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

github.com

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

#51

Post by freedomben »

mardifoufs wrote: post #36
freedomben wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks. I don't doubt you, but it's shocking to hear that a modern LG flagship struggles to take photos and read news (I'm assuming a web browser?). That would indeed be maddening. I've been using either Nexus, Pixel, or OnePlus for many years now so I'm not familiar with The LGs, Samsungs, Motos, etc, but I was under the impression that they were all pretty stable (though underpowered when you buy a cheap model).

I use android but most of my experiences with LG phones was very buggy and just messy (the G2 was pretty good though). I only ever buy samsung or google phones now, but it makes sense that someone wouldn't want to touch android if they had a subpar experience with another manufacturer.

indeed. it's very easy to blame the whole OS/ecosystem when your experience is with one particular manufacturer. In the iphone world there aren't different makers, so it's easy for people to consider any "android" as all androids.

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

#52

Post by Waterluvian »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #45
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*superior when evaluated against one of many different criteria for what’s important to many different users. (A good time to remind tech people: 98% of users are not our user persona)

I think 98% is a bit high, but even if it were true the desires of the masses only matter if you're trying to sell something. I think it's safe to just assume that all opinions and suggestions on hn are for a technical audience.

The timeless problem is when the n% confidently declare they know what’s best and impose their perspective on everyone else. The most common way I see this happen is the pitfall of someone assuming everyone experiences something the same way they do.

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

#53

Post by StockHuman »

petodo wrote: post #47
freedomben wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating, I really want to understand. Was Android (even stock) insufficient for reading news sites and quick photos? Or is iOS much better for you at those tasks? If that's all you need, then I would consider both Android or iOS sufficient, but I don't quite get why you'd give up so many options and capabilities to switch, unless iOS is much better at reading news and taking photos. Maybe an analogy to he…

I'm on Android since 2011, but reasons I'd go for iphone would be phone dimensions, consistent photo quality and long updates Android seems to fixed only one of them (updates) while becoming more and more locked as iOS, quality photos with good shutter speed are offered only by pixel with bad availability in most of the world and pretty bad VFM besides A models

I switched to iPhone this summer for that very reason, after maybe a decade on Android.

Coming from the Essential PH-1 which I’d grown tired of maintaining past it’s official support life and looking for something the same size or smaller, I settled on one of the few options on the market that offered both small size and performance: the iPhone 13 mini.

Barring a vastly inferior notification experience, it’s a stellar device. I suppose I wish for something that was both small and well-supported on Android. If the timing was different, I may have gone with the Zenfone, but then again seeing Google send texts as me to their numbers sat wrong with me, so I may have switched systems anyway.

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

#54

Post by lazycow »

Group_B wrote: post #44
tommieb wrote: post #39

Reminds me of the old days of running this tool - kitchen sink, https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/kitchen-android-kitchen-v... those days of cyanogenmod/rolling your own rom based off Gingerbread 2.3.7 and hacking... happy memories :)

You recommend any projects that are similar to this and up to date?

LineageOS build guides are a great resource to get started: https://wiki.lineageos.org/build_guides

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

#56

Post by j-bos »

motohagiography wrote: post #10
mmastrac wrote: post #4

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…

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…

How did you get the apk file to reverse without having already installed it?

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

#57

Post by bool3max »

saagarjha wrote: post #8
danuker wrote: post #2

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

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

Is it possible to even create such a script for iOS applications?

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

#58

Post by mmastrac »

j-bos wrote: post #56
motohagiography wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How did you get the apk file to reverse without having already installed it?

Check apkpure.

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

#60

Post by ignoramous »

tatami wrote: post #40
freedomben wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating, I really want to understand. Was Android (even stock) insufficient for reading news sites and quick photos? Or is iOS much better for you at those tasks? If that's all you need, then I would consider both Android or iOS sufficient, but I don't quite get why you'd give up so many options and capabilities to switch, unless iOS is much better at reading news and taking photos. Maybe an analogy to he…

I have a similar background. Used Androids from 2010-2018 and switched to iOS. Some arguments were: Android's capabilities became less over time. I had cool apps until 4.4 Kitkat which automated toggling on/off WLAN/GPS/mobile network among others, but these APIs were restricted more and more over time so the benefits became less. Another fact was that I calculated that iPhones were cheaper than all Android I owned w…

> Another fact was that I calculated that iPhones were cheaper than all Android I owned when taking resale value into the calculation.

Low-end Android phones by Realme, Poco, Xiaomi, iQOO, Moto/Lenovo, Samsung et al are super capable and super cheap.

African, Indo-Chinese, and South Asian markets are awash with these phones, for a reason.

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