CODEWITHSUNDEEP
android
Barry Fruitman
Barry Fruitman

Reputation: 12656

Allow or deny copying my app to SD card?

I've written two apps and I enabled copy-protection but my users keep asking me to let them copy it to their SD card. One is a totally free app, the other app is trialware that can be bought via an in-app purchase.

Should I copy-protect my apps? My main concerns about disabling copy-protection are:

  1. It might make it easier to reverse-engineer my source code (both apps)

  2. It might make it easier to pirate my paid app.

Besides, Android has warned that copy-protection will be disabled soon! Should I still bother with it?

Thanks in advance,

Barry

Upvotes: 1

Views: 350

Answers (2)

slayton
slayton

Reputation: 20319

The way that Apps2Sd is setup your app is really no less secure on the SD card then it is on the devices internal memory. Some will argue that you its harder to copy an app that is stored in the internal memory of a device, but all devices are rootable and most devices have been rooted. This means that copying an app from a devices protected internal memory is trivially easy to do.

In the end you'll find that your apps are more successful if you listen to what your users/clients want.

Upvotes: 2

Michell Bak
Michell Bak

Reputation: 13242

It is extremely easy to both pirate and reverse-engineer apps regardless of what you do. Java is unfortunately extremely easy to decompile, and if you've got root access on your device, you can make backups of installed application packages. So it's basically up to you, but I wouldn't bother trying to copy protect them.

Google has an excellent video on the subject, though, which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnSNCXR9fbY

They've got some good ideas, if you want to go ahead and do it.

Upvotes: 5

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