Mobile applications nowadays are very much susceptible to a significant rate of issues which ultimately compels developers to adopt the best possible practices associated with mobile application security. Approximately less than 50% of the financial applications present on the marketplace have the proper measurement of security which is the main reason that people need to focus on multiple implementations of the practices. Application performance is a very important factor to be taken into account because it will be based on removing unnecessary coding and further will be able to ensure that things will be very well sorted out. Introducing the Proguard and this particular case is definitely a great approach because it will be helpful in providing people with this level of support.
What do you mean by the concept of Proguard?
Proguard will be basically successfully serving three main functions shrinking, optimization, and obfuscation. On the overall basis, this is a free tool that will be helpful in providing people with pre-verification of the Java class files and further can be very well used in the cases of Android applications as well as large Java applications and libraries. this will be definitely helpful in making the concept of reverse engineering very difficult if not impossible. Basically, it has been believed that Android applications are a very easy target for the concept of reverse engineering which makes it very much absolutely important for the developers to focus on deployment of the Proguard as a basic system of security. Proguard is basically the built-in tool in the cases of SDK that is another effective opportunity for protecting the code base with minimum configurations. It is very modern to note that Proguard is a basic security system and should never be considered a comprehensive and multilayer approach to security. Basically, it will work by reducing the size of the application and removing the unused variables so that the command line tool will be very well sorted out without any problem.
Some of the amazing features that you need to know about the Proguard have been very well explained as follows:
- Shrinking: This will refer to the reduction of the size of the APK and further will enable the deduction of the unused variable and methods in such a manner that removal from the application and the libraries will be very well done. It will be carried out into main phases based on code shrinking and resource shrinking. This will be definitely successful in removing the not-so-usable variables and methods very successfully and further will be able to reduce the libra dependencies in the entire system
- Optimization: This refers to the concept of optimization of the byte code and the unused instructions, in this case, will be negatively influencing the application performance. Repeatable instructions in the small segment of the generated coding will be eliminated through the peephole optimization techniques and everybody should focus on dealing with the duplication in this case. Duplicate coding will be removed at this particular stage and the instructions can be later on replaced with short options of instructions that will be easily identified and removed
- Obfuscation concept: This is the process of making the coding element very much unintelligible to read and any third party who has gained the unauthorized accessibility will not be able to make a lot of sense of the coding element. After the removal of the unused coding in this case the remaining classes, fields, and methods will be renamed using the random characters, and employment of the things will be very successfully done with the motive of hiding the original intent of these segments from the hackers.
- Pre-verification: This will refer to the concept of inserting the pre-verification information into the class files for multiple options of Java version so that everyone will be able to take maximum advantage of the first class loading without any issue at any point of time throughout the process.
Some of the amazing benefits of implementing the concept of Proguard have been very well justified as follows:
- Proceeding with a very compact configuration: Proguard comes with a template-related configuration in comparison to the other available options and this is one of the biggest possible benefits associated with it. Everybody will be using the intuitive command line options and simple configuration systems in the whole process so that enablement of the Proguard will be very successfully done
- Protection from the static analysis: Hackers across the globe will be using static analysis to get accessibility to the source code of the application and further with the help of this concept the control flow will be very well analyzed by hackers. This will be helpful in making sure that work will be very successfully done and further, everyone will be able to protect the application from the decompilers very easily.
- Reverse engineering will be tough: By the appropriation of the Proguard rules and regulations, everyone will be able to ensure that reverse engineering will be made difficult and further the shrinking or the obfuscating will be very successfully done. This will be helpful in making sure that there will be no leakage of data and further the capabilities are very well sorted out without any practical difficulty at any point in time
- Increasing the efficiency of the applications: The Code of the applications will be made much more efficient with the help of Proguard android and further, this will be helpful in improving the basic performance with the optimization of the features and removal of unnecessary elements. This will be on the overall basis successful in improving the efficiency and further the things will be comparatively faster
In addition to the above-mentioned points, it is important for the organization to realize the importance of Proguard very successfully so that resources can be easily saved and further organizations will be able to count on the compact package with a small memory footprint without any issues.