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[Help] Why do app updates have download sizes almost as large as the apps themselves? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/programming

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They seem to be too big for what devs claim to be a 'minor patch' and yet too small to suggest a complete reinstallation of the app. Is there some technical reason behind it? I would like to request an ELI5 for this.

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[–] lightsecond 18 points 1 year ago

The Google Play Store uses a technique called delta patching to calculate the diff server side and avoid transferring parts of the app that haven’t changed since your original installation.

This is understandably not perfect because they want to avoid load on their servers and also the extra processing on your device to “unpack” it. So what you have is a happy medium between sending the entire app again and sending strictly the diff.