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in this video we're going to talk about
a feature of the Fire TV system that
separates it from most other streaming
platforms as far as smart TVs go even
the built-in ones like LG and
Samsung things like that and that's
there are browsers for the Fire TV the
only other system that has on-screen
browsers is Android TV or Google TV you
know things like with the Chromecast
what browsers do is they open up a whole
other possibility for both streaming and
multimedia content in general
and Amazon's got some great ones that
are just built in and you can find them
really quickly by typing in browser or
even just the beginning which stopped it
bro
you see that we have three listed here
which one's called internet one's
Firefox and one's downloader but we're
not really going to be using Firefox
today because the reason I've got it is
just kind of by chance
you can't get Firefox on a Fire TV
anymore as you see from that message at
the top of the screen
if you go on and read further it'll tell
you that you know you haven't been able
to get it online on the Fire TV since
2021
and so we're not really going to dive
into the features of that I just wanted
to point that out since it comes up in
the search so that you don't say well
why didn't you do anything on Firefox
so that's why we're not going to be
talking about Firefox
what we're going to start with is where
it says internet right here this is
actually the Amazon silk browser
this is a really good browser that
Amazon has had almost coincidentally
since they had their first dispute with
YouTube that took YouTube out of the App
Store people were using the silk browser
to go to YouTube's mobile site and
essentially recreate the whole look
you'll notice that there is a cursor
which is kind of shown as that little
glowing Circle
in order to go to a specific web address
you go here up to the address bar and
you can say like Ryan Downey using you
know your voice
and search when you know I don't expect
you to look for Ryan Downey
you know that's me although these most
of these are not actually my there's a
lot of Ryan Downey's out there it'll
make you feel pretty small when you
Google your name and you're like oh wow
there's 50 results that aren't even me
you know
but anyway this is just to show you that
the browser that you get on the screen
looks just like something you would get
you know on your phone or on a computer
it allows you to do a lot of things you
see it's got a private browsing so that
you know it doesn't keep up with
everything you're doing you can use
bookmarks and go back to things later
it also allows you to explore the like
overall sight in multiple ways
for instance when you go into this
cursor navigation you can use the list
version which has the little circle as
you see that's standing for a mouse or
something like that or the spatial
navigation which instead of using the
cursor it goes to the specific spot to
see the little rectangle that's moving
along with me
now they can do either which way and you
might think that the spatial one is more
exact but it actually is quite a bit
more difficult to navigate with
just so you know if you do go into this
one you might even be faced with the
possibility of having to bounce out of
the browser just to get out of it
and get back into the regular settings I
found that sometimes you don't have to
other times you do because you got to
get back up to the top of the screen
and for some reason sometimes it just
gets stuck and you can't get back up to
that upper bar
so
just so this doesn't happen to you I'm
going to show you you go ahead and exit
you jump back in
and we're going to start up at the top
and go in and we're going to change it
back to the other
exploration method
so I've got sign in let's click on in
Boop all right so spatial I'm going to
switch it back to cursor navigation and
again
a little glowing ball a little glowing
orb there that is like a mouse cursor
this adds all the tools that you would
expect to find with a regular browser
you see that it has a most visited sites
that's going to be based on whatever
you're visiting if you don't want to see
all that nonsense you can clear it all
out
it has bookmarks that you can create so
I actually bookmarked the Ryan Downey
page
I also bookmarked like Google so I can
start from the Google search page
instead of the Bing search page
but it's very easy to navigate with the
remote and that's the important thing
you don't need a special like
cursor based Mouse you don't need an air
mouse
using this browser you can do pretty
much everything you're going to want to
do with a browser except download things
you can also switch it you see it
doesn't make a great difference on Bing
but you can switch between the desktop
version of the website and the default
site which is going to be the TV slash
mobile version
I like being able to use a browser
because you can get to different kinds
of media it's a much more multimedia
thing it's it's really helpful for
teachers if you're going to be dying to
do something where you want to show a
picture to the entire class or something
like that
you can go in and just click images and
look for specific images
helpful for if you're trying to learn an
