WebToApp

Build Android APKs from web projects, directly on your phone.

An on-device APK workshop that goes far beyond URL wrapping — it can fork and exec full server runtimes, ship a hardened anti-censorship network stack, sign bundles for Google Play, and run MV3 browser extensions, all without a PC or a remote build server.

English · 简体中文

What's different · What you can build · Capability overview · Feature map · Module market · Documentation · Architecture · Build

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What makes WebToApp different

Most "website to app" tools stop at wrapping a URL in a WebView. WebToApp is closer to a pocket-sized APK workshop, and the hard parts are exactly where it diverges:

• It runs real server runtimes on-device. Node.js, PHP, Python, Go, and WordPress are fork+exec'd as native binaries straight from app storage — like Termux, packaged into an installable APK. URL-wrapper tools cannot do this at all.
• It ships a hardened, anti-censorship network stack. DNS-over-HTTPS, TLS fingerprint spoofing (Chrome / Firefox / Safari JA3 templates) with a local MITM bridge, Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) on the GeckoView engine to encrypt the SNI, per-app proxies, and CORS bypass for locked-down SPAs.
• The whole build is self-contained. Binary AXML/ARSC patching, permission pruning, V1/V2/V3 signing, and Google Play-ready AAB export all happen inside the app via apksig — no remote build queue, no PC.
• It stays extensible after shipping. Add JS/CSS modules, Tampermonkey-style userscripts, or MV3 Chrome extensions (live-searched and installed from the Chrome Web Store) without rebuilding the host.
• The host UI speaks 10 languages out of the box. Chinese, English, Arabic (RTL), Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese, and Korean — switch anytime in Settings; new in-app copy is maintained for all ten.

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Capability overview

A quick scan of what's in the box. Each links to the detailed feature map below.

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What you can build

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Full feature map

WebToApp has a large number of switches. The sections below group them by use case, kept collapsible so the top of the page stays scannable.

🌐 Browser engine & networking

• Dual engine — System WebView by default, or an optional GeckoView (Firefox) runtime downloaded on first use.
• Kernel flavor disguise — present as Chrome, Edge, Samsung Internet, Firefox, or Safari-style while keeping the real engine.
• Desktop mode, custom User-Agent, and JS/CSS injection at document-start / end / idle.
• Popup handling — same window, external browser, popup window, or block.
• Proxies — static HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS5, PAC, authentication, bypass rules, and a local HTTP-to-SOCKS bridge.
• DNS-over-HTTPS — Cloudflare, Google, AdGuard, NextDNS, CleanBrowsing, Quad9, Mullvad, plus custom endpoints; strict or automatic modes.
• Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) — encrypt the SNI in the TLS handshake (GeckoView only; auto-wires DoH + GeckoView when toggled).
• TLS fingerprint spoofing — impersonate Chrome 131 / Firefox 133 / Safari 18 JA3 profiles (or custom ciphers), served through a local TLS-MITM bridge so the outgoing ClientHello matches a real browser.
• CORS bypass — on by default for static SPAs that call external APIs blocked by CORS; same-origin traffic is left alone, and CORS-only apps can use a lightweight PrivateNetworkNativeBridgeAdapter without the full Native Bridge surface.
• Failover — automatic fallback to mirror URLs when the primary target is unreachable.
• PWA offline cache strategies, custom error pages, per-app host overrides, and payment-scheme handlers.
• Compatibility toggles — blob download interception, scroll memory, image repair, clipboard / orientation / notification polyfills, private-network bridging, and Native Bridge capability gates.
• Download location — system Downloads, app-private storage, or a user-picked SAF folder, wired through the full packaging passthrough chain.

