how can I hide links within an app?

Question

hi I have an application running online and there are links in the server but the problem is that there are people who remove the application and take the links and implement them on the browser and become a problem within the application Is there a way to hide links?

Answer 1

Use Authentication so no one can access your links without a password.

Answer 2

According to what you wrote in comments, suppose you have this:

Picasso.with(context).load("roman-android.com/" + View_stories.files + "/" + stories.images_view).into(holder.img_view);

You need to hide roman-android.com/.

You can do this way:

Open your gradle.properties file in your Android project. This file should be secret and not available online.

In gradle.properties write your link:

mySecretLink="roman-android.com/"

Go to your build.gradle(module:app) file and add, under android, this:

buildTypes.each {
        it.buildConfigField "String" , "MY_SECRET_LINK", mySecretLink
    }

so that you'll have something like this:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 25
    buildToolsVersion "25.0.2"
    defaultConfig {
        //blah blah stuff
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }

    }
    buildTypes.each {
        it.buildConfigField "String" , "MY_SECRET_LINK", mySecretLink
    }
}
repositories {
    jcenter()
    mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
    //blah blah stuff
}

This will tell gradle to add your String to the BuildConfig class, that is generated on build time and completely external to your code.

Go to your code and just do this:

Picasso.with(context).load(BuildConfig.MY_SECRET_LINK + View_stories.files + "/" + stories.images_view).into(holder.img_view);

NOTE: I've tried to explain this and to adapt it in your situation. I based my explanation on an old code of mine where I did this to conceal my API key.

Obviously you need to keep secret the gradle.properties file. You'll use its real values only at compilation time, keeping aliases for your secred information (such as MY_SECRET_LINK) for the whole programming process.