Set Up And Use Mobdro On The Amazon Fire TV Stick
Mobdro is another of those media players that promises an endless stream of great free content. And you know what? It delivers! Mobdro includes several categories of content. It has live TV channels and news channels; it has TV shows and movie; it’s got sports (and lots of them!); it has music and podcasts and much, much more. With the instructions we’re about to provide, you’ll be able to install Mobdro on the Amazon Fire TV Stick.
Today, We’ll start our discussion by having a look at the Amazon Fire TV Stick. Then, we’ll talk about installing third-party applications on the Fire Stick. We will then give you some directions on how to install Mobdro on the Fire Stick. There are several ways it can be done so we’ll present the best ones. And finally, we’ll take you on a guided tour of the Mobdro, its best features and discuss whether or not using it is safe and legal.
Always Use A VPN When Streaming Content
You should always use a VPN when streaming contents. With so much illegal streaming going on, Internet service providers have gotten very wary of streaming. They want to avoid possible legal trouble and save some bandwidth. They could, therefore, monitor your online activity and, when they detect streaming, react by throttling down your speed, sending you infringement notices or even completely interrupting your service.
A VPN can protect you against the scrutiny of an overzealous ISP by encrypting all data in and out of your Internet-connected device using strong algorithms that make it almost impossible to crack. Even if your ISP, the authorities or some hacker was to intercept your data, all they’d see would be meaningless garbage. They’d have no way of seeing what you’re doing or where you’re going online. And as a bonus, using a VPN can allow you to bypass most geographic restrictions.
With so many VPN providers to choose from, picking the right one for your needs can turn out to be quite a daunting task. There are several factors to be considered. Among the most important, a fast connection speed will reduce buffering, a no-logging policy will further protect your privacy, no usage restrictions will let you access any content at full speed and software for multiple devices will ensure your VPN works with any equipment you may own.
The Best VPN For Streaming – IPVanish
We’ve tested many–if not all–VPN providers. The one we’d recommend with no hesitation when streaming content is called IPVanish. With servers worldwide, no speed cap or throttling, unlimited bandwidth, unrestricted traffic, a strict no-logging policy and client software available for all popular platforms, IPVanish meets our criteria and offers excellent performance and impressive value.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick In A Nutshell
Despite its “official” designation as the Amazon Fire TV Stick, we often refer to it simply as the Fire Stick or Firestick. The device is a very capable media player that attaches to the back of your TV and turns it into a media power horse. And best of all, it currently sells on Amazon for just $39.99.
The aesthetics of the device are rather unimpressive but then again, the device is meant to be hidden behind your TV so, who cares? Its form factor is that of a large USB memory stick–one from a few years ago–with an HDMI port instead of USB. The other side of the device has a micro USB interface but it’s only used to power the device and has no data communication capability.
The remote that comes with the device is way more impressive. It is a bit over five inches long and it has a glossy circle near its top. The circle is meant to be used as a navigation pad and it features an Enter button in the middle. You’ll probably quickly notice that there’s a button with a microphone depicted on it. This is a tell-tale sign that the remote features the Alexa voice search feature. Many people would see this feature as just another gimmick. But after trying to enter any sort of text using the remote control and horrible on-screen keyboard, you’ll soon realize just how great this feature is. Otherwise, the remote’s simplistic button layout makes it very easy to use and learn. You’ll be comfortable with it in no time.
The Fire Stick’s Specifications
Contrary to its plain and deceptive external appearance, what’s more impressive about the fire stick is what’s inside. The device is powered by a more-than-adequate MediaTek ARM Cortex-A7 quad-core processor running at 1.3GHz. The device also features 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. For such a small device, these are great specs. As far as graphics are concerned, the device is powered by a Mali 450 GPU. While this is no super-duper hardware, it’s more than enough for 1080P playback. But it won’t cut it to play 4K or HDR video. On the connectivity front, the device has WiFi for home networking and Bluetooth for external device interfacing. And as we said, the USB port on the device is only there to power the device and won’t provide any kind of connectivity.