🛡️ Privacy, fingerprint defense & hardening

• Browser fingerprint disguise across 50+ vectors — User-Agent, WebGL, Canvas, AudioContext, ClientRects, timezone, language, memory, media devices, WebRTC, fonts, battery, permissions, performance, storage, notifications, CSS media, iframe propagation, and error-stack cleanup.
• Hosts-rule ad blocker with cosmetic MutationObserver filtering, 20 built-in community filter lists (EasyList, uBlock Origin, AdGuard, AdAway, plus 8 language-specific lists), per-source enable/disable/delete, and custom subscription rules bundled into the APK.
• Resource encryption (PBKDF2 + AES-256-GCM) for packaged config, HTML, media, and BGM; optional custom encryption password stronger than package/certificate-derived keys.
• Runtime hardening when encryption is on — anti-debug, anti-Frida, DEX-tamper checks; threat response of log-only, silent exit, or randomized crash.
• WebView/content isolation for storage, WebRTC, Canvas, Audio, WebGL, fonts, headers, and IP surfaces.
• Activation-code gating — local verification, or your own HTTPS endpoint signed with EC P-256. See the remote activation docs.

📦 Local server runtimes (fork + exec on-device)

• Node.js (18.20.x) runs in a dedicated :nodejs OS process via a native node_launcher wrapper loading libnode.so; supports custom native .node extensions.
• PHP 8.4 from pmmp/PHP-Binaries, downloaded once on first use, with Composer 2.10.x and custom native extensions (zend_extension, .so).
• Python 3.14 — Flask, Django, FastAPI via uvicorn, Tornado, the built-in HTTP server; pip dependencies resolved into .pypackages, custom native extensions supported; binary names are versioned so future bumps do not hard-code paths.
• Go 1.26 — official Linux arm64 toolchain (.tar.gz from dl.google.com, USTC mirror for CN), on-device go build / go mod / go run, vendor/ offline builds, static serving, and the native go_exec_loader wrapper; DNS and CA trust go through the same local JVM bridge used by PHP.
• WordPress 7.x over local PHP + SQLite (sqlite-database-integration), with theme and plugin import.
• Linux Environment screen manages toolchains and dependencies for Node, PHP, and Python.
• Port Manager coordinates runtime ports across generated apps via broadcast receivers.
• A local DNS bridge proxy (HTTP CONNECT in the Android JVM) gives runtimes working DNS resolution and outbound HTTP where the musl/packed binary can't reach the system resolver.

🧩 Extensions & automation

• Built-in modules — video download (YouTube / Bilibili / Douyin / Xiaohongshu extractors), video enhancer with YouTube cleanup (ad skip, max quality, background play, SponsorBlock), web analyzer, find-in-page, dark mode, privacy tools, content enhancer, element blocker, and YouTube launcher.
• Userscripts — Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey-style .user.js with a GM_* bridge (storage, requests, styles, menu commands) and promise-based GM.* APIs gated by script grants.
• MV3 Chrome extension runtime for manifest content scripts in isolated or main worlds, with chrome.* polyfills for runtime, storage, tabs, scripting, and declarative network-request parsing.
• In-app Chrome Web Store search — browse and install browser extensions by keyword (or paste a store URL / extension ID), with offline fallback to manual import.
• Export codes (WTA1: gzip + Base64) and QR sharing via ZXing.
• Agent — a tool-calling assistant with 50+ built-in tools covering the entire app surface: create/edit/build/export apps, manage ports and browser engines, install/clear runtimes, ad-block hosts rules, common-config templates, usage stats, app cloning, batch import, Play policy checks, and module development. Plan mode waits for user approval; automatic retry/backoff on 429/5xx.

