

Amazon, please don’t hijack the web on Kindle Fire - nextparadigms
http://gigaom.com/mobile/yo-amazon-please-dont-hijack-the-web-on-kindle-fire

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Game_Ender
The interesting thing here is that this appears to be done with intents. So
it's quite possible the web re-direct is a side effect of a system wide re-
direct that sends you to the Amazon app store whenever you would normally go
to the Android Market.

The author casts this as amazon re-writing web request when what probably
happening is that web request is turned into an android market intent, which
is in turn sent to the Amazon app store because the Android market is not
supported on the Kindle Fire. I don't think it's as evil as people are making
it out to be.

Most likely amazon never even wrote the code that turns the web request into
an intent in the first place.

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ConstantineXVI
The stock Android browser treats all URLs as Intents; this is by design so
apps can catch URLs from their service. Normally, when you hit a URL that an
app has registered for, you're prompted for what you want to open it with.

Amazon's broken this behavior; any market.android.com Intents get bounced to
the Appstore; other apps aren't given the chance to answer these intents.
While it's true that one can't download Market-sourced apps on the Fire,
blocking a website for any reason without communicating it is fairly shady.
Also; market.android.com is the home of Google's music, video, and book
stores; the first two I'm certain would work in the Fire's browser. They're
blocking competition to their own stores; I don't think there's any way to
defend that as a legitimate action.

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fpgeek
> They're blocking competition to their own stores; I don't think there's any
> way to defend that as a legitimate action.

If intentional, I agree. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they were also
surprised by this side-effect of redirecting the Android Market intent. If so,
I'd say the right thing to do would be to make sure their browser doesn't
raise an intent for <http://market.android.com>, side-stepping the issue.

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feralchimp
Not cool. For this to be defensible as "curating the device for an
inexperienced user" (see comments on linked article) the behavior would need
to be:

\- display a modal dialog explaining that the device does not support
downloading/installing apps from the Android market, and that the Amazon
market contains apps for the Kindle Fire

\- dialog includes "no really, do what I say" option

\- dialog includes "do not offer to redirect me away from Android market in
the future" option

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masonlee
Anyone know if they Amazon is actually hijacking
"<http://market.android.com/..>. " links, or are they just taking over the
"market://..." url protocol handler? Huge difference.

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saurik
I had the same thought, and I tested it; I believe (but am willing to believe
that I am wrong, as I didn't watch the network traffic itself) that it is
actually hijacking the http(s):// URL.

What I did: I went to one of my websites from the Kindle Fire, and sent the
same Accept and User-Agent headers (the only ones that seemed to be special)
to <https://market.android.com/>; there was no redirect returned: it simply
gave me the home page. However, going to that same URL in the Fire browser
application immediately loads the Amazon App Store.

~~~
seppo0010
I've accessed market.android.com but using Mini-Opera browser.

Isn't possible http[s]://market.android.com redirects you to market:// when
you open it from an android device?

~~~
saurik
That specific question is precisely why I explained that I attempted to use
the same User-Agent and Accepts--the only seemingly differentiating headers
that are sent by Amazon's Fire service--in a connection to the Android Market
to see if it would redirect.

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cma
Wow, DISGUSTING behavior from Amazon. Probably violates trademark law as well.

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RexRollman
I seriously doubt that it violates trademark law, but you are right, this is
disgusting.

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joejohnson
Successful Tablet? I don't know if the Kindle Fire is going to make it past
the first round of people who bought (even though that was a huge number).
It's gotten a lot of bad reviews, and the first people to buy it are often
unaware of a products shortcomings.

~~~
Terretta
I'm an iPad 2 user, and can't stand using my Amazon Fire. If one owns and uses
both, the Fire's shortcomings are glaring.

That said, if someone says they want a tablet just for watching Netflix and
reading Kindle books, and doesn't want to spend over $200 and will never do
anything else it, the Fire is the one to get.

People with very limited goals and who don't know better, love it. I recommend
it.

(If they want to do anything else, but are price conscious, I recommend the
1st gen iPad WiFi refurb.)

~~~
easp
Well, there is the iPod Touch. Yeah, the screen isn't as big as the fire, but
that means you can easily carry it in your pants pocket.

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mattwdelong
Just out of curiosity, has anyone here flashed gingerbread on their kindle
fire? Further, how does it work?

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ronnoch
XDA forums are hard at work: <http://forum.xda-
developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1309>

Basically, they have CyanogenMod 7 running on it, but there are still some
kinks that need to be worked out (a few features aren't working yet, video
isn't perfect, etc.)

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dlsspy
Interestingly, the few times I've used the android market web site from my web
browser, I installed stuff on my phone. I should still be able to do that from
a kindle should it be allowed.

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moskie
Right, but that would allow you to see and (gasp!) install apps that Amazon
doesn't want you to install on the Fire.

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shareme
does author realize that you can turn off web browser acceleration in Kindle
thus eliminating all their complaints?

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Andrenid
FTA:

> The browser does redirect any Android Market requests to the Kindle app
> store; even if you turn off the accelerated browsing feature that routes
> traffic through Amazon’s servers. That means this hijacking isn’t done via
> the cloud, but instead is hard-coded into every Kindle Fire.

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czervik
Old news, you can sideload any apps, move on.

~~~
lazugod
You can't sideload apps that you don't know about.

The issue is that, using a Kindle Fire, it is impossible to see the Android
Store's website. If Apple or Microsoft were to make websites impossible to
view, it'd be rightly called out as censorship. Similarly, if Google were to
make Amazon's online app listings impossible to view on stock Android
installations, it would be censorship as well.