Installing Mobdro On The Amazon Fire TV Stick
Mobdro is not available from the Amazon app store. It is what we commonly call a third-party application. While this is no big deal and sideloading apps on Android devices is common, it is a tad more complicated on the Fire Stick, despite the fact that it’s running some form of Android OS.
The problem with installing Mobdro–or any third-party app–on the Fire Stick is the absence of connectivity option to sideload the app on the device. This means that you ideally have to download the apk directly to the device. This raises another issue. Most browsers available on the device don’t have any download functionality.
We’re not going to let that stop us, though. We’ve found many ways these issues can be circumvented to let you install Mobdro on your Fire Stick. We’ll show you what we consider to be the two easiest ways it can be done.
Preliminary Step: Allowing Third-Party Apps
Before we can sideload any third-party app on the Fire Stick, you need to allow it. For security reasons, it is disabled by default.
So, from the Fire TV’s home screen, go to Settings, then System and finally, Developer Options.
Scroll down until you see “Allow apps from unknown source” and select it to allow them.
Method 1: Using The ES File Explorer App
This method uses the ES File Explorer app’s built-in browsing and APK installing abilities to download and install the Mobdro apk from the Internet. First, let’s install the ES File Explorer.
- From the Fire Stick’s home screen, select the search icon–the magnifying glass at the far left of the main menu.
- Then, enter ES File Explorer and click the centre button on your remote. You’ll quickly find the ES Files Explorer app.
- Click Install to launch the app’s installation.
- Once ES File Explorer is installed, simply start it by clicking its icon. The ES file explorer app has a built-in browser functionality but using it is somewhat cumbersome.
- Click the menu at the top left of the app’s screen and select Favorite then Add.
- In the Path box, type in https://www.apkmirror.com/ using the on-screen keyboard.
- In the Name box, Type in APKMirror, then click Add
- Click the menu and then Favorite once more but this time find your new APK Mirror favorite and click it.
- The APK Mirror website will open in an ES File Explorer screen. Click the magnifying glass at the top and type in mobdro, then click the Enter button.
- Scroll down the search results and click the download icon next to the first result.
- Scroll down the next page until you see 2.0.62 Freemium and click it to go to the download page.
- On the download page, click the DOWNLOAD APK button.
- When the file finishes downloading, click Install to launch the Mobdro installation.
Method 2: Using A Download-enabled Browser
Another popular way of getting Modbro installed on the Fire Stick is to use a browser app that supports downloading. You need to carefully select your browser, though. A lot of them, including Amazon’s own Silk browser, won’t support downloading files.
Firefox is a great browser for the Amazon Fire TV Stick that will support downloading files. The only drawback is that Firefox was not meant to be used with a remote control as its input device. If you’re going to do extensive browsing on your Fire Stick, we’d strongly suggest that you get some sort of alternate input device. The Fire Stick has Bluetooth connectivity and will support many keyboards and mice.
Different browsers operate in different manners making it had to give you definite installation instructions. Instead, we’ll outline the steps required and let you figure how to apply them to your browser of choice:
- First, you need to start your browser and navigate to the APK Mirror website. You’ll find it at https://www.apkmirror.com.
- Next, you’ll need to search the APK Mirror for the Mobdro app. This is the same as what we did with the ES File Explorer browser.
- Navigate to the actual APK download and download and save to file to your Fire Stick.
- Once the download completes, launch the downloaded file to install the APK.
Using Mobdro — A Tour Of Its Best Features
When you start Mobdro, its home screen is displayed. It is neatly organized with your recently watched channels at the top.
Below that, you’ll find a list of currently playing live content. The nice thing about it is that you get a one-sentence summary of the current program. It’s not much but it’s often enough to decide if you want to watch the channel.
Below that are the categories button. We’ll explore what the main ones have to offer.
Channels
This first section is where you’ll find live IPTV Channels. What channels, you may ask? Well, I’d be tempted to say “All of them”, Seriously, there are hundreds of live IPTV channels available. You have the major American networks and most cable channels. But the selection does not stop there. You also have access to dozens of channels from Europe, including the UK and France.
