Related papers: Demystifying Removed Apps in iOS App Store
Never before has any OS been so popular as Android. Existing mobile phones are not simply devices for making phone calls and receiving SMS messages, but powerful communication and entertainment platforms for web surfing, social networking,…
Privacy labels -- standardized, compact representations of data collection and data use practices -- are often presented as a solution to the shortcomings of privacy policies. Apple introduced mandatory privacy labels for apps in its App…
"Incentivized" advertising platforms allow mobile app developers to acquire new users by directly paying users to install and engage with mobile apps (e.g., create an account, make in-app purchases). Incentivized installs are banned by the…
Internet of Things (IoT) devices are becoming increasingly important. These devices are often resource-limited, hindering rigorous enforcement of security policies. Assessing the vulnerability of IoT devices is an important problem, but…
Background Despite the benefits offered by an abundance of health applications promoted on app marketplaces (e.g., Google Play Store), the wide adoption of mobile health and e-health apps is yet to come. Objective This study aims to…
Obsolete devices add to the rising levels of electronic waste, a major environmental concern, and a contributing factor to climate change. In recent years, device manufacturers have established environmental commitments and launched…
The majority of smartphones either run iOS or Android operating systems. This has created two distinct ecosystems largely controlled by Apple and Google - they dictate which applications can run, how they run, and what kind of phone…
Large software organizations such as Facebook or Netflix, who otherwise make daily or even hourly releases of their web applications using continuous delivery, have had to invest heavily into a customized release strategy for their mobile…
Mobile mental health applications are seen as a promising way to fulfill the growing need for mental health care. Although there are more than ten thousand mental health apps available on app marketplaces, such as Google Play and Apple App…
Android applications are frequently plagiarized or repackaged, and software obfuscation is a recommended protection against these practices. However, there is very little data on the overall rates of app obfuscation, the techniques used, or…
The movement to mobile computing solutions provides flexibility to different users whether it is a business user, a student, or even providing entertainment to children and adults of all ages. Due to these emerging technologies mobile users…
The proper use of Android app permissions is crucial to the success and security of these apps. Users must agree to permission requests when installing or running their apps. Despite official Android platform documentation on proper…
The value of mobile apps is traditionally measured by metrics such as the number of downloads, installations, or user ratings. A problem with these measures is that they reflect actual usage at most indirectly. Indeed, analytic companies…
This extended paper contributes a methodology and a detailed analysis of app installation and functionality on a 'vintage' device. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate barriers to the reuse of vintage Apple devices. and…
Smartphones, the devices we carry everywhere with us, are being heavily tracked and have undoubtedly become a major threat to our privacy. As "tracking the trackers" has become a necessity, various static and dynamic analysis tools have…
On mobile phones, users and developers use apps official marketplaces serving as repositories of apps. The Google Play Store and Apple Store are the official marketplaces of Android and Apple products which offer more than a million apps.…
As mobile app usage continues to rise, so does the generation of extensive user interaction data, which includes actions such as swiping, zooming, or the time spent on a screen. Apps often collect a large amount of this data and claim to…
Mobile application markets facilitate the distribution of applications and thus help developers advertise their work and customers find useful applications. In addition, the operators of mobile application markets can control the quality…
To help curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and public health authorities around the world have launched a number of contact-tracing apps. Although contact tracing apps have received extensive attentions from the research…
Android apps can hold secret strings of themselves such as cloud service credentials or encryption keys. Leakage of such secret strings can induce unprecedented consequences like monetary losses or leakage of user private information. In…