I’m not going to repost all the steps for rooting the tablet here. But so far that seems to be the only way to do this. It’s also possible that someone may eventually find a way to root the tablet that doesn’t involve opening the case. Update: It looks like we’re all good on that front. Hopefully that’ll be resolved soon, making this process a little safer. And while there’s no soldering or other advanced electrical skills required, you are going to need to use a paperclip or some other conductive metal to test a short point, which could be a little tricky/intimidating.Īnd, at least as of January 29th, 2019, xyz actually recommends not following his instructions because some users have had a problem with display initialization. This method for rooting the Fire HD 8 involves prying open the case, so there’s a chance you might scratch or damage it.
If you want to load custom firmware or just want to run software that requires root access, this is your best way of doing that on one of Amazon’s best bang-for-your-buck tablets.īut you will certainly lose any data on your tablet that hasn’t been backed up. But the good news is that Fire tablets are cheap, so you’re not out a lot of money if you break yours. It’s not the easiest method I’ve ever seen, and there’s a chance you could damage your device. It would take a hardware revision to block xyz’s method for unlocking and rooting the tablet. And since the exploit relies on a hardware vulnerability, it’s unlikely that Amazon would be able to stop users from rooting their tablets through any future Fire OS software updates. This could also open the door for loading custom ROMs and kernels on the tablet. If you follow all the steps what you’ll have is a Fire HD 8 (2018) tablet running Fire OS 6.3 with root access. Xda-developers forum member xyz has leveraged a vulnerability on devices with MediaTek processors to come up with a series of steps for unlocking the bootloader and root the device.
But you can install the Google Play Store and remove most Amazon apps.
Update 3: Looking to hack the 10th-gen Amazon Fire HD tablet that was released in 2020? You cannot root the tablet or unlock the bootloader.
Update 2: As of March, 2019, it’s also now possible to root some Fire devices without unlocking the bootloader, and to unlock the bootloader of the Fire HD 8 without opening the case. Update: You can also now unlock the bootloader and root 5th-gen and 7th-gen Fire 7 tablets. Up until now there was no way to unlock or root the 8th-gen Fire HD 8 (the 2018 model). But if you want even more control over the tablet you may want to root it and/or unlock the bootloader so that you can add or remove software that would otherwise be locked down. You can install the Google Play Store fairly easily. But it has an Amazon-designed user interface, comes with Amazon’s Appstore and tight integration with Amazon Music, Video, and Kindle eBook services, among other things.
It runs Fire OS 6, which is a fork of Google Android 7.x Nougat. There’s one catch though - the Fire HD 8 is very much an Amazon tablet. You can pay a bit more for a 32GB model, or you can pay a bit less if you wait for the tablet to go on sale (Amazon has sold it for as little as $50). The $80 tablet has an 8 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage plus a microSD card reader.
How to use an SD card with Amazon’s Fire tablets.How to sideload apps on Amazon Fire tablets.How to disable Amazon apps and features.Hack your Amazon Fire tablet with Fire Toolbox.How to install Google Play on the Amazon Fire HD 10 (9th-gen).How to install Google Play on the Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020).How to install Google Play on the Amazon Fire 7 (2022) with Fire OS 8.Amazon Fire HD 8 (2018): You can root it and unlock the bootloader - Liliputing Close Search for: Search