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Re:There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor' by mos_basik on Friday January 13, 2017 @05:51PM (#13395506)
It's been a while (a couple of years) since I last tried this, but I remember it being reasonably straightforward to get APKs of apps that were on the Google marketplace. Not through official user interfaces, of course. I can't remember if I ended up using some Chrome extension or a third-party app that needed root.

Not a particularly useful comment sorry, just "it was possible two years ago if you jumped through some hoops."

Re:There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor' by Groxx on Friday January 13, 2017 @06:03PM (#13395579)
You can probably still get the one that'll install on your device(s), but if there's customization for e.g. carrier X in country Y (or app slimming) you're unlikely to know or be able to find it from the infinite "download APKs free now!" sites.

And the last time I looked, all the apk-downloaders required your device ID, because Google's API does (for customization reasons) - it's much more of a "you can do this if you emulate a device" than "you can download it". I'm also not sure if the ID works unless you have gplay installed, which you may not have if you're being careful/paranoid enough about security to manually validate apps.