[APP][4.0.3+] ApkTrack 2.0.2 - Automatic update checks for devices without Play Store

[JusticeRage]

Apktrack

ApkTrack is a simple Android application which periodically checks if your installed apps can be updated.
It was created for users who don't want to use the Google Play Store, but still need to know when new APKs are available for their apps. ApkTrack performs simple website scraping to grab the latest versions of packages present on the device.
This application is distributed under the terms of the GPL v3 License

Usage

See the attached screenshot for a preview of the application.

• Click on an application to perform a manual version check.
• The buttons at the top are used to respectively search the installed application list and perform a version check for all applications.

That's it!

Things to keep in mind:

• Applications are *not* updated automatically. You still have to find a way to download the latest APKs and sideload them yourself. ApkTrack is simply here to tell you that the update is available.
• The application will perform HTTP requests both on demand and silently. You can configure whether mobile data should be used for background checks in the settings.
• ApkTrack uses regular expressions to scrape webpages, so it may cease to work without notice if the target websites are modified.
• Although there is a background service checking for updates every day, it may get killed by the OS. Remember to check for updates manually in the application from time to time.

Changelog:

0-----------------------------------------------------------------------------0
|                                  Changelog:                                 |
0-----------------------------------------------------------------------------0

2.1.2:
------
  * Features
    - You can now configure a proxy in the settings. It will be used to check
      for updates, but *NOT* for APK downloads and searches.
    - Downloaded APKs can now be cleaned from the settings screen.
    - Added an option to ignore apps for which no update source could be found.
  * Update Sources & Search Engines
    - Timeouts between version checks have been reduced, which makes the
      process of checking all apps much faster.
    - Updated the direct download regexp for F-Droid as their layout had
      slightly changed.
    - Added a new search engine, APK-DL.
  * Translations
    - Japanese translation contributed by Naofumi F. Thanks!
  * Permissions
    - A new permission (REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES) is required to be able to
      install APKs on Oreo.
  * Supported Devices
    - ApkTrack should work on Android O.
  * Bugfix
    - Fixes a major bug caused by ProGuard in F-Droid builds which prevented
      users from entering the setting.

2.1.1:
------
  * UI
    - The app's design was materialized by Tetsuo55.
    - Icons have been vectorized (also by Tetsuo55).
    - The last check date is now relative (i.e. "10 minutes ago").
  * Update Sources
    - Removed the Nightly (Firefox) update source, because their website keeps
      changing and the app has built-in update capabilities anyway.
    - Fixed the WhatsApp update source. Support has been added in the AppBrain
      proxy and this source will be phased out in later versions.
  * Version Checks:
    - Version checks for Google Play Services now ignore the part of the
      version number identifying the architecture and DPI of the device.
  * Supported Devices:
    - ApkTrack now works on Android N.

2.1.0:
------

  * APK Downloads
    - The OS' download service is now used directly instead of proxying
      requests through the installed browser.
    - Downloads respect the user's preference regarding which networks are
      OK to use (WiFi / mobile data).
    - Downloaded APKs can be installed directly from ApkTrack's UI.
  * Permissions
    - ApkTrack needs a new permission (WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) to write
      downloaded APKs to the sdcard.
  * UI
    - Fixed a longstanding issue where the last check date could overlap
      the action icon (that one really bugged me).
  * Settings
    - Added options to ignore all system / Xposed apps in a single click.
      A screen dedicated to managing ignored apps is still warranted.
    - Added a preference allowing users who enabled background checks to
      automatically download new APKs when they become available.
  * Update Sources
    - Merged the 9Folders update source (only used for com.ninefolders.hd3)
      into the AppBrain proxy, because of new anti-scraping countermeasures.

2.0.4:
------

  * Source detection
    - ApkTrack will set the right update source for itself (upstream or
      F-Droid) depending on who signed the APK.
    - The source for all Xposed modules is now detected automatically.
    - The F-Droid app is now correctly handled by the F-Droid source.
  * Miscellaneous
    - Moved the ApkTrack APKs to a server with more bandwidth.
    - Version checks for ApkTrack now take place over HTTPS.
    - Updated German translation.
  * Bugfixes
    - Fixed  a widespread crash triggered during the initialization
      of the app.
    - Fixed a problem with icon resizing for devices with uncommon DPI.
    - Minor bugfixes for crashes reported through ACRA.

