hi, I'm trying to build a custom im like app, where the app needs to communicate with a server and exchange data, though these exchanges are very infrequent and only pass a little bit of information back and forth.

What would be the preferred method of communication? sockets / http ?

Also what options do I have for insuring that the request is actually from an android user?

Thanks in advanced =D.

Hi
Well, I think the easiest way to implement is with http. If you need high performance, implementing it with sockets has less overhead I think. But if data exchange is infrequent, I think http is the best choice.

About the authentication thing I don't know.

Cheers