None of the solutions mentioned here are working as of Feb 2017.

So I created my own simple solution which I will document below.

_TL;DR: use AppBrain's API._

## The long answer

1. Create a folder called `appSearch`, for example.

1. Sign up for an account on AppBrain. Then go to your [dev dashboard](https://developers.appbrain.com/dev_dashboard). It will prompt you to enable the Developer option for your account.

2. Navigate to the API access page.

3. Copy the authentication field, which looks like `di=xxxx&t=zzzzz` and store the values into a file called `appBrain.json` in the following format:

    { "DI" : "xxxx", "TOKEN" : "yyyy" }

4. Now download [filter.js](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/hrj/62fae20c99ad07bfc2480ce2e47a9bf1/raw/d45d1ba90a124ec7558cbee3c41ec162bb8f9e58/filter.js) and save it to the same ('appSearch') folder.

5. Install Java 8+

6. Run the following command: `jjs -scripting filter.js -- keyword`, where keyword can be any search term.

7. You should see a list of 50 apps that match your search term and are sorted by the number of permissions, with a link to their play store page.

8. The free tier allows limited number of queries per day. Still, you will be able to make about 30 searches per day, which is enough for personal use.