EFF Threat Labs apkeep APK Downloader Now More Capable And Available In More Places

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In September, we introduced EFF Threat Lab’s very own APK Downloader, apkeep. It is a tool that allows us to make the job of tracking state-sponsored malware and combatting the stalkerware of abusive partners easier. Since that time, we’ve added some additional functionality that we’d like to share.



F-Droid



In addition to the ability to download Android packages from the Google Play Store and APKPure, we’ve added support for downloading from the free and open source app repository F-Droid. Packages downloaded from F-Droid are checked against the repository maintainers’ signing key, just like in the F-Droid app itself. The package index is also cached, which makes it easy to run multiple subsequent requests for downloads.



Versioning



You can now download specific versions of apps from either the apk-pure app store, which mirrors the Google Play Store, or from f-droid. Android To try it, issue the following command to see which versions are available:



Once you’ve picked a desired version, download it with this command:



Keep in mind not all versions will be retained by these download sources, so only recent versions may be available.



Additional Platform Support



On initial launch, we supported only 6 platforms:



- GNU/Linux x86_64, i686, aarch64, and armv7- Android aarch64 and armv7



We have been quickly building our platform support to bring the current tally to 9:



- GNU/Linux x86_64, i686, aarch64, and armv7- Android x86_64, i686, aarch64 and armv7- Windows x86_64



and we plan to continue to build out to more platforms in the future.



Termux Repositories



The Android terminal application Termux now makes it easy to install apkeep. We have added our package to their repository, so that Termux users now only need to issue a simple command to install the latest version:



Future Plans



In addition to continuing to build out to additional platforms, we would also like to add more Android markets to download from, such as the Amazon Appstore. Have any suggestions for features or new platforms you’d like to see supported? Let us know by opening an issue on our GitHub page!