What is the difference between Jar signer and Apk signer?

android apksigner
Krunal Kapadiya picture Krunal Kapadiya · May 24, 2017 · Viewed 8.6k times · Source

As ApkSigner is available in revision 24.0.3 and higher of the Android SDK Build Tools, I have a question: What is the difference between ApkSigner and JarSigner? Why do we need ApkSigner?

Can I sign Apk in the command line for both signers?

Answer

Alex Klyubin picture Alex Klyubin · May 24, 2017

jarsigner is designed for signing JAR files and does not know anything about APKs and Android, whereas apksigner is designed for signing APK files and knows what requirements Android places on APK signatures.

For example, jarsigner does not produce APK Signature Scheme v2 signatures introduced in Android 7.0 (Nougat), whereas apksigner does. Another example is that jarsigner does not know that APKs which need to run on API Level 17 or lower must not use SHA-256 digests in their signatures, whereas apksigner knows that.

If you want to sign an APK using one of these tools, use apksigner.

Here's the official documentation about signing from command-line: Sign your app

Related questions

Can't start Eclipse - Java was started but returned exit code=13

I am trying to get my first taste of Android development using Eclipse. I ran into this problem when trying to run Eclipse, having installed version 4.2 only minutes ago. After first trying to start Eclipse without any parameters to specify …

Read More
How do you close/hide the Android soft keyboard using Java?

I have an EditText and a Button in my layout. After writing in the edit field and clicking on the Button, I want to hide the virtual keyboard when touching outside the keyboard. I assume that this is a simple …

Read More
How to get current time and date in Android

How can I get the current time and date in an Android app?

Read More