Amazon fire stick serves the same function as a Rocu box, basically. It is just an interface to offer paid and free content to your tv. For example, watching Netflix.

I don't have one, but use a Rocu. Once I'm at the upgrade stage, I may consider a fire stick.

HBO does not give their content for free, so you friend either have access to HBO through their own cable subscription or someone else's, or they pay for HBO go, or it could be a fire stick temporary promotion for limited time access. At least that is what I imagine is going on.

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i have one on a tv for netflix, prime and hbo go.
it's worth the $30 i paid. rarely has it been spotty.

no clue on nfl games.

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Fruit snacks are for winners

My understanding is that they found someone that was able to "crack the code" and get all of the paid stuff for free.
My Samsung SmartTv seems to do a lot of the same stuff as a Roku or AppleTV. But - I have to pay to watch paid content.
Seems their firestick had some kind of app that crawls the world looking for streams (legal or not).

They likely have the XBMC app, which now might be called something else (Kodi, maybe?). It has plenty of legal applications for home/personal media management, but is widely used for its streaming content plug ins of varying quality. Some of the video plug ins are great, giving access to all kinds of TV and movie content, including premium and some stuff still in theatres. The quality is all over the map, from full on DVD quality (even for stuff still in theatres) to pixelated crap that buffers horribly. I used to use it a lot, but don't really anymore, save for some stuff I've forgotten to DVR.

KOdi sounds right.
Do I need a firestick for that or can I get it on my Samsung tv direct?

Good question. I have it on an old Apple TV 2. I think you can jailbreak a Fire Stick. It may also be possible on the Samsung TV if it's running some sort of Android software (I'm clueless on TVs), but could be 1000% incorrect. There are ready made boxes that run Kodi out of the box, I think for around $100, which may be worth consideration since getting Kodi properly configured can be a pain. I would have gone that route if a friend didn't know the Apple TV process inside and out.

I don't understand the hype about these things.

It was a total PITA to get one of these delivered from the Amazon, and it completely sucks for watching TV. Buyer beware.

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Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball

That's gold!

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I miss YaHey

I have a Firestick and a Roku on seperate tv's. The Firestick is much better on its own. When you add Kodi to the Firestick, you now have everything at your fingertips. To add Kodi, search on YouTube for "install Kodi on Firedtick without a computer". It took me a while to get it right but it works just fine. Some things will have poor picture quality and then you go to another source. Don't buy a Firestick on EBay already loaded with Kodi. A lot of times they don't work and you have now recourse. Do it yourself.

The people at Kodi say that it is legal because it's all out there and they just open the doors to it. Selling and buying pre-loaded Kodi Firesticks is illegal. Let's say it's in the grey zone.

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

Worth it, as long as you get Kodi loaded onto it. When I bought mine there were firesticks sold on eBay with Kodi pre-loaded, I think it was $50 or $60. Mine crashed a year in and I had to side load the app myself and honestly, it wasn't that difficult, so you can explore that route too.

As others have said, Kodi has various streaming apps you can load that have various content, from live sports (which isn't worth it) to music (meh) to tv and movies (this is the bread and butter). Get an app called Exodus, the library is massive and you can watch anything from in-theatres (not worth it, the quality is generally a handheld camera) to new tv episodes (usually get loaded, in HD, a day or two after they air) to movies out on DVD (quality ranging from 1080p all the way to the handheld cameras, but generally there are a half dozen HD options).

Buffering can and will happen, but that's as much a product of your internet quality as anything else.

I haven't used the firestick for anything but Kodi, but I use it regularly. If I want Amazon video or my music I use my appleTV or smart tv apps.

At my upstate house we don't get any TV so when I watch it's Netflix, Hulu, Amazon,CBS all access or Kodi. For music it's Amazon Prime or Pandora. All through the Fire Stick or Roku. As I posted above, I like Fire Stick much better than Roku. It's faster and when you open it all the apps that you use are right there in front of you. If you want something else you can scroll down and find it. With Roku, you always have t scroll to find the app you want.

I found that Exodus has very good quality if you are willing to look for the right source. I haven't used it in a while because there just isn't that much that I want to see.

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

Interesting. I hadn't heard of Kodi before. Wonder how long before it gets shut down...sounds similar to Napster.

.

I got it about 18 months ago when I first heard about it, and it had been out for a year or two before that--whenever the firestick was first developed, because it allows for 3rd party apps to be loaded onto the stick. Kodi is merely an app hosting service, there's nothing illegal about it. The apps themselves provide streaming for both legal and illegal material, as those applications are regulated/shut down more pop up. The bigger, better applications have remained open for as long as I've had the firestick, even though the streaming content, in some instances, represents copyrighted material.

I guess it depends on your own moral view on streaming content that might not be totally legal, but I don't know if it's going away anytime soon and for $50 it's worth it while it lasts.

I've gone back and forth on it morally. Part of me feels like it's wrong to watch movies that are still in the theatre when there's a good stream (I've streamed many of those that are DVD quality, I believe critic copies that are sent out ahead of award season for movies that might actually be nominated, whereas something like Anchorman 2 wouldn't have had a quality stream until it was actually released to DVD). The other part of me doesn't feel so bad because I'm not downloading the content, but I think that's probably just some sort of justification I'm making in my psyche. Over the last year I've backed off of using it almost entirely for movies unless there's something I really can't go without seeing and can't get out to see in the theatre but I still use it for TV shows that are in my cable package but not on demand. It's a grey area morally for sure, but I think legally where it lands is you're OK watching a stream since you're not downloading but the hosts of the stream are in violation of the law, which is why a few of the developer apps have closed down voluntarily.

