Many popular internet services, from streaming platforms to messaging services and some banks, went offline for hours yesterday due to an outage in Amazon's crucial cloud network.

The disruption affected streaming platforms, including Amazon's Prime Video service and Disney+, as well as Perplexity AI, the Fortnite game, Airbnb, Snapchat and Duolingo.

Mobile telephone services and messaging apps Signal and Whatsapp were also affected in Europe, according to Downdetector, a website monitoring internet problems.

Some UK banks, such as Lloyd's were also impacted, and pointed to Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the problem.

AWS handles nearly a third of the planet's cloud infrastructure market, powering millions of apps and websites around the world.

AWS's maintenance site said its engineers scrambled to fix the underlying DNS issue once they became aware at 0711 GMT of "increased error rates" hitting multiple services.

More than four hours later, though some problems persisted, AWS said it was on the path "towards full recovery" and most of its operations were "succeeding normally".

The outage showed "how reliant we all are on the likes of Amazon, as well as Microsoft and Alphabet for many of the online services we more or less take for granted," said financial analyst Michael Hewson.

"On an economic level it's almost akin to putting all of your economic eggs in one basket."

AWS leads the cloud computing market, followed closely by Microsoft Azure, and with Google Cloud in third place. Businesses, government and consumers around the world rely on their infrastructure for online activities.

The British government's websites were among those affected by yesterday's outage, according to Downdetector, which relies on users to signal online problems they encounter.