Related papers: Detecting and Characterising Mobile App Metamorpho…
The difficulty of large scale monitoring of app markets affects our understanding of their dynamics. This is particularly true for dimensions such as app update frequency, control and pricing, the impact of developer actions on app…
Repackaging is a serious threat to the Android ecosystem as it deprives app developers of their benefits, contributes to spreading malware on users' devices, and increases the workload of market maintainers. In the space of six years, the…
There are over 1.2 million applications on the Google Play store today with a large number of competing applications for any given use or function. This creates challenges for users in selecting the right application. Moreover, some of the…
The Google Play marketplace has introduced the Data Safety section to improve transparency regarding how mobile applications (apps) collect, share, and protect user data. This mechanism requires developers to disclose privacy and…
Contemporary mobile applications (apps) are designed to track, use, and share users' data, often without their consent, which results in potential privacy and transparency issues. To investigate whether mobile apps have always been…
Fragmentation is a serious problem in the Android ecosystem. This problem is mainly caused by the fast evolution of the system itself and the various customizations independently maintained by different smartphone manufacturers. Many…
The Android ecosystem faces a notable challenge known as fragmentation, which denotes the extensive diversity within the system. This issue is mainly related to differences in system versions, device hardware specifications, and…
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…
Prior works have shown that the list of apps installed by a user reveal a lot about user interests and behavior. These works rely on the semantics of the installed apps and show that various user traits could be learnt automatically using…
Access to privacy-sensitive information on Android is a growing concern in the mobile community. Albeit Google Play recently introduced some privacy guidelines, it is still an open problem to soundly verify whether apps actually comply with…
In the appstore-centric ecosystem, app developers have an urgent requirement to optimize their release strategy to maximize the success opportunity of their apps. To address this problem, we introduce an approach to assisting developers to…
With the popularity of mobile devices, mobile applications have become an essential part of people's lives. To provide secure mobile application download channels for users, various modern app markets are maintained by different companies.…
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…
While there have been various studies towards Android apps and their development, there is limited discussion of the broader class of apps that fall in the fake area. Fake apps and their development are distinct from official apps and…
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…
Application markets provide a communication channel between app developers and their end-users in form of app reviews, which allow users to provide feedback about the apps. Although security and privacy in mobile apps are one of the biggest…
The ability to identify the author responsible for a given software object is critical for many research studies and for enhancing software transparency and accountability. However, as opposed to other application markets like iOS,…
"App stores" are online software stores where end users may browse, purchase, download, and install software applications. By far, the best known app stores are associated with mobile platforms, such as Google Play for Android and Apple's…
User reviews published in mobile app repositories are essential for understanding user satisfaction and engagement within a specific market segment. Manual analysis of reviews is impractical due to the large data volume, and automated…
This paper sets out a process of app analysis intended to support understanding of use but also redesign. From usage logs we infer activity patterns - Markov models - and employ probabilistic formal analysis to ask questions about the use…