Abstract: Disclosed is a method for tracking usage of applications on a mobile device that includes a virtual private network (VPN) application. The VPN application includes a rule dictionary to store a rule for each application that is executable on the mobile device. A rule comprises an identifier for the application and an associated regular expression. To create a rule, a new application is installed on the mobile device and executed to create network traffic. The network traffic from the new application is inspected and a regular expression that matches the new application is created and stored in the rules dictionary. Once the rule is stored, a usage of the application can be identified based on monitoring the network traffic and searching the rule dictionary to identify a matching application. Once a matching application is found, the usage metric of the application is updated.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method for tracking usage of applications on a mobile device that includes a virtual private network (VPN) application. The VPN application includes a rule dictionary to store a rule for each application that is executable on the mobile device. A rule comprises an identifier for the application and an associated regular expression. To create a rule, a new application is installed on the mobile device and executed to create network traffic. The network traffic from the new application is inspected and a regular expression that matches the new application is created and stored in the rules dictionary. Once the rule is stored, a usage of the application can be identified based on monitoring the network traffic and searching the rule dictionary to identify a matching application. Once a matching application is found, the usage metric of the application is updated.