2.0.3:
------

  * Security
    - Communications with the AppBrain proxy and crash report service now take
      place over HTTPS.
    - Certificates used by those websites are bundled with ApkTrack to prevent
      man in the middle attacks.
  * Translations
    - Updated Polish translation.
    - Added Italian translation.
  * Bugfixes
    - Resolved a race condition potentially leading to random crashes.
    - The AppBrain update source returned a malformed result when it doesn't
      have version information for particular apps (i.e. org.eff.actioncenter).
      This is now handled gracefully so other update sources can be tried.
    - Fixed the "currently updating" icon getting hidden because of screen
      rotations.

2.0.2:
------

  * Automated crash reports
    - ACRA has been integrated to the app in order to submit stacktraces when
      ApkTrack crashes (no data is sent without user consent).
    - New settings were created to control whether bug reports should be sent.
    - A privacy policy was written to describe how bug data and user data is
      handled in general.
  * Bugfixes
    - Fixed a bug introduced in 2.0.1 triggered when trying to resize
      non-square icons.
    - Fixed a bug causing a crash with VectorDrawables for devices without
      Lollipop.
    - Fixed a bug where trying to determine the network type (WiFi / data) would
      cause a crash.

2.0.1:
------

  * Miscellaneous bugfixes
    - Oversized icons no longer break the UI.
    - Download URLs for Xposed apps are now obtained correctly.
    - App uninstallations now also delete stored icons in the database.

2.0.0:
------

 * Ignoring irrelevant apps
    - When detecting apps present on the device, disabled apps are ignored by
      default.
    - Apps can be swiped to indicate that they should stop being displayed in
      the UI and be ignored in subsequent update checks.
    - An option was added in the settings to reset ignored apps.

 * Detecting installed apps
    - The full app detection is only done once, during the first launch. All
      subsequent updates (packages added and/or removed from the system) are
      now detected through Intents sent by the system.
    - ApkTrack and its background services now communicate with the help of an
      Event Bus, which allows complex information to be passed reliably. Model
      modifications trigger notifications on this event bus, which tell the
      applist which information should be refreshed. Thanks to this, there are
      no more loadings when the model is updated.
    - It shouldn't be possible for ApkTrack to miss apps that are installed,
      removed or updated with this new design. So I'm removing the "Redetect
      installed apps" button which wasn't very elegant nor user-friendly.

 * Database overhaul
    - ApkTrack now uses Sugar ORM to perform its database operations (branch
      1.x contained a lot of manual SQL queries). The codebase is much cleaner
      and easier to maintain now.
    - Icons have been moved to a separate table, which allows ApkTrack to read
      all the application info without eating up the device's RAM. From now on,
      Icons are only loaded when they need to be displayed.

 * Update sources
    - ApkTrack can guess the default update source for some predetermined apps
      based on their digital signature or their package name.
    - The structure of sources.json has been changed. It is more complex now,
      but it allows contributors to specify per-package regular expressions in
      case the information for multiple apps is hosted on a single webpage.
      Formerly, it would have been necessary to create an update source per
      package in some cases.
    - It is also possible to specify a regular expression to locate an APK
      download link on the page. This will allow more direct downloads to be
      provided.
    - F-Droid, Mirakel, Xposed Stable / Beta now all provide direct APK
      downloads.

 * Misc
    - Build system switched to Gradle to make third-party builds easier.
    - ApkTrack will now remember across reboots whether you want to display
      system apps or not.
    - Searches are more flexible, and any part of the name or package name
      can now be matched (not just the beginning as it was the case).
    - Apps with vector icons are now displayed correctly on devices with an API
      level >= 21.
    - Manual changes to the update source are immediately reflected in the UI.
    - The spinning icon which indicates that an app is currently being checked
      isn't lost anymore when the app list is refreshed, sorted or updated.
    - Notifications will not be displayed more than once for each updated app
      (ApkTrack 1.1 would keep display notifications until the app was
      upgraded).

Known issues:
-------------

  * Swiping the app at position N, then scrolling down and up causes a blank
    line to be displayed at position N-1.
  * ApkTrack's APKs are still distributed over HTTP because the server uses a
    self-signed certificate.
  * If Greenify puts ApkTrack into hibernation, app installations, deletions
    and upgrades will be missed. At the moment, the issue may be circumvented
    by waking ApkTrack and performing the installation again, or deleting
    ApkTrack's data to force a full re-detection.

