How to Reverse-Engineer a Competitor's Android App for SDKs and Ad Networks

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Developers and analysts can identify the SDKs, ad networks, and API endpoints used by any competitor's Android app using only free tools like apktool and jadx, without needing a rooted device. The process begins by downloading the APK from a trusted mirror and treating it as a ZIP file to extract the Android manifest, which reveals permissions, declared services, and attribution SDK identifiers. Decompiling the APK then allows targeted searches for known ad network and analytics class names, such as AdMob, AppLovin, Meta Audience Network, and AppsFlyer. Analysts are cautioned that finding an SDK class name only confirms it is bundled, not necessarily active, so checking for initialization calls and mediation adapter configurations is essential. A final grep pass on resource files and decompiled code can surface hardcoded API endpoints, potentially exposing backend infrastructure details the app developer may not have intended to make visible.

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You.com Research API Gains Background Mode for Long-Running Async Tasks

You.com has updated its Research API to support background task execution, allowing clients to submit a research request with a background flag and receive a task ID instead of waiting for results in real time. This asynchronous approach is designed for deep, exhaustive, and frontier research jobs that may exceed standard request timeout limits. Developers can check job status by polling a dedicated endpoint or receive live progress updates via a Server-Sent Events streaming endpoint. The change makes it practical to embed research tasks into automation pipelines, internal tools, and data-enrichment workflows without risking connection timeouts. Frontier, You.com's most intensive research tier, requires background mode and is documented in the platform's official API changelog and Quickstart guide.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

How One Operator Change Transforms Subset Sum Into a Counting Problem

A tutorial on dynamic programming explains how the 'Count of Subsets' problem differs from the classic Subset Sum by just one change: replacing the boolean 'or' operator with integer addition '+'. While Subset Sum asks whether a target sum is achievable, Count of Subsets asks in how many ways it can be achieved, shifting the DP table from storing booleans to storing counts. The base case requires careful handling — only T[0][0] should be set to 1, representing the empty subset, rather than setting the entire first column to 1, which breaks correctness when the array contains zeros. Zero-valued elements are a special trap because including or excluding them both leave the sum unchanged, meaning each zero doubles the valid subset count. The inner loop must also start from index 0 instead of 1 so that zero-valued elements are processed correctly through the transition logic.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

HYNAWEB and Akhouri Systems partner to build privacy-first tools for developers

M. Harun, founder of the HYNAWEB holding company, has announced a formal partnership with Akhouri Systems, a privacy-first desktop software firm led by co-founder Akhouri Anmol Kumar. HYNAWEB develops browser-based, AI-powered developer tools including KODA, Dojo Feed, and Scribe Jam, while Akhouri Systems builds lightweight, offline-capable Windows utilities such as ATLOCK, ANOTE, ACALCU, and APIC. The two startups say they joined forces because their products complement each other across web and desktop platforms, aiming to offer developers a unified ecosystem without data collection or bloat. A phased roadmap has been outlined, beginning with cross-promotion and moving toward technical integration, such as embedding APIC's image processing engine inside KODA. Both teams say they are building in public and plan to consolidate their developer communities under a shared Discord space.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

DOT Construction Dates Shift Constantly — A Change Log Shows How Much

Transportation agencies routinely revise projected start and end dates for road construction projects after they are published, leaving planners who rely on static snapshots with outdated information. A dataset tracking 2,269 active planned-construction projects across several US states and one Canadian province recorded 21,289 date revisions between July 3 and September 17, 2026. Of those revisions, 21,128 moved a date later and only 161 moved it earlier, indicating that published start dates function effectively as minimum estimates rather than reliable targets. The median revision shifted a projected start by seven days, while the largest single change pushed a ramp closure on I-81S back by 61 days in one edit. To address this, the platform maintains a queryable change log that records old values, new values, and timestamps each time a project date is updated, turning a static date field into a trackable history.

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