Cesare Andrea Ferrari/Shutterstock

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Picking up an Amazon Fire TV Stick is one of the quickest and most affordable ways to convert a regular TV into a smart one. There are various models of the Fire TV, starting as low as $35. That said, Amazon’s Fire OS falls relatively low in our rankings of the best major smart TV operating systems. It is notorious for feeding you Amazon’s own services and sponsored content, which is not something you want to see in your living room. Still, Fire OS does have good integration with Amazon’s other smart home devices through Alexa. 

Despite its flaws, Fire OS has been around for years and is still being shipped in new releases. However, this is slowly changing. With the launch of the new Fire TV Stick Select, Amazon unveiled Vega OS. This is an entirely new operating system that’s serving as an alternative to Fire OS. The big difference between the two is that Vega OS is based on Linux. Fire OS, on the other hand, is based on Android — just with a heavy coat of paint on top. 

Though the new Vega OS interface looks quite similar to Fire OS, shifting to a different platform changes a few things. For one, Vega OS seems to be more efficient. In a press release, Amazon stated that the new Fire TV Stick Select can launch apps “remarkably fast,” despite being the most affordable 4K streaming stick in the lineup and featuring only 1GB of RAM.

Skynesher/Getty Images

Amazon claims that Vega OS already supports popular streaming services and that compatibility for Xbox Gaming, Luna, and Alexa+ is on the way. According to the Vega Developer Tools documentation shared by Amazon, developers who have already built apps for Fire OS can reuse existing code to build them for Vega OS as well. This should hopefully mean that a good chunk of popular apps on Amazon’s App Store slowly start making their way over to Vega OS. 

To install new apps on an Amazon Fire TV Stick, you can use Amazon’s app store. Though Fire OS ships with its own app store, you can also sideload the Google Play Store if desired. This is not going to be possible on Vega OS. Amazon can now prevent piracy by blocking access to third-party apps that stream content illegally. Unfortunately, this also affects the installation of any useful, non-shady apps. Sideloading is a huge part of what makes Android such a convenient option for many buyers, and this might be a reason to go looking for Fire TV Stick alternatives.

It’s likely that all upcoming Fire TV Stick devices will ship with Vega OS, but Amazon isn’t discontinuing Fire OS. Only time will tell how the new operating system will age. Looking at how long a Fire TV Stick lasts, you can expect security updates for at least a few years after launch.