area because you can click on a map and
just see everything
but you know if you just want to see you
know big pictures of kitties
there you go
remember when the internet was nothing
but just like cat videos and stuff like
that that was
never thought we'd look at that as the
good old days
don't know why the full screen doesn't
really do anything it's more of a
cropping feature
and you can use this kind of thing to
crop a picture and then use it as your
background in various apps and things
like that but for your TV it's not
really as helpful as it is when it's
something like your phone
I like being able to jump in and
pull up a map
this is how it looks there you move to a
new area we're in Raleigh so it uses the
sort of recognition you know where we
are it recognizes Where We Are
so it pulls up Raleigh and the eastern
part of Wake County where I live
and from there you can search and Bing
but I like it I think it's nice that you
can have those bookmarks so that you can
get into whatever it is that you're
looking for
and in general it's just it's a good
capacity to have
the other main browser that you can get
without any tricks at all is downloader
downloader actually allows you to
download from the internet which a lot
of people like
it's made it really popular with a with
a number of communities
just like the silk you'll see that you
got a little orb little red circle and
again that acts as your cursor you just
move it up and down left and right with
the controller using the normal
directional button
it defaults to aftvnews.com because the
guy from aftvnews.com created this app
but from the home page you can go
anywhere you want
yeah just by default we'll just go to
google.com
get started there click go
and there it is Google if you choose to
you can sign in on Google and use your
standard stuff
and then it's got your main controls
that allow you to do things like you
know set bookmarks and favorites and
things like that so that you can start
wherever you want next time you get into
the program
see now Google is a favorite
so with let's say we're gonna launch it
again boom downloader
start the home
go into Google
go straight to favorites
Google and boom you're in Google and you
start off with you know the browser that
you probably use on most of your stuff
already
this browser has some other cool
benefits like I said
you can do things so you can like you
know if you go to a website and it says
You Know download program here you can
actually download programs or download
PDFs things like that if you need to get
into things it's got a little map that
shows you how to control this browser
whether you're using the Amazon game
controller or a more standard Amazon
remote
doesn't look like it Maps it out as
though it's a voice remote but that
doesn't matter because all the control
buttons are the other buttons anyway
you get to this menu here by pressing
the little button you see the uh the
button with the three
horizontal lines that's sort of always
the
options button in most of these apps
computer head should be comfortable with
that but just in case you're not just
look for the little horizontal line
button
but I like that it gives you a little
map out of how you can get around the
app without having to use the arrows at
the top of the screen
gives you the page forward page back
menu buttons things like that
under files that's where it's going to
hold downloaded things that you might
have already
and you can go into settings and tell it
what you want it to do
you can turn things off so that it can't
download things if you don't want to
make it a little cleaner
but as far as basic browsing just like
Silk
you can type things in you can't use
voice commands in this one if you use
the voice commands it'll default into
Amazon's you know voice Center or
something like that but as far as typing
you can type anything you want
and you know with browsers like this
there really there's very few video
websites that you can't get to and
that's pretty cool because you know not
every single website out there has a
corresponding app even with the
thousands and thousands of apps that are
out there
so this is a real good Problem Solver if
you need another method to get to
something
the old days it was hard to find local
news apps and I would use this to go to
my local news website during emergencies
snowstorms things like that
but overall this is a free app you can
donate to the guy who made it if you
want all the way up to a hundred dollars
if you want
I'm sure he would appreciate it and
that's Elias but otherwise you don't
need to pay to use this you don't need
to be a member of anything
he just download the downloader or
download silk and you're all set
so if you've been looking to do some
browsing with your streaming device
whether you're looking for you know
pictures of things
movie trailers local news Maps anything
you can find on a normal browser you can
find through systems like this
and if you've been looking for that this
is your answer
silk and the downloader
I hope you found that helpful
I hope it you know helps somebody you
know
if this was good for you please give us
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share this with the people who need it
as always I'm Ryan Downey streaming
advisor
dream on my friends