Download
Source code
Stable APK (2.1.2)
Beta APK (2.1.2)

Let me know what you think!

 

[okangnyy]

Bu ne şimdi anlamadım

SM-N9005 cihazımdan Tapatalk kullanılarak gönderildi

 

[nayaz99]

Link??

Sent from my XT1068

 

[JusticeRage]

I'm a new user, I can't post them!
Source code: github.com/JusticeRage/ApkTrack
APK: kwiatkowski.fr/apktrack/ApkTrack.apk

 

[Crystylez]

Just the app i needed, loving it, could be great with a sort feature in the future.

 

[JusticeRage]

Just the app i needed, loving it, could be great with a sort feature in the future.

I'm glad to see someone finds my app useful! Do you mean the possibility to sort applications depending on whether they can be updated or not? This is a great idea, I'll implement it!

 

[Crystylez]

I'm glad to see someone finds my app useful! Do you mean the possibility to sort applications depending on whether they can be updated or not? This is a great idea, I'll implement it!

Yeah excatly something like that, when apktrack finds like an update to an app the apps that need go get updated gets sorted fo the top so you dont have to scroll through the list to find which apps that needs to get updated and so on.. Awesome ill be following this project bro.

 

[JusticeRage]

The code and APK have been updated as suggested by your feedback!
Applications are now sorted by status (whether they have been updated or not) by default, but it is possible to switch back to alphabetical sort.

 

[huntic@gmail.com]

Parsing Package problem

Tablet PMT7787_3G Jelly Bean 4.2.2 It givse me parsing package error. Works fine on KitKat

 

[bor51]

it works

Thanks buddy for your work. it works in d802 (LG G2) cm-12-20150217-NIGHTLY-d802. But i can't update apps. it says there is a new version available. press the circle but nothing happens.

 

[famewolf]

Are you only scraping google play or do you also check places like the amazon appstore and f-droid.org? If so, how do you handle app's that are in multiple locations? For example if I purchased an app at amazon appstore (or got it as the free app of the day) I can only use the latest version on that appstore even if google play has a newer version. Amazon appstore is usually always behind google play in versions. In some cases f-droid (open source app store) will have versions compiled without ads where google play may have versions with. (The simplest solution may be to let the user pick the location to check for each app?)


Forgot to mention if you used xposed framework the module updates might be worthy of tracking as well. http://repo.xposed.info/module-overview

 

[JusticeRage]

Tablet PMT7787_3G Jelly Bean 4.2.2 It givse me parsing package error. Works fine on KitKat

Could you post a stacktrace? I assume this is because the required API version in the AndroidManifest.xml is 19 (4.4+). This is probably a very conservative choice, but I have no devices using anterior versions to run tests. I'll try to post an APK compatible with more Android versions soon.

Thanks buddy for your work. it works in d802 (LG G2) cm-12-20150217-NIGHTLY-d802. But i can't update apps. it says there is a new version available. press the circle but nothing happens.

I'll quote my first post : "applications are *not* updated automatically. You still have to find a way to download the latest APKs and sideload them yourself. ApkTrack is simply here to tell you that the update is available."
Simply put, I finding the latest version of an APK reliably is not always easy (I usually have to do some googling myself).

Are you only scraping google play or do you also check places like the amazon appstore and f-droid.org?

I scrape Google Play, then if I get a message like "Varies with device" I try appbrain.com.
Sadly, I don't track versions on an app store basis. ApkTrack was really made in mind with the idea of downloading APKs and installing them through adb. Doesn't the Amazon app store already notify you of available updates?
One of the features I would like to implement in the future would be custom web scraping though (let the user specify the webpage and regular expression). I'll look into F-Froid too.

And thanks for the Xposed modules idea, I'll definitely implement that!

 

[dogmatism]

Just the app I was looking for. Working on 4.4.4 Oneplus Mahdi

 

[GuyInDogSuit]

Reminds me of AppWatch, but without being limited to just the Play Store. Cool idea. I'm gonna try it out.

