[Android Apps and Games] Bexton:
What is it?

This is an updated (and slightly modified) version of redphx's awesome Google Chrome extension APK Downloader.

It allows you to download APKs from the Play Store webpage via your desktop browser directly onto your computer.

The original version stopped working as of Google Chrome version 20+ because starting with this Chrome version, all Google Chrome extension require to use the manifest version 2. When I noticed, I checked the author's page for any updates. But there were no updates on that.

Update: Earlier, I said that the original APK Downloader extension stopped working because it uses Manifest version 1 and that Google Chrome dropped support for all extensions that use Manifest version 1.

However, gt573 noted that he can still use the original extension (v1.2.1) with Chrome 21.

So, I checked again the Manifest version 1 support schedule and I found that I was wrong there. Manifest version 1 was announced deprecated with the release of Chrome 18, but will be partitially supported until "early 2013".

Nethertheless, the original APK Downloader (v1.2.1) does not work for me since my Chrome was update to 21.0.1180.60 m. The extension constantly throws content security policy exceptions when trying to download any App, which prevents the extension from working

at all

. Additionally, this is the error message I get on the extension page:

And according to the recent comments on the author's webpage, there's a bunch of other users who have/had the same problem with v1.2.1 within the last days. (For a detailed explanation of manifest version changes in Chrome and what that means for the original APK Downloader, click here to read the full story.)

So: If APK Downloader v1.2.1 stopped working for you, feel free to use this updated version.
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What was changed?

So.. Basically, this is the original APK Downloader v1.2.1 extension for the Google Chrome browser, downloaded from the author's - redphx - webpage. However, these are the changes that I made:

As of version 1.3.0

Updated the extension manifest version from 1 to 2

Replaced deprecated functions in JavaScript and references in manifest.json

Changed JavaScript formatting from compressed to "Pretty Print" (so that the source code is readable for everybody)

Removed Google Analytics Code (Sorry redphx, all credits to you! But using GA for this, without even anonymizing the User IPs, is a No-Go as I think).

Changed the download redirect Url (when clicking the icon in the Url bar) from the author's webpage to a local domain "http://localhost/[..]".

Removed all other "extra" code, that was not used for the actual functionality.

Replaced extension icons.

As of version 1.3.1

Changed the download redirect Url (when clicking the icon in the Url bar) from"http://localhost/[..]" to this thread's URL, because v1.3.0 required a local web server to be running for the extension in order to function.

As of version 1.3.2

Changed the download redirect Url (when clicking the icon in the Url bar). Instead of open a new tab, as of version 1.3.2 it will simply reload the current Play Store URL and start the download!

As of version 1.3.3

Fixed redirect bug, introduced in version 1.3.2

Major code clean up (reduced number of files from 16 to 12).

As of version 1.3.4

Improved new reload function to support Play Store URLs that contain a hash key already.

Get Started - Download

To install the extension the steps are as follows: download and extract the following zip archive to your computer.

Direct download link:

apkdownloader-1.3.1.zip

apkdownloader-1.3.2.zip

apkdownloader-1.3.3.zip

apkdownloader-1.3.4.zip
​

How to set up?

After you extracted the downloaded zip file to your computer, open Google Chrome and go to the extension page; you can copy and paste into the Url bar: chrome://chrome/extensions/

Load it

Now, enable "Developer mode" and load the "APK Downloader"-extension from the directory where you extracted it to.

Set it up - Google-Account

To be able to download from the Play Store, you need to authenticate all requests. Therefore you need to "log in to your Google Account" at the extension's option page.

On the extension's options page, log in with your Google-Account (email-address and password) - the same Account that you used with your device! Also, you will need your Android Device-Id (which is part of the algorithm to generate a valid request key).

Note: Basically this is not a "login" in the common sense. Your credentials are stored safely in Chrome's local data storage - on your own computer!!!

Set it up - Android Device-Id

To get your Android Device-Id, type in the dialer of your phone...

*#*#8255#*#*
*#*#TALK*#*#

... and you will get the "GTalk Service Monitor" screen like the following. Search for "DEVICE-ID:". Everything that comes after "android-", that is your Device-Id.

OR

Use my App "Android Device-ID"

(Almost) Done

The extension is now available and ready set up. However, you need to follow 1 more step to actually use it; you need to disable SSL warnings. Therefore please read on at the original APK Downloader page at: http://codekiem.com/2012/02/24/apk-downloader/​

Credits

All credits for the extension goes to redphoenix89 (or redphx @xda)! It's his code - I did only cosmetics.
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Legal Note / Disclaimer

Finally, please note that the use of this Chrome extension is violating Google's Play Store TOS! You've been warned.
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