The Amazon Fire Stick has been a revolution, and it has made watching your favorite TV shows and movies super easy no matter where you are. Starting with VPN needs on your Fire Stick to other hacks for speeding up your device, let us decipher some of the best ways out there.
The purpose of buying a Fire Stick for your TV is to make entertainment real handy but wouldn’t it be almost ironic if your Firestick device is running extremely slow? Fire Stick helps you stream quality content on your TV within a few taps. You can even use voice commands these days. However, if your device is loading slow, it’s time that you take up some steps to try and speed it up.
If you are noticing your Fire TV Stick slowing down over time and taking more time to buffer when loading content, you can follow these steps below. It will give you a faster streaming experience without having to buy a new one.
Speed Up your Slow Amazon Fire TV Stick/Firestick Device Easily with these Quick & Easy to Follow Tips
Powering the Fire Stick
Fire Stick goes into the HDMI ports of your Television set and then connects to a socket. Instead of putting the USB end of the Fire Stick in a socket on the wall, put it in one of the USB ports of the TV.
This way, your streaming device will be powered by your smart TV itself and will turn off when the TV is powered off. You won’t risk it getting overly hot by staying plugged in, in case you forget to take it out, giving you an overall better speed.
Switch to a Better VPN
If you use a VPN on your Fire Stick device and are experiencing lagging issues, you should consider the fact that even a VPN could cause your Fire Stick to slow down.
Therefore, you should always get a VPN that is known to offer a great service with fast servers. And if you believe you’re low on cash, then you can always get a VPN that is super-reliable but doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. Yes, we mean free VPNs.
To get started with one, you can follow this easy free Fire Stick VPN setup guide by VPNRanks. A reliable free VPN will not slow down your Internet speed or your streaming media player.
Check your Preferences Settings
These include marketing offers given by Amazon on the Fire TV Stick device. What you need to do is go to preferences on the main page of your device screen, go into the privacy setting and turn the data usage off. Along with this, you can also disable collect app usage data and Interest-based ads options.
You can also turn on the do not interrupt setting in preferences to save yourself from the constant pop-up notifications on your Firestick.
You will then move towards featured content and turn off allow audio autoplay and allow video autoplay. This will prevent your Fire Stick device from showing all those banner videos. You can simply go to the app you want directly and stream the content you want to see.
Turn Off Unnecessary Automatic Actions
This method includes going to the settings on your Fire Stick and opening applications. You will then turn off the notifications option to save the battery life of your Fire Stick player. Similarly, you can also turn off automatic updates on the apps you don’t frequently use.
Uninstall Unused Apps
There’s always a plethora of applications downloaded and sitting unused in your Fire Stick or any device you use for that matter. Go to manage installed applications and delete the ones you don’t use. All these apps are doing is just sitting in your Fire Stick, eating up your storage space and device memory rendering it unable to stream that 4k content for you.
Disable Built-in Apps
The apps that came pre-installed with your Firestick device like Amazon Photos also need to be disabled if you’re not using them. However, if you are storing your photos using this app or using it regularly, you can skip this step. Otherwise, it is always wise to disable it including any other built-in apps for Firestick better performance.
Check your Network Settings
Go to the network settings from the home page of your device and check your WiFi connection options. If the information on the status of the signal is less than “Good”, then your Fire Stick is not getting enough signal which will hinder its performance. You can try to bring your router closer to the Television set if this is the case.
Use Ethernet Cable for Internet Connection
If you have your WiFi router near your smart TV, you can get an adapter that connects to the Fire Stick using a USB and Ethernet port. The Ethernet port can be used to get a direct Internet connection for your Fire Stick device and enjoy a much better streaming experience.
Upgrade The Generation of your Fire Stick
If you have an old first-generation Fire Stick with the remote, it will indeed run really slow. It is always worth it to update your device version with the latest model to get the best experience Amazon Fire TV Stick has to offer. Newer generations of Firestick streaming players work a lot faster. You can keep an eye out for Prime Day sales, and other discount offers from Amazon on the latest Fire Sticks to get yourself a great deal.
Lastly, you can also download the Analiti WiFi speed test analyzer tool from the Fire Stick app store to allow you to test your WiFi Internet network speed. Learn how fast the download and upload speed of your network connection is, to help you judge the overall performance of your Fire TV Stick.