Kodi, the open source media player that so many love, has been entirely removed from the Amazon Appstore. The app was never available on the Fire TV appstore, but a few months ago, it was surprisingly approved by the Amazon Appstore for smartphones and tablets. I say surprisingly because Kodi is not in, and has never been in, the Google Play Store nor the Apple Appstore. The reasons for this are complicated, but they stem from licensing issues and Kodi’s open source nature. It’s unclear at this time why Kodi was removed and whether or not it will return.
Even though the app was never available in the Fire TV appstore, having it in the Amazon Appstore in some form allowed Fire TV owners to take advantage of a bug which caused the app to appear on the Fire TV’s homescreen, even when the app was sideloaded. I’ve been seeing word (and was in the process of confirming) that this bug had been squashed with the latest software update. Those who haven’t updated their Fire TV device to the latest software version were still able to launch Kodi from the homescreen due to its existence in the Amazon appstore.
If you’ve purchased Kodi from the Amazon Appstore in the past, it is still associated with your Amazon account, and therefore, will still appear on the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick homescreen’s “Recent” section if you’re running an older software version. Do not delete Kodi from your account using Amazon’s “Apps and Devices” page or you will not be able to repurchase it. Uninstalling it from your Fire TV or Fire TV Stick will not affect its association with your Amazon account, so uninstalling is safe to do.
Update 8:48am PT
Kodi’s project manager has let me know that the Kodi team did not remove the app themselves and are waiting to hear back from Amazon on the matter.
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There is a beta available through Google Play. You have to join beta community here https://plus.google.com/communities/101953908499318548671
That sucks I was hoping they were going to be more forward thinking and eventually approve kodi for fire tv instead of removing it from the app store completely. This leaves Ouya as the only company I can think of to officially approve kodi for their app store.
A lot of addons for kodi link to illegal content but a download of official kodi does not contain or link to illegal content. I doesn’t even allow you to download those addons that do contain illegal content without installing unofficial repos.
It is legitimate software that should be embraced by companies like amazon. Maybe some companies look at it as competition or are afraid of it because of it being open source and popularly used with addons for illegal content. But, I’m not sure I would have even gotten the fire tv if it didn’t work with kodi.
There is no chance of Amazon making Kodi a native Fire TV app. Kodi iis far from being legit software. Its great program, but its not even slightly legit.
Jimmy, with all due respect, that is completely incorrect. You’re confusing Kodi itself, which is published by the Kodi Foundation, with the illegal ADDONS for Kodi. Kodi itself is a legal media platform. You use it to play your own legal media. The Kodi Foundation takes great pains to distance itself from association with illegal addons. There’s nothing they can do about someone who installs an illegal addon into Kodi. But Kodi itself is perfectly legal.
No, I am 100% right. They just smoke screen everything. I love Kodi and I use it everyday, but they know exactly what they are doing wrong and have done nothing to stop it. They even prompte unofficial addons on there own website. They won’t let you talk bout these addons, but they promote em. They know that without these “illegal addons” that their program would be nothing so they allow it to contiinue and have not done one single thing to stop it. Also, they have several threads on their site dedicated to live streams, which is also illlegal. Either you are blind or just don’t wanna beleve that the people at Kodi don’t like the fact that the illegal ddons makes their program so popular. They think that if they make people shut up when they mention these so called illegal addons on their site that it makes them look like they have nothing to do with it, but its clear that they could care less what illegal content is used with their program. I am beynd positive that if they realy cared they would have stopped it years ago, but its clear that they could care less. They enabble illegal content which makes them just as guilty as the people that provide it. I don’t want any of the adldons to go away, but I am just being honest abbout Kodi. Kodi is like a get away driver that knows exactly what crimes the other people in the vehicle are doing, does nothing about it, then tries to distance themselves from the illegal activity, period. Great program, but all involved are guilty, not just the addon devs.
They promote them? How, when at every turn they trash any post that mentions them and have told everyone that they do not support those add-ons. They don’t stop those add-ons because they are OPEN SOURCE, which is something that you apparently don’t understand. If they stopped the illegal add-ons then they would also have to put a stop to the add-ons that have nothing to do with illegality, like skins and you couldn’t even have a youtube add-on.
Your ignorance on the matter and the people like you are what gives Kodi a bad name. Kodi is no more responsible for the add-ons or for promoting illegal actions of some than the browser your using is responsible for porn sites, or for the people doing illegal activities using that browser. Is it the browsers’ developers fault or there intention that people use their product to illegally download music or movies?