📱 App experience

• Splash screens — image or video, with skip behavior, trim ranges, and fixed orientation.
• Background music — playlists with synced LRC lyrics, lyric animations, custom font/color/stroke/shadow, and online music search.
• Toolbar, status bar (light & dark), navigation, floating-window mode, and long-press menu styles. Status bar color can follow theme, a custom color, full transparency, or PAGE_TOP (sample the page’s top pixels so the chrome matches the content). The runtime toolbar also offers a per-app page-zoom preset (saved across cold starts) and a console panel for on-device debugging.
• Download location mode — system Downloads, app-private directory, or a custom SAF folder picked by the user.
• Announcement templates for launch, interval, and no-network moments.
• Host app language — switch the entire builder UI among 10 languages (中文 / English / العربية / Português / Español / Français / Deutsch / Русский / 日本語 / 한국어); Arabic is full RTL.
• Translation overlay — 20 target languages via Google, MyMemory, LibreTranslate, or Lingva engines, with automatic failover across them (in-page translate for the content of generated apps, separate from host UI language).
• Print bridge — intercept window.print() and blob/data-URL PDFs to the Android print framework / PDF export (with an onPageStarted re-inject fallback so late navigations stay hooked).
• Media Session bridge — surface web media on the system media notification and lock-screen controls, with Bluetooth and Android Auto support.
• Notifications — Web Notification polyfill, scheduled and persistent notifications with progress, URL-polling foreground service, deep links, boot auto-start, scheduled launch, and background-run service.
• Per-app usage stats with Vico charts and URL health monitoring.

🔧 APK / AAB export & signing

• Custom package name, versionName, versionCode, icon, label, architecture target, and export format.
• Build-time permission injection with unused permissions pruned from the template manifest.
• One-tap AAB export — auto-builds the APK on demand, converts it to a Play-ready signed AAB with targetSdk rewritten to the Play-required level (currently 36) and protobuf metadata generated locally; cancellable mid-build.
• Keystore management — create, import, export, delete, and certificate-fingerprint viewing; PKCS12/PFX/JKS/BKS import including Android Studio upload-key cases where store and key passwords differ.
• Signature schemes — V1, V2, V3 independently controlled, with auto-fallback for legacy certificates; custom V1 signer filename for META-INF/<name>.SF / .RSA.
• Performance options — image compression, WebP conversion, code minification, lazy loading, DNS prefetch, and preload hints.
• Full project and app-data backup/restore.

🗂 File manager & project tooling

• File manager — a single screen to view, share, install, open, and clear build outputs (APK builds, AAB exports, app clones, build logs) and a user-files directory, with a read-only build-log viewer.
• Website scraper for offline packs — HTML, CSS, JS, images, fonts, url(), srcset, @import, path rewriting, same-domain limits, depth limits, and size limits; parallel streaming worker pool with main-thread progress callbacks.
• Multi-Web layouts — tabs, cards, feeds, drawers, per-site icons/theme colors/extraction selectors/refresh intervals, and shared JS/CSS.
• Gallery apps — categorized media, grid/list/timeline views, shuffle/single-loop, sorting, thumbnail bar, overlays, auto-next, and playback memory.
• App Modifier — shortcut disguise or real binary clone with manifest/resource patching and re-signing.

🔬 Specialized tools & research features

• Device disguise is included for technical demonstration and must only be used with informed user consent.

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Agent

WebToApp ships a built-in AI agent (open from ⋮ → Agent) that can operate the entire app through natural-language conversation. Instead of tapping through menus, you describe what you want and the Agent executes it via a tool-calling loop backed by any OpenAI-compatible LLM you configure in AI Settings.

How it works:

1. You send a message (or attach an image for visual context).
2. The LLM reasons and emits tool_calls.
3. The Agent executes each tool on-device — read-only tools run immediately; write tools pop a permission dialog first.
4. Results flow back to the LLM, which continues until the task is done or it asks you a clarifying question.

40+ built-in tools, grouped by domain:

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Module market

WebToApp has a GitHub-backed module market for community JS/CSS extension modules. The catalog is just files in this repository, so contributions use a normal pull-request flow.

modules/
├── registry.json        # app-facing catalog
├── submissions.json     # CI-generated PR / contributor metadata
├── README.md            # contributor guide
└── <module-folder>/     # each module

The app fetches both registry.json and submissions.json and only shows modules present in both, keeping the in-app catalog aligned with actually-merged PRs. The submissions file also records every contributor per module, so the catalog shows stacked avatars and a contributors leaderboard. Catalog files and module icons route through a global mirror first, with raw.githubusercontent.com and jsDelivr as automatic fallbacks, so the store loads fast everywhere (including mainland China).

