Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

Scripts like this empowering the end-user is why I consider the Android ecosystem superior.

If you haven't tried Jadx [1], give it a shot. It's by far the easiest way to reverse Android APKs. It doesn't do patching or reassembly, but I used it for reversing the Delong'hi APK for longshot [2][3] and the quality of output was fantastic.

Note that scripts like this are extremely useful, but in the long term they're cobbling together a lot of tools and will become brittle or difficult to use across versions. I suggest that even if it works for you today, understanding exactly what's happening under the hood will help if the tool becomes unsupported long-term.

[1] https://github.com/skylot/jadx

[2] https://github.com/mmastrac/longshot

[3] https://grack.com/blog/2022/12/02/hacking-bluetooth-to-brew-...

i used to be an android poweruser in high school and college, I rooted my phones, played around with lots of custom roms, had a terminal emulator and full power of arm debian installed in a chroot environment, tried different keyboard apps, launchers, and all other customization possibilities...

then I started working full-time and had way less free time and realized 99% of the time I now use my phone to read news sites and take quick photos, and then switched to iPhone...

Sounds like a recommendation for the author of the script, rather than the platform, no?

These are great. I used jadx to pull apart a conference attendee app I was supposed to install to see what it hoovered up. There is a level of reverse engineering that people can just get comfortable with doing without ahcieving the virtuosity of the stuff people publish papers and get talks about.

Simple things like, what SDKs does this thing use (adware), what external APIs does it call (trackers), what interfaces does it use (mic, gps, etc), what data does it hoover up (contacts, sms messages, etc), what parties does it send them to, how much effort do the authors go to obfuscate or hide what they are doing (packers, code obfuscators), does it use a static encryption key or derive one from predictable components, does it have hidden features from triggers and arguments - are all achievable for someone with a bit of interest and an afternoon. The more niche the app, the less sophisticated the protections on it, I find.