Yeah, you and I are in the same boat. A couple of movies here and there but even then I never watch in-theatre movies, they're usually out for 4-5 months before I'll watch. Then the majority of my viewing is tv shows that aren't on Netflix or my cable on demand. A typical week of Kodi for my wife and I will be 5-6 episodes of whatever show we're on (currently Homeland), then one, maybe two movies (last weekend we watched Get Hard).

I think legally we could get in trouble if they wanted to enforce copyright laws. But my justification is I pay for cable, I pay for 2-3 movies a month, I pay for Netflix...if I stream one or two things that are technically illegal I'm not losing sleep over it, the entertainment industry is getting $150 a month from me as it is.

I use a box called a Red Rhino that basically uses Kodi all pre loaded. Mostly use it for TV shows that are not on demand if we miss them. Some football games that are blacked out or not carried in my area. My son is a Falcons fan so trying to watch one of their games in Idaho isn't the easiest. They would be televised local to Atlanta so I don't have an issue streaming it.

Really like the interface, allows 5-8 different search engines for TV and movies. Has music but never used that application before. I do watch a ton of Youtube videos and it has the app loaded. Very nice to watch a video on the big screen vs tablet. I've had the box for a little over a year now and have not run into issues, some sites go dark but others pop up. Search engines like Phoenix or Genesis have more content than you could possibly watch.

For kicks I've found some very old TV series to show the kids like Fat Albert, Rat Patrol and Cash and Treasures with Kirsten Gumm.

To me its a way to get away from standard TV and watch what I want to watch, not what my programming package has. Plus no commercials.

Well played.

$500 bones for the box?!?! Damn!

You can install KODI on your Jailbroken Firestick and you could have access to thousands of paid content for free.

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http://www.kodikwiz.com/...reak-firestick-2017/

Most likely he had Kodi (or Wookie, which is based off Kodi, and both are apps) sideloaded on the Firestick, which was jailbroken, meaning it's been reconfigured to allow loading of apps onto it without going through the Amazon app store, which is what sideloading is.

Jailbreaking and sideloading a Firestick is pretty easy and there are dozens of online articles on how to do so. If you don't want to do that yourself, you can find plenty of ads in most any Craigslist, or on Ebay, for new Firesticks that are already jailbroken and sideloaded. Typically, they run anywhere from $60 to $80 around where we live.

Like others have said, a Firestick serves about the same legitimate purpose as a Roku box, and it allows you to access all of Amazon's services -- plus use apps like Netflix, HBO Now, etc. through it -- through a single device. One of the main attractions of a Firestick for some who've cut the cable cord and now stream their content is the ability to load apps such as Kodi and Wookie onto the Firestick once it's jailbroken. Amazon, so far, hasn't made any attempt to prevent jailbreaking its device and it doesn't appear as if it's inclined to do so, either.

I think Amazon -- in an attempt to cut down on the slurping or, to speak plainly, pirating of paid content such as movies (especially movies, including pretty much any first-run movie still in theaters) -- has quit offering Kodi in its app store. Kodi's developers are upset about this, maintaining they had nothing to do with the jailbreaking and sideloading thing, and that their app wasn't intended to be utilized in this manner in the first place.

Many Firestick users who have Kodi or Wookie sideloaded also use a virtual private network or VPN to reduce the possibility of attracting attention from paid content providers and receiving a notice in the mail from them, telling them nicely (at first) to stop watching all that paid content without paying for it. If you think of a Firestick/Kodi combination as being somewhat akin to the old Napster or Limewire and other peer-to-peer (though Kodi isn't peer-to-peer, per se) services that allowed you to download MP3 music to your computer or MP3 player you wouldn't be completely off the mark, at least in terms of the concept.

You can't 'rip' or download the movies, TV series' and other content you can find through Kodi (including global people watching stuff, such as karaoke night at the Cat's Meow down in the French Quarter of New Orleans, LOL!), at least as far as I know, but why would you need to? One gateway to 'providers' (Pelispedia, Primewire, etc.) that I know of on Kodi and Wookie, arranges much of its offerings by year and genre (and by star, studio, and so forth) going back 50 years. If you wanted to watch most any movie that hit the theaters in 1985, for example, you're able to do so pretty much anytime you want.

The above should give you a pretty good idea about the Firestick and its legitimate and not-so-legitimate uses for it. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Cat's meow? Very specific and somewhat obscure choice.

Me too. I have to really want to see a movie to go to the theater. For most movies I wait until I can rent it or it's on Netflix, but sometimes I can't find it so we stream it.

What really grinds my gears is when you miss an episode or two of a TV and you can't get it on demand. When that happens I give up on the show, wait for Netflix or find a stream. Why the people behind TV shows don't make their content more accessible I have no idea. If they provide the content with their commercials they get eyes on their advertising.

When I was in the military and the active duty overseer of a Marine Corps medical battalion, all of us such overseers of the various Marine Corps Reserve units across the country used to have to visit our headquarters (Marine Forces Reserve) in New Orleans once a quarter. It was TAD (temporary additional duty), meaning hotel and per diem for meals plus travel were all covered. So we all of course spent some of that per diem down in the French Quarter, at the Cat's Meow and other establishments. They always had karaoke and two-for-one or three-for-one drink nights. That's all. :-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."