• Users open Extension Modules and tap the storefront icon.
• Contributors add a folder under modules/, update registry.json, and open a PR.
• The default client cache is one hour, so merged modules propagate without an app update.

The high-level architecture lives here; the canonical submission rules, field schemas, reviewer checklist, and CI validation details live in modules/README.md.

The community market carries only JS/CSS extension modules. Browser extensions (MV3) are no longer a community catalog — instead the Browser Extensions tab searches the Chrome Web Store live: type a keyword, browse results, and install on demand through the existing CRX pipeline. Live search requires a network that can reach Google.

Documentation

The official documentation site is published at shiaho777.github.io/web-to-app, in English and 简体中文:

Architecture

• The repository has three Gradle modules: app (the full builder and host), shell (the runtime host embedded into generated APKs), and clone-host (host code for app cloning — compiled to a classes.jar, converted to DEX via d8, and bundled as an asset for AppCloner).
• Runtime code is authored in app and synchronized into shell, so shared WebView/runtime behavior has one source of truth (core/shell, core/webview, core/engine, core/extension, ui/shell, etc.).
• The APK builder patches template APKs at the binary AXML/ARSC level, injects config/resources, prunes permissions, and signs with apksig. A separate encrypted build path (EncryptedApkBuilder) offers resource encryption, shelling, and integrity checks.
• Generated APKs pin targetSdk = 28 deliberately (via the shell template) — it is what lets them fork+exec native runtimes (Node.js, PHP, Python, Go, WordPress) from app storage, a capability URL-wrapper tools lack. The host app itself targets 35 (antivirus engines flag low-targetSdk builds as legacy malware); SELinux W^X at that level blocks host-side preview of the exec-based runtimes, which degrade with an explicit message — Node.js preview (JNI) and every exported app are unaffected. For Play Store distribution the AAB exporter separately rewrites targetSdk to the Play-required level (currently 36). WebView-only app types (Web/HTML/Frontend/Gallery/Media/MultiWeb) can also opt to raise the standalone APK's targetSdk (34/35/36) from the APK export section; server-runtime types are gated to 28 because targetSdk >= 29 enforces W^X and breaks fork+exec of the bundled binaries.
• Server runtimes and the optional GeckoView native libraries (.so + omni.ja) are downloaded on first use rather than bundled into the base APK; the GeckoView API classes come from a gradle dependency, while the heavy native artifacts are fetched on demand.
• The configuration center is WebApp (data/model/WebApp.kt) and its *Config classes — the single source of truth for all feature settings, carried through a full packaging passthrough chain into the generated APK.

Tech stack

• Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Material 3
• Koin for dependency injection
• Room 2.7.2 + KSP for persistence
• OkHttp 4.12.0 + okhttp-dnsoverhttps
• com.android.tools.build:apksig 8.3.0 for APK signing
• BouncyCastle 1.78.1 for crypto and signing
• protobuf-javalite 3.25.5 for AAB metadata
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (BYO Firebase config) for push notifications
• GeckoView as an optional browser engine (native libs downloaded on first use)
• Coil for image/video/GIF loading
• Haze for blur/glassmorphism UI
• Gson for JSON serialization (shell config pipeline)
• AndroidX Security Crypto + DataStore for stored secrets
• Vico Compose-M3 for charts
• ZXing for QR sharing
• Apache Commons Compress + xz for project import and website scraping
• Native C++ via JNI for node_launcher and go_exec_loader
• Robolectric for unit tests

See app/build.gradle.kts for the complete dependency list.

Build from source

Requirements: Android Studio Hedgehog or newer, JDK 17. The Gradle wrapper pins Gradle 9.4.1.

git clone https://github.com/shiaho777/web-to-app.git
cd web-to-app
./gradlew assembleDebug

For release builds, configure signing through local.properties and app/build.gradle.kts.

Contributing

Contact

Developed by shiaho.

License

The Unlicense.

Advanced features such as device disguise are intended for technical demonstration and must only be used with informed user consent.