Related papers: Towards Understanding Android APIs: Official Lists…
Building Android applications reliably remains a persistent challenge due to complex dependencies, diverse configurations, and the rapid evolution of the Android ecosystem. This study conducts an empirical analysis of 200 open-source…
Android is a widely deployed operating system that employs a permission-based access control model. The Android Permissions System (APS) is responsible for mediating resource requests from applications. APS is a critical component of the…
Android's open-source nature facilitates widespread smartphone accessibility, particularly in price-sensitive markets. System and vendor applications that come pre-installed on budget Android devices frequently operate with elevated…
Many developers and organizations implement apps for Android, the most widely used operating system for mobile devices. Common problems developers face are the various hardware devices, customized Android variants, and frequent updates,…
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are designed to help developers build software more effectively. Recommending the right APIs for specific tasks has gained increasing attention among researchers and developers in recent years. To…
The Android ecosystem is vulnerable to issues such as app repackaging, counterfeiting, and piracy, threatening both developers and users. To mitigate these risks, developers often employ code obfuscation techniques. However, while effective…
While mobile app evolution has been widely studied, geographical variation in app behavior remains largely unexplored. This paper presents a large-scale study of location-based Android app differentiation, uncovering two important and…
Mobile app distribution platforms such as Google Play Store allow users to share their feedback about downloaded apps in the form of a review comment and a corresponding star rating. Typically, the star rating ranges from one to five stars,…
Developers rely on third-party library Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) when developing software. However, libraries typically come with assumptions and API usage constraints, whose violation results in API misuse. API misuses may…
The Android framework provides a rich set of APIs that can be exploited by developers to build their apps. However, the rapid evolution of these APIs jointly with the specific characteristics of the lifecycle of the Android components…
Online advertisers and analytics services (or trackers), are constantly tracking users activities as they access web services either through browsers or a mobile apps. Numerous tools such as browser plugins and specialized mobile apps have…
To satisfy varying customer needs, device vendors and OS providers often rely on the open-source nature of the Android OS and offer customized versions of the Android OS. When a new version of the Android OS is released, device vendors and…
The number of applications on online mobile application stores is increasing at a rapid rate. Smart-phones are used by a wide range of people varying in age, and also in the ability to use a smart phone. With the increasing dependency on…
The Android permission system is a set of controls to regulate access to sensitive data and platform resources (e.g., camera). The fast evolving nature of Android permissions, coupled with inadequate documentation, results in numerous…
Android is an open software platform for mobile devices with a large market share in the smartphone sector. The openness of the system as well as its wide adoption lead to an increasing amount of malware developed for this platform. ANANAS…
Mobile apps often embed authentication secrets, such as API keys, tokens, and client IDs, to integrate with cloud services. However, developers often hardcode these credentials into Android apps, exposing them to extraction through reverse…
Application Programming Interfaces (API) are exposed to developers in order to reuse software libraries. API directives are natural-language statements in API documentation that make developers aware of constraints and guidelines related to…
Android's permission system is designed to balance usability with informed consent, yet two legacy mechanisms still undermine that balance in Android 16: (i) permission groups that silently auto-grant new permissions within a group after a…
The proliferation of mobile applications and the subsequent sharing of personal data with service and application providers have given rise to substantial privacy concerns. Application marketplaces have introduced mechanisms to conform to…
Android is the most popular operating system with billions of active devices. Unfortunately, its popularity and openness makes it attractive for unwanted apps, i.e., malware and potentially unwanted programs (PUP). In Android, app…