Amazon disabled encryption on its Fire tablets and phone because nobody used it

[froggyboy604]

Amazon caught flack on Wednesday for disabling the encryption capabilities of its Fire phones and tablets with a software update. The company says its reasoning was simple: people didn’t use it.

“In the fall when we released Fire OS 5, we removed some enterprise features that we found customers weren’t using,” Amazon spokeswoman Robin Handaly wrote in an email.

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I think most privacy concerned users would probably not get a Amazon Fire Tablet, or Phone, and more likely get a Blackberry, or modded Android Privacy themed smartphones like the Blackphone from Silentcircle, Blackberry Priv, and Turing Phone.

There are also a lot of custom ROMs for the Kindle Fire which may has an encryption feature.

Removing encryption maybe good for parents who don't want their kids to encrypt their Fire tablet's data. I also read online that encryption can make slower devices like the $50 Kindle Fire 7 and older Kindle Fire HDX tablets slow down a lot where users has to wait for data to unencrypted and encrypted before they can use their tablet.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

and now everyone will be using it and hacking the phone in all kinds of ways.

Edit, looks like Amazon is doing a 360 on this:

http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/04/amazon-will-bring-encryption-back-to-FireOS/

 

[froggyboy604]

and now everyone will be using it and hacking the phone in all kinds of ways.

Edit, looks like Amazon is doing a 360 on this:

http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/04/amazon-will-bring-encryption-back-to-FireOS/

It is good that Amazon is re-versing the decision to remove encryption, but I got a feeling a lot of the people who are complaining are not Kindle Fire tablet and phone owners.

According to Amazon, not many people used the Encryption feature on their tablets, and phones because most people use the Fire tablet as an entertainment device for watching movies, gaming, music, and web browsing.

I'm surprised that Amazon is still releasing updates for their Amazon Fire Phone. Amazon discontinued the Fire phone because not enough people were buying it, so it was not worth it for Amazon to continue selling the Fire Phone.

There are less-bloated lightweight Android based Custom ROMs which offer encryption for the Kindle Fire and Fire Phone, and also removes bloatware and ads which may contain security vulnerabilities.

Kindle Fire users can also install their own Android encryption apps like SSE to password protect their files and folders on their device. Fire OS can run Android Apps because Fire OS is based on Android.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

I'm thinking Amazon was trying to ride the wave of support from the FBI but failed to realize the public backlash.

 

[froggyboy604]

I agree Amazon was probably trying to ride the wave of support from the FBI, and people who support the FBI. But, Amazon failed to realize this is not the best time to remove the option to encrypt the storage chip on their Fire Tablet, and other Amazon devices.

Amazon may want to get rid of the encryption feature to get fewer technical support calls from careless people who want to unencrypt their tablet because they accidentally encrypted their Amazon Fire tablet because someone else or themselves were messing around in the storage settings app on their Amazon Fire devices.

Unfortunately, some less tech savvy users sometimes get tricked by one of those "Prank tutorials by Trolls" on untrustworthy websites which say enabling encryption will make their device faster, and more stable. But, Encryption actually makes your device a lot slower when turned on because the tablet's CPU and RAM need to use to encrypt and unencrypt data in real time, so doing tasks like gaming, and web browsing can be much slower on cheaper and slower devices like the Kindle Fire $50 tablet.

Prank tutorials probably causes Amazon technical support staff to get more support calls for people who need a quick fix to their Amazon device problems.