How ProGuard Works
summary
Explains exactly what ProGuard does: shows how ProGuard analyzes and transforms your app, details the shrinking and obfuscation steps, the mapping, seeds and usage files it writes, and why -keep rules must be narrow; gives a concrete script-driven measurement of how many apps are partly obfuscated; shows how the Android build pipeline uses ProGuard and how R8 replaces ProGuard while interoperating with d8; includes actionable debugging tips and which outputs to keep or ignore.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00The need for obfuscation
- 2:53Understanding ProGuard issues
- 5:50How ProGuard works
- 11:15Debugging stack traces
- 13:43Build pipeline deep dive
- 16:06Mastering keep rules
- 21:34Configuration sources
- 26:21Transitioning to R8
- 31:23Best practices and summary
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