically play.

It’s one thing to see banner ads on the home screen or in search results. Plus, it’s already frustrating when you accidentally open a fullscreen ad while trying to find a movie to watch. But having these automatically take over the entire screen and start blasting audio instantly, without user input, makes things even worse.

Amazon isn’t the only company slapping ads everywhere. The difference is they start playing on their own. So, how can you stop this from happening? If you head into your Fire TV device preferences and navigate to “Featured Content,” you should be able to disable some autoplay settings and user preferences. That change may not stop the popup, but at least it won’t start playing audio the second you turn on the TV.

Source: Reddit (1 , 2 ), X , 9to5Google , AFTVNews

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