Google Play Store Cache Server

[Bluscream]

Hello, 9 months ago i saw the video about a local steam cache (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk1eKPRLaJA) that's what brought me here.

 

Because since then i was thinking to myself "I don't have other gamers in my family so it wouldn't make much sense to do this but what we have in this household are a increasing number of android devices (2 tablets, 3 smartphones and 1 android emulator on pc)" and i'm sure the increase of devices that update mobile apps regularly becomes higher in other households aswell.

 

So i was thinking what if there was a way to cache Play Store updates locally on "first seen" for certain time (Like 1 day maybe idk).

 

At first it doesn't sound much (just a few apps) but it sums up if you think about the fact that mobile apps become bigger and bigger with non-games taking up to over 200MB these days (Snapchat, Tik Tok) and the amount of updates (when i start my phone once a day it updates 10-30 apps).

 

So it would be a really neat thing to have - such a play store (and maybe even Apple Store, who knows) caching server. The only question that remains is the HOW... I've only found a few results with a simple google search (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1519023 saying that it's not necessary for google because they have a great CDN) and while that might be true, it's always good to save bandwidth (if you have limited bandwith available or you just not want to hog others in your neighborhood so much)

 

So my question to all the experts here is; would it be somehow possible? Even if it won't be easy? And if yes that would make a great video for LTT i think =)

[Electronics Wizardy]

A caching server really doesn't make sense for your network, its just soo small and your not saving much.

 

But you can setup you cache for any program with something like squid, but updates are probably encrypted so you need to install a cert on clients.

[Mikensan]

Very likely there's going to be a trust relationship between the devices and the play store - anything in the middle of that and google play isn't going to be happy. Much how with QUIC - anything inbetween will break google webpages.

 

A cache for steam could save you 10-30gb per game per computer - this makes a lot of sense. Majority of my android apps are around 60mb to install, and very like <1mb updates.

 

The good news is Google and even Amazon put storage in ISP datacenters to beef up their CDN. This means your play store apps are already getting about as much bandwidth as your household could handle.

[jake9000]

Apps are usually pretty small in size so if you go with a network caching solution you probably won't see a huge benefit. 

That said, it is a cool technology and worth fooling around with. have a look at Squid Proxy for something free. 

Keep in mind that these general solutions do not work with HTTPS without a man-in-the-middle decryption running. This can slow your connection and phones might not want to get updates from a connection that's throwing certificate errors. 

[mtz_federico]

19 hours ago, Bluscream said:

and maybe even Apple Store, who knows)

I know that on MacOS you can cache app store downloads for the network very easily 

[Bluscream]

19 hours ago, Mikensan said:

Majority of my android apps are around 60mb to install, and very like <1mb updates. 

I don't know what kind of sorcery you're using but AFAIK Google Play doesn't have partial downloads, it always downloads the full app for me.

[Mikensan]

21 minutes ago, Bluscream said:

I don't know what kind of sorcery you're using but AFAIK Google Play doesn't have partial downloads, it always downloads the full app for me.

It doesn't completely redownload the app everytime it updates... There are times when there's a major revision of the app, it will do that however - this is when your shortcuts disappear.

[Bluscream]

19 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

It doesn't completely redownload the app everytime it updates... There are times when there's a major revision of the app, it will do that however - this is when your shortcuts disappear.

I watch updates most of the time and haven't seen a single one that is less than half the app size.

[Bluscream]

I have found 

 which suggest using squid, but there was no real update for 2 years, maybe someone of the tech-savy ppl here can figure something out.

[dalekphalm]

On 5/21/2019 at 1:38 PM, Bluscream said:

Hello, 9 months ago i saw the video about a local steam cache (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk1eKPRLaJA) that's what brought me here.

 

Because since then i was thinking to myself "I don't have other gamers in my family so it wouldn't make much sense to do this but what we have in this household are a increasing number of android devices (2 tablets, 3 smartphones and 1 android emulator on pc)" and i'm sure the increase of devices that update mobile apps regularly becomes higher in other households aswell.

 

So i was thinking what if there was a way to cache Play Store updates locally on "first seen" for certain time (Like 1 day maybe idk).

 

At first it doesn't sound much (just a few apps) but it sums up if you think about the fact that mobile apps become bigger and bigger with non-games taking up to over 200MB these days (Snapchat, Tik Tok) and the amount of updates (when i start my phone once a day it updates 10-30 apps).

 

So it would be a really neat thing to have - such a play store (and maybe even Apple Store, who knows) caching server. The only question that remains is the HOW... I've only found a few results with a simple google search (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1519023 saying that it's not necessary for google because they have a great CDN) and while that might be true, it's always good to save bandwidth (if you have limited bandwith available or you just not want to hog others in your neighborhood so much)

 

So my question to all the experts here is; would it be somehow possible? Even if it won't be easy? And if yes that would make a great video for LTT i think

What exactly is the point of caching App updates? Do you have a large number of Android based devices that would require the exact same update many times?

[Bluscream]

On 5/22/2019 at 9:34 PM, dalekphalm said:

What exactly is the point of caching App updates? Do you have a large number of Android based devices that would require the exact same update many times?

[dalekphalm]

You're telling me that you have 10-20 updates per day?

In terms of your devices, you've got six. Certainly a bit large compared to normal, but I wouldn't call that an outrageous amount of devices.  Are you on a capped data plan?

[Bajantechnician]

9 hours ago, Bluscream said:

~snip~

 

why do you have so many apps that 10-20 update a DAY??