I don't know much about the topic so forgive my ignorance, but aren't Android apps written in Java/JVM language?
Meaning decompilation should be really straightforward, I remember IntelliJ having a decompiler, many times I would accidental open a `class` file and it would suggest decompilation. This kind of code was still hard to read, but it was Java, not bytecode.
Re:ReVanced
by daveloyall on Friday March 25, 2022 @02:34PM
(#30805614)
It's all relative, I'm sure, and I don't have any experience with decompilers other than this one: https://www.benf.org/other/cfr/, but, if you look at the change log there you will see that "really straightforward" is an unfortunately optimistic outlook. :)
Nah, java can be decompiled really really well. To the point that basically every app uses obfuscation to make the resulting code harder to comprehend.
Re:ReVanced
by michaelmior on Friday March 25, 2022 @02:48PM
(#30805744)
Generally it's not too hard to decompile. But whether the code is any way readable or easy to modify is another question.
Re:ReVanced
by bradleykingz on Friday March 25, 2022 @03:06PM
(#30805945)
Android has ProGuard, which makes decompilation harder, but certainly not impossible if one is motivated enough.
ProGuard does basic name minification and some code movement. It is easy to read proguarded bytecode if you have a bit of experience.
Re:ReVanced
by throwaway684936 on Sunday March 27, 2022 @12:13AM
(#30817652)
There was literally no source code to release. YouTube Vance was a hex edited YouTube app binary.
I've worked on preserving a few games with decompilers long after the original creators have moved on. Anecdotally, the death of Flash all but killed off a couple of assorted communities that didn't have enough motivation to hack the binaries themselves.
My guess is the only software that can perpetually maintain a community is software where the source code is available to be modified.