Is it possible to decompile an Android .apk file?

android obfuscation apk decompiling dex
aryaxt picture aryaxt · Jun 26, 2010 · Viewed 102.7k times · Source

Are the users able to convert the apk file of my application back to the actual code? If they do - is there any way to prevent this?

Answer

Matthew Flaschen picture Matthew Flaschen · Jun 26, 2010

First, an apk file is just a modified jar file. So the real question is can they decompile the dex files inside. The answer is sort of. There are already disassemblers, such as dedexer and smali. You can expect these to only get better, and theoretically it should eventually be possible to decompile to actual Java source (at least sometimes). See the previous question decompiling DEX into Java sourcecode.

What you should remember is obfuscation never works. Choose a good license and do your best to enforce it through the law. Don't waste time with unreliable technical measures.

Related questions

Prevent class member name obfuscation by ProGuard

I have my class ClassMultiPoint with subclasses. public class ClassMultiPoints { public String message; public List<ClassPoints> data; public class ClassPoints { public String id; public List<ClassPoint> points; public class ClassPoint { public String speed; public String bearing; } } } …

Read More
Enabling ProGuard in Eclipse for Android

The new documentation on ProGuard for Android says to add a line to the default.properties file in the project home directory. However, on opening this file, I read at the top: # This file is automatically generated by Android Tools. # …

Read More
Obfuscation in Android Studio

Is there any obfuscation tool to use with Android Studio? IntelliGuard plugin is declared to be supported by the Studio, but it doesn't work actually due to missing AntSupport plugin. I wan't able to find one in the repository. Any …

Read More