CheatDroid

CheatDroid is a tool for looking inside an Android app: its shared preferences and its SQLite databases, on a device you own, with root. Developers use it to reproduce a bug state without rebuilding, QA to jump straight to the screen they need to test, and a fair number of people to change a value in a game they paid for.

It passed two million downloads, which for a tool that requires root is mostly a statement about how much people want to see what their apps are storing about them.

The app now ships under two identities from one codebase: the original CheatDroid package that all those installs are tied to, and a rebuilt "Root File & Data Manager" for the Play Store, with free and pro flavours. Old installs keep working and keep updating.

The app is only half of it. The landing page, the direct download for people who would rather not go through Play, the endpoint that checks a Pro purchase, and the guides that answer the support questions all run on my own server, and keeping them up is my job too. A purchase check that quietly stops working on a Sunday is nobody else's problem.