Got yourself a swanky new Firestick?  Definitely worth installing a mouseover, read down for more info.

I wanted to watch TV around the house, but refused to let Virgin install their triple shielded coax around my property.  So had to look at other routes to get my cable tv channels into the other rooms.  I found they recently updated their TV Anywhere app to TV Go, which thankfully is a little better than it’s shockingly awful predecessor.

I’ve accomplished this by sideloading the TV-Go app onto an Amazon Firestick, and also installing a mouseover toggle onto it, so it’s a bit more user friendly.

Firstly, I use a Mac and love using the terminal, I long ago gave up using Windows and would use Linux if it was a little more user friendly to my mac.  Anyhow, this process will be done using a Mac, I don’t have an android tablet/phone to sideload so shall use the terminal.

First of all, plug the Firestick into the TV and go through the usual install steps, setup the wifi, login to your Amazon account.

Next, you need to enable a couple of things in Settings.

In the menu goto: Settings – System – Developer Options – Enable ADB Debugging and Apps from Unknown Sources.

With those on, you can now search for any app on the system.  So go back into the menu and upto search, and search for Downloader.

Download/Install Downloader on your firestick, then go launch, go into its settings and enable Javascript.  With this done, we can install the mouseover.

Next, goto home in Downloader and type in this url: http://tinyurl.com/firetvmouse

The APK will download directly to your firestick, click install, allow permissions and install.  Now you’ve got the mouseover working.  On the remote you can quickly double tap the >II button to enable the mouse, using the D pad to direct it and select to click.  Double click the >II button again to disengage it.  You can also use << and >> to scroll up and down a page when it’s on.

Next is downloading and installing TV-Go.  Firstly, download the TVGO APK to your mac from: https://apkpure.com/virgin-tv-go/com.lgi.virgintvgo and platform tools for your mac from: http://www.mediafire.com/download/yum9gn1wdx855x0/platform-tools-osx.zip

Next we need to install that APK onto the Firestick.  You need the Firestick IP address, so in it’s menu, goto Settings  – About – Network and find the IP address.

Unzip the platform tools to a location and open your terminal with cmd-space-terminal, unzip it to a useful place like Downloads.  In terminal type:

cd /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads/platform-tools

Then with knowing your firestick IP address:

./adb connect FIRESTICK-IP-ADDRESS

Now to transfer and install the APK where you type in your username and the apk filename that you downloaded:

./adb install /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads/FILENAME.apk

You should receive a successful transfer output from terminal when complete, and if watching the TV you’ll see TV Go successfully installed.  You can now log into the TV-Go app which is a royal pita to do without using the mousetoggle.  Once logged in with your Virgin media account, register the device when it asks and enjoy watching tv.  It’s a little clumsy, but it saves them installing their horrid coax all around the house in the meantime!