Imagining, Studying and Realising A Less Harmful App Ecosystem
Konrad Kollnig, Siddhartha Datta, Nigel Shadbolt

TL;DR
This paper introduces a system for mobile app extensions on Android to study and mitigate digital harms, filling a gap left by desktop browser extensions and enabling new research avenues.
Contribution
It presents a novel implementation of mobile app extensions for Android, demonstrating their potential to reduce digital harms and providing a foundation for future research.
Findings
Implementation can reduce various digital harms in mobile apps
Mobile app extensions are feasible and effective for harm mitigation
The system enables new research into mobile digital harms
Abstract
Desktop browser extensions have long allowed users to improve their experience online and tackle widespread harms on websites. So far, no equivalent solution exists for mobile apps, despite the fact that individuals now spend significantly more time on mobile than on desktop, and arguably face similarly widespread harms. In this work, we investigate mobile app extensions, a previously underexplored concept to study and address digital harms within mobile apps in a decentralised, community-driven way. We analyse challenges to adoption of this approach so far, and present a ready-to-use implementation for Android as a result of significant and careful system development. Through a range of case studies, we demonstrate that our implementation can already reduce (though not completely eliminate) a wide range of harms - similarly as browser extensions do on desktops. Our method provides…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAdvanced Malware Detection Techniques · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection · Green IT and Sustainability
