Google’s mission to make Android more like iPhone on the security and privacy front continues. Android 15 promises to use on-device AI to alert users to malicious app activity in real time. And while sideloading’s days aren’t over just yet, Google’s Play Store defenses have expanded to protect even that Wild West as best it can. And all this is just precursor to the biggest change of all: Google’s headline-grabbing mass deletion of low-quality Play Store apps starts August 31, five weeks from now.
The latest Play Store update is a welcome recognition of these security improvements, with Google confirming by way of its Chrome team that users with Play Store’s Play Protect enabled will no longer see “file might be harmful” warnings when using Chrome to download APKs from third-party stores. If Play Protect is not enabled, then users will still see the warnings in Chrome and a warning to enable Play Protect.
As Android Authority reports, “[Chrome] will soon use the presence of Google Play Protect to decide whether to show the alert… While Play Protect initially only scanned new applications that were either uploaded to Google Play by developers themselves or by users when they first sideloaded them, it’s recently been upgraded to perform some app scans on-device in real-time and will soon do even deeper scans using on-device AI. Given these improvements to Play Protect, it’s no surprise that the Chrome team now sees the ‘file might be harmful’ warning as unnecessary.”
Google Play protect isn’t a catch-all, which is why there’s still such a high number of malicious apps making their way onto the store. But once malware is identified, it can look for the same again—and again and again. This should tilt the game of cat and mouse in Google’s favor, albeit it’s proving harder than expected. But live monitoring for suspicious app behaviors, including permissions, will be a major step forward.
The real focus, though, is pushing users to view Play Store as their one-stop-shop for apps—and more, per recent updates. Samsung has just upped its own device default restrictions to steer users away from third-party stores or direct downloads, and Google clearly intends to build a better wall around Play Store this year.
According to Android Authority, the first part of this change to go live is the warning to enable Play Protect if disabled; Google says the removal of the harmful file warning will come later, but that it is ‘still likely to ship it in the near term’.”
The huge decision to delete the many thousands of apps deemed low-quality is more about security and privacy than anything else. It’s this type of vacuous, pointless app that either hides malware or is part of an attack chain that preps a device for malware from a different source, thus bypassing some of these protections.
Google says that apps that will be marked for deletion include those “that are static without app-specific functionalities, for example, text only or PDF file apps, apps with very little content that do not provide an engaging user experience, for example, single wallpaper apps, and apps that are designed to do nothing or have no function. This will have a huge impact on Play Store, and users should be prepared.
And while many longstanding Android users don’t like the implication that Google is moving its OS in Apple’s direction, the reality is that Apple users are substantially better protected against malware than those on Android. Google is playing catch-up.
The days of Android’s Wild West really do seem long gone.
