# Hour 5: Getting the mobile app content | Yazin Alirhayim

_It's been a month since I last did anything about this series. I'm hoping I can be more consistent this time around!_

In [my last post](https://yaz.in/gaza-hour-4), I was trying to figure out how to get the content from the mobile app.

I had a rough idea of how i'd do that, and with any luck, i'll get it done this time around!

## [](https://yaz.in/gaza-hour-5#first-attempt-install-on-mac-and-reverse-engineer-it)First attempt: install on Mac & reverse engineer it

Here's what I'll try to do:

1.  Install the app on my Mac
2.  Setup a proxy to intercept the traffic
3.  Parse the links requested to the app, and we're done!

However, I wasn't able to get very far -- since the app didn't run on the Mac:

![App not running on Mac](https://yaz.in/gaza-5-nothing.png)

## [](https://yaz.in/gaza-hour-5#second-attempt-chrome-remote-debug)Second attempt: Chrome remote debug

I just realized Chrome [had a feature which allows you to debug Chrome instances inside mobile apps](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/remote-debugging). And I'm wondering if I can just run the app on my mobile and then inspect the Chrome instance assuming it is using a Chrome instance on my device using the Chrome browser on my Mac.

Steps:

1.  Enable "Developer options" on your Android
2.  Turn on "USB debugging"
3.  Go to `chrome://inspect/#devices`
4.  Hope that you can see the app.

Unfortunately for me, it didn't show up. I could see my Chrome browser session and the tabs, but not the articles loaded through the app.

Hmm...

## [](https://yaz.in/gaza-hour-5#third-attempt-run-on-device-emulator)Third attempt: run on device emulator

Okay so maybe the Mac thing was a new feature and it's not fully supported by this app so instead what I'm going to do is try to run it on the iOS simulator.

I [found a guide that allows Proxyman to intercept traffic from an iOS simulator](https://proxyman.com/ios-simulator) without any special configuration. That sounded perfect!

Let's try it:

![Setup proxyman](https://yaz.in/gaza-hour-5-proxyman-setup.png)

Didn't work! Kept getting a handshake error.

Hmm...

## [](https://yaz.in/gaza-hour-5#fourth-attempt-installing-proxyman-on-physical-device-and-setting-up-a-vpn)Fourth attempt: installing Proxyman on physical device and setting up a VPN

Fired up an old iPhone 7 that I had and downloaded Proxyman. Unfortunately, turns out it needs iOS 16+ to run.

Ukh...

## [](https://yaz.in/gaza-hour-5#fifth-attempt-android)Fifth attempt: Android

To be continued... Ran out of my 1 hour!