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Abstract
- Google stopped 2.28 million privacy-violating apps and banned 333,000 malicious developer accounts in 2023.
- SAFE rules guarantee consumer security by impartial safety evaluations for VPN apps and enhanced SDK privateness.
- Play Shield detected 5 million new malicious apps final yr, whereas Google eliminated 1.5 million apps not concentrating on the most recent APIs.
The Google Play Retailer has lengthy been the bastion for protected and worry-free app downloads, however rather a lot goes into stopping you from unintentionally downloading spurious cloned variations of a few of our favourite apps. Whereas Google has been embroiled in its justifiable share of controversy surrounding Play Retailer insurance policies and their impression on app builders, the typical Android consumer’s expertise is in the end reliant on the defensive protocols in place to take away malicious apps and builders from the Play Retailer.
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Google simply printed its annual report explaining how publishing malicious apps turned more durable in 2023. Final yr’s report bragged about efficiently defending Android’s crown jewel from 1.43 million apps, however this yr’s report claims a whopping 2.28 million privacy-violating apps had been stopped lifeless of their tracks and 333,000 probably malicious developer accounts had been banned for dealing with malware or repeatedly violating the shop’s insurance policies. Moreover, over 200,000 app submissions had been rejected to make sure they used delicate permissions like SMS and background location entry correctly.
What it takes to maintain customers SAFE
Supply:Google
Google explains that its SAFE rules preserve customers sheltered from the perils of unsecured app set up. The acronym stands for:
- Safeguard our customers
- Advocate for developer safety
- Foster accountable innovation
- Evolve platform defenses
For customers, these rules present up as badges for issues like VPN apps, which have cleared impartial safety evaluations vetted by the App Protection Alliance created by the most important names in tech — Google, Microsoft, and Meta.
In a extra developer-facing change steered by the SAFE rules, Google boasts it enhanced the privateness of over 31 SDKs, which assist apps interface with the Android OS and machine {hardware}. The adjustments make 790,000+ apps safer for customers such as you and me, whereas the corporate’s new and expanded Google Play SDK Index now advantages over 6 million Android ecosystem apps. Furthermore, to make sure Android customers get probably the most out of safety patches within the OS updates they obtain, Google eliminated 1.5 million apps from the Play Retailer simply because they don’t goal the most recent APIs similar to the most recent Android model.
Play insurance policies additionally replicate Google’s new developer onboarding verification and testing necessities earlier than impartial builders can publish apps on the shop. If the app in query allows account creation, Google additionally mandates that devs give customers an choice to delete mentioned accounts inside the app and on-line.
Even if you happen to choose sideloading apps, Google has enhanced Play Shield with real-time code-level scanning to shortly detect malicious apps. Each app submitted to Google for evaluation additional trains the corporate’s ML algorithms to guard customers sooner or later. This yr, Play Shield fended off over 5 million new apps which aren’t on the Play Retailer.
Google clearly takes consumer account safety severely, and we hope it takes equal care to forestall unintended exclusion of well-meaning apps and builders from the Play Retailer. As customers, if we imagine Google is erring on the aspect of warning, we all the time have the choice of sideloading apps anyway.
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