 

[famewolf]

I scrape Google Play, then if I get a message like "Varies with device" I try appbrain.com.
Sadly, I don't track versions on an app store basis. ApkTrack was really made in mind with the idea of downloading APKs and installing them through adb. Doesn't the Amazon app store already notify you of available updates?
One of the features I would like to implement in the future would be custom web scraping though (let the user specify the webpage and regular expression). I'll look into F-Froid too.

And thanks for the Xposed modules idea, I'll definitely implement that!

Using Greenify and Xprivacy my appstores don't notify me of anything until I actually run them. Have you considered taking the full app name and kicking it into a google (or better yet startpage.com since it anonymizes the search but uses same parms as google) search maybe with additional keywords like "apk" and "download"? This would point folks to where they might be able to download the updated module. A similar technique is used by windows software update checker "sumo" (software update monitor) A similar idea would be to do the same with an appstore search of where the update was located...minimal code is needed since you are just kicking an url to be opened to the browser via the "view" feature.

 

[motomotomotoG]

Apktrack

ApkTrack is a simple Android application which periodically checks if your installed apps can be updated.
It was created for users who don't want to use the Google Play Store, but still need to know when new APKs are available for their apps. ApkTrack performs simple website scraping to grab the latest versions of packages present on the device.
This application is distributed under the terms of the GPL v3 License

The source code is available at github.com/JusticeRage/ApkTrack.

Usage

See the attached screenshot for a preview of the application.

• Click on an application to perform a manual version check.
• The buttons at the top are used to respectively refresh the installed application list and perform a version check for all applications.

That's it!

Things to keep in mind:

• The application will perform HTTP requests both on demand and silently. It does not care whether you are using 3G, 4G or WiFi. Please do not install it if your mobile plan charges data at a premium.
• Updates, installations and uninstallations are not detected automatically by the application. You have to press a button to refresh the installed apps.
• ApkTrack uses regular expressions to scrape webpages, so it may cease to work without notice if the target websites are modified.
• Applications are *not* updated automatically. You still have to find a way to download the latest APKs and sideload them yourself. ApkTrack is simply here to tell you that the update is available.
• Although there is a background service checking for updates every day, it may get killed by the OS. Remember to check for updates manually in the application from time to time.
• ApkTrack has no fancy icon Feel free to design one!
• I am by no means an Android developper. This is a project I hacked quickly because I was tired of checking updates manually. If you are learning Android development, what you see in the code should definitely not be considered best practice. You're welcome to point out what I did wrong, though!

Download
A precompiled APK can be found on the GitHub page. I would post the link, but as a new user, I can't yet.

Source code: https://github.com/JusticeRage/ApkTrack
APK: http://kwiatkowski.fr/apktrack/ApkTrack.apk

Let me know what you think!

This is fantastic! I use Raccoon to download apps to my computer before manually transferring them to my phone, and when i wanted to check if there was an update out for an app i'd have to check one by one the apps on Raccoon, This is going to be a huge time saver.

 

[JusticeRage]

Have you considered taking the full app name and kicking it into a google (or better yet startpage.com since it anonymizes the search but uses same parms as google) search maybe with additional keywords like "apk" and "download"? This would point folks to where they might be able to download the updated module. A similar technique is used by windows software update checker "sumo" (software update monitor) A similar idea would be to do the same with an appstore search of where the update was located...minimal code is needed since you are just kicking an url to be opened to the browser via the "view" feature.

That's another great idea. I will work on that in the upcoming weeks!

 

[PunchUp]

Very interesting project!
Someone suggested sorting option. I'd go one step ahead and request you to implement a feature which could hide non play store apps

 

[shaarky]

@JusticeRage, this project sounds promising, however when I tested that, some of the applications were saying they are not uptodate, like CM Browser (I'm in beta programm), Naked Browser (maybe there is some problem with APK version?), Google Drive and Google Camera etc.

Also time ago I posted this question : http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2988051 ... Maybe this can be implemented with your application ? So in this case I would rather prefer to highlight such disappering aps. rather then filtering them out.

Another option to jump on app from to the list to GooglePlay or searching on web for apk or alternate repository (ApToide) would be really nice. ?

 

[exodius48]

Working fine here. Now This is my ChangelogDroid replacement, because its not working on my device with MUI rom. Keep update this app & would be nice if you push it to playstore.