SideloadVR

SideloadVR was the first platform that allowed sideloading of GearVR applications.

GearVR apps were signed, which prevented them from easily being shared outside of the Oculus/Samsung store. SideloadVR used a signature injection process to built custom apks for the specific users device.

It consisted of a server and an Android application that was required in order to read the device signature. The server would then build a custom apk for the device and Android app would install it.

Notable experiences that debuted on SideloadVR were QuakeVR, StreamTheater, CasinoVR, VirtualRealPlayer, DoomGVR and Kokiri Forest. This was the time of unsafe, unlicensed, “raw” VR experiences and experiments. SideloadVR was essentially Oculus Share for GearVR.

SideloadVR had over 150.000 unique signatures stored when GearVR was eventually superseded by Oculus Go, which did not have a signature requirement.