Your logic on the subject is paramount to some one blaming a car manufacture because some one used a vehicle for street racing. You would say “the maker of the car knew they were making the car to go fast, so they wanted people to break the law and go faster than the speed limit or race on the streets”.
Kodi is a Media Center (just like Windows Media Center) and is nothing more or nothing less. Kodi is also open source and the XBMC Foundation and Team Kodi has made it clear that they have no feeling one way or the other about what people do with the end product once they install it on their systems. However, they have also made it clear that they will not support any add-ons that are for piracy, and is why most of those add-ons that you claim they want people to use don’t work half the time and are always breaking.
Besides that, that would not be the reason that Kodi was removed from the Amazon App Store. If if was removed for any reason, it would be for the same reason that other apps that do similar things that Kodi does have been removed. It would be because Kodi software decodes certain codecs without the licensing to do so.
You know nothing, Jimmy Chance
Just stop now “Jimmy”. You are wrong. Plain and simple. Nothing is illegal about Kodi. That is like saying Windows is illegal because you can install torrent software on it.
Jimmy … what a bullshit … go to school again
Jimmy Im sure if they corrected what your talking about you evry day use of KODI would decrease. Im just saying
If the main problem is the default questionable legality of supplied codecs, I wonder if Kodi (if possible) could switch to a more modular style system for codecs (similar to Retroarch ‘cores’).
That way they could release a build which is, by default, not a problem and it’s up to the user (like with optional plugins, etc.).
It’s a shame really because since I started using XBMC it’s been my go to media centre software, I’d like to see it become more common on various devices officially.
I really don’t understand the “more common…official” Kodi version approach. I think they’ve made it pretty clear they don’t care if it is officially accepted in any of the stores or not, and it makes sense. Don’t you get more ‘goodies’ with the way it is now? Dumb-ing it down just to get accepted in an app store seems counter-intuitive.
It’s your go-to software regardless if it’s in a store or not, and mine as well. Sideloading and setting up alternative launch methods is a small price to pay. Eliminating the scrutiny of an app store is better for Kodi’s sake, and ours, IMO.
It’s more places where it isn’t available, presuming the codecs are the reason.
I’d like to see it for example, on stock Xbone/PS4/ios/etc.
I’m also not saying they need to make all builds gimped either.
Then I would scrap my Fire TV, plain and simple. Maybe Droid Box T8 would be the answer. Will not support any device that does not enable Kodi, it’s an infringement on our 1st amendment rights!
Kodi still works on the Fire TV.
> It’s an infringement on our 1st amendment rights!
…Seriously?
Vincent Carnovale, perhaps you should use your favorite search engine to learn what the 1st amendment really is…
The Kodi icon still appears in Recent on the latest firmware (51.1.5.3_user_515040320). If you update Kodi you simply have to log in and out of your account.
By the way, there is no need to panic about any of this. You can still run Kodi on the Fire. If you haven’t already “bought” the icon, or you’re setting up a new account, you will just have to use another method of launching such as Llama (the old way) or through a launcher such as FireStarter.
This really is no big deal.
SPMC is still in the Amazon store so it doesn’t really matter
As already Jimmy has said: SPMC is still available in the Amazon store…
However, also the TVMC latest v14.2 is available in the Amazon APP Store, that I really think is better and also more up to date than SPMC.
And amazon wonders why their hardware sales outside of fire tv/stick struggles for sales..honestly in the end is doesn’t really matter to me because I’m moving on to shield tv and selling my fire tv
Curious..I have a Fire TV with Kodi and love it. Thinking of getting another…BUT can/will Amazon send out an update that will stop a Kodi from functioning on a Fire TV Box??
No. End of discussion.
R.I.P Home Screen icon Kodi/XBMC on Amazon Fire Tv/Stick
R.I.P. Amazon devices. I’m done with all closed, proprietary devices. Idiotic companies that try to lock you in to their products and services by ‘not allowing’ the use of free or open source products can ESAD as far as I’m concerned. I’ve dumped the FireTV and Kindle products because I don’t need to jump through hoops just to watch videos. An Intel compute stick running Windows/Android for $100 gives me complete control over what I run, how I run it, and what content I want to watch. Not the other way around. And no rooting/jailbreaking, etc. required.
But the AFTV allows Kodi and runs Netflix, isn’t that why people buy it? How are you running Netflix on your other Kodi boxes?
Let’s focus on a cure!!! There must be one!