cleartext traffic

[IzzySoft]

For the latest release, our scanners reported:

! repo/dev.sasikanth.rss.reader_720.apk declares flag(s): usesCleartextTraffic
! repo/dev.sasikanth.rss.reader_720.apk contains signature block blobs: 0x504b4453 (DEPENDENCY_INFO_BLOCK; GOOGLE)

I guess usesCleartextTraffic was added for feeds not secured by https (are there any such still)? As for DEPENDENCY_INFO_BLOCK, that can be easily avoided with a tiny addition to your build.gradle:

android {
    dependenciesInfo {
        // Disables dependency metadata when building APKs.
        includeInApk = false
        // Disables dependency metadata when building Android App Bundles.
        includeInBundle = false
    }
}

For some background: that BLOB is supposed to be just a binary representation of your app's dependency tree. But as it's encrypted with a public key belonging to Google, only Google can read it – and nobody else can even verify what it really contains. More details can be found e.g. here: Ramping up security: additional APK checks are in place with the IzzyOnDroid repo.

Thanks in advance!