Amazon Kindle Fire allows sideloaded apps

It’s common knowledge that the Amazon Kindle Fire will only run apps approved by Amazon aka apps downloaded from the Appstore, but it looks like all that is about to change. Some folks have discovered that it’s possible to sideload apps onto the tablet via a little “tweaking” of the tablet. No rooting is necessary, and the process seems simple enough but there’s a chance that Amazon might disable the ability in a future update.

No word on whether the Android Market has been sideloaded on to the tablet yet, but if it has and it works, would it affect your decision to purchase the Kindle Fire? Hit the break for instructions on how to enable app sideloading.

1. On the Kindle Fire Settings screen, go to “Device” and turn On “Allow Installation of Application From Unknown Sources”
2. Plug your Kindle Fire into your computer.
3. In Mac OS, open “~/.android/adb_usb.ini” or if you’re using Windows open “C:\Users\[YOUR USER NAME]\.android\adb_usb.ini” with your favorite text editor.
4. Add the value “0×1949″ to the end of the file and save it.
5. You’ll need to restart the adb server process to get it to re-read that file. Do that with “adb kill-server”.
6. Run “adb devices” and you should see the attached device.