A sideloadable tool called ‘Oculess’ allows you to unlink your Facebook account from Oculus Quest.
You still need a Facebook account to set up the device first and you need to give Facebook a phone number or card details to sideload, but after that you can use Oculess to give up Facebook completely – remember Be sure to never reset to factory settings.
The problem is that you will lose access to the Oculus Store apps because the rights check used when launching them will no longer work. System apps such as Oculus TV and Browser will also no longer start and streaming will not work. You can still sideload hundreds of SideQuest apps, and if you want to continue browsing the web in VR, you can sideload Firefox Reality.
You can still use Oculus Link to play virtual reality content from your PC, but only if you remain connected to Facebook in the Oculus PC app. The virtual desktop doesn’t work because it’s a store app, but you can sideload free alternatives like ALVR.
Oculess doesn’t disable automatic firmware updates by default, but offers this option if you want – and probably will, as future updates can break it. You can also disable system telemetry – the data sent to Facebook about which apps you launch, how much time you spend on apps, which apps crash and other diagnostics.
To use Oculess, simply download it from GitHub and sideload it using SideQuest or Oculus Developer Hub, then launch it from within the VR. If your Quest is not yet in developer mode or you don’t know how to sideload it, follow our guide here.
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