Note that, just like many apps that provide so-called free TV, the quality of some of the streams can sometimes leave to be desired. It is sometimes reminiscent of broadcast TV from 30 years ago. But then again, it’s free so we can’t really complain.
The selection is simply way too big to mention what you’ll find in there. You’ll have to go and see for yourself. But be warned: you might waste a considerable amount of time browsing the available channels.
News
This section specializes in new channels. And like everywhere else throughout this add-on, the selection is impressive. Of course, you’ll find all the major US news stations, including the CNN International feed.
But it doesn’t stop there, you’ll also get news channels from all around the world. I’ve seen channels from the UK, from France, from Pakistan, from Qatar, and from Canada. And this is just a small sample.
There are also news channels in several different languages available. For example, Euronews is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian.
Shows
The Shows section is different from some other similar services. You see, Mobdro is all about live TV. There’s no on-demand content in here. So, the TV shows section lists dozens of TV shows from you to choose from.
But the catch is that the show title is the only thing you can choose. There’s no way you can specify an episode or even a season. What’s listed in here are actually live channels playing a given show 24 hours a day, non-stop.
Movies
The Movies section is another interesting section. There are some 50 channels which all have one thing in common, they broadcast movies 24/7
Some of the channels are specialized. For instance, there are channels called Action Movies 24/7, Horror Movies 24/7, Comedy Movies 24/7, or Documentary movies 24/7. Those are great f your a fan of a specific genre. And then there are other, more generic, movie channels. Some have revealing names such as thebadmoviechannel. Others, not so much. Take for example broadmovieshd or mega_movieshd.
Like with the shows section, you have no way of selecting a specific movie on any of these channels. In fact, you can’t even know what’s currently playing.
Sports
That’s the section where sports lovers will spend most of their time. What you’ll find in here is an amazing selection of live IPTV Sports channels.
You’ll find all the ESPN, Sky Sports or BT Sports channels. You’ll also find NFL, MLB, and NBA TV. And you have Fox Sports and Canadian sports networks Sportsnet and TSN. There is content from Spain Seria, Croatia and pretty much all over the world.
Other Categories
There are several more categories of content to watch. Their purpose is somewhat self-explanatory. You have Music, Gaming, Animal, Tech, Podcasts, and Spiritual. And for anything that won’t fit in the previous categories, there’s even an Others section.
Is Mobdro Legal and Safe?
With a promise of free content, this is a question many potential Mobdro users are asking. Unfortunately, answering it is no simple matter. In two word: it depends. Let’s try to explain.
The Mobdro app itself is most probably perfectly legal in most jurisdictions. After all, the app does not contain any of the content it proposes. It only provides a way of easily accessing content that is available on the Internet. While this is the universal declaration that every streaming user has heard time and again, this is where the legal problems can start. There’s actually no way of knowing if any or all of these sources are legal. We could assume they are but the truth is that they most likely aren’t.
But even then, in some jurisdictions, watching these sources might not be illegal. We are not legal advisors so we can’t tell you for sure what is or isn’t legal in your part of the world. As a general advice, take steps to ensure you’re only streaming content from legal sources and when in doubt, refrain.
As for the safety of the Mobdro app, this is another complicated issue. While the real app seems to be legit and safe, you need to be extremely cautious that you are actually downloading the real thing and not some alternate version where some hacker has added malicious code. When you download the APK, make sure you do it from a reputable apk download site such as the APK Mirror we’ve used above. While there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the real app, the risks are lower.
In Conclusion
Although getting it installed on the Amazon Fire TV Stick can be a little tricky, it can be done. And as a result, you’ll have one of the greatest sources of live IPTV channels. It might not be perfect and the video quality of some streams leave somewhat to be desired but overall, the broad assortment of content largely makes up for the quality shortcoming. This is certainly something you’ll want to try on your Fire Stick.
Have you tried the Mobdro app on the Amazon Fire TV Stick? What isntallation method did you use? Did you encounter–and solve–any issues? Use the comments below to share your experience with us.