For safety reasons, until at nowadays apps installed from third-party sources cannot endure updated automatically over-the-air, equally Google does non recognize them equally Play Store apps as well as they create non present upwards inwards your Google job organisation human relationship app listing equally well.
Late final year, Google announced its conception to laid an automated machinery to verify the authenticity of an app past times adding a pocket-sized sum of safety metadata on piece of work past times of each Android application packet (in the APK Signing Block) distributed past times its Play Store.
This metadata is similar a digital signature that would aid your Android device to verify if the source of an app y'all have got installed from a third-party source is a Play Store app as well as have got non been tempered, for example, a virus is non attached to it.
From early on 2018, Google has already started implementing this mechanism, which doesn't need whatever activity from Android users or app developers, helping the companionship to piece of work on its smartphone users secure past times adding those peer-to-peer shared apps to a user's Play Store Library inwards gild to force regular updates.
Additionally, Google yesterday announced a novel enhancement to its conception past times adding offline back upwards for metadata verification that would allow your Android OS to decide the authenticity of "apps obtained through Play-approved distribution channels" spell the device is offline.
"One of the reasons we're doing this is to aid developers accomplish a wider audience, specially inwards countries where peer-to-peer app sharing is mutual because of costly information plans as well as express connectivity," said James Bender, Product Manager at Google Play. "This volition order people to a greater extent than confidence when using Play-approved peer-to-peer sharing apps."It should endure noted that this characteristic doesn’t protect y'all from the threat of installing apps from third-party sources; instead, it simply helps y'all have latest updates for apps if their source is Google Play Store.
Last year, equally purpose of its mission, to secure Android ecosystem, Google likewise added built-in behavior-based malware protection for Android devices, called Google Play Protect, which uses machine learning as well as app usage analysis to weed out the unsafe as well as malicious apps.
Google Play Protect non alone scans apps installed from official Play Store but likewise monitors apps that have got been installed from third-party sources.
Moreover, Play Protect at nowadays likewise back upwards offline scanning, which suggests that it volition have got attention of newly introduced metadata verification equally well.
Although Play Store itself is non completely immune to malware, users are nonetheless advised to download apