R8 Is Not an Android App Protector: What Developers Should Know About XopProtector When developers search for Android app protection , the first recommendation they often see is R8. R8 is important, but there is a technical distinction that is easy to overlook: R8 is primarily an optimizer and obfuscator. It is not a complete Android APK protection system. If the goal is to protect an application against reverse engineering, DEX extraction, runtime instrumentation, native ana...