How can I find the ad library used by an android application

Question

I have downloaded the source codes of open source android apps. I have around 2000 of them. I wish to do an analysis on ad libraries used by android apps. I have 2 questions,

1. How can I find whether an app uses ad library
2. If it uses, how can I find the name of the ad library (eg. AdMob, InMobi etc.)

Answer 1

Instead of going through the source code of each open-source app and looking for relevant JARs, an easier way to go about this is to use this Android app called Addons Detector. The app will analyse all the add-ons you have in each installed app. It works really well in detecting which ad network your apps are using.

Google Play link.

EDIT: An other way to approach this is to use a software like Charles (charlesproxy.com). This essentially analyses all the HTTP traffic on your network. So you can run the app and then monitor the HTTP packets on Charles. This way you will be able to detect the ad-networks that are being used. It might be pain-staking but it will definitely work.

Answer 2

Analyze libs folder for files matching InMobi*.jar, GoogleAdMob*.jar, etc.

Answer 3

This paper gives a list of major ad libraries, which may be helpful in setting up your DB: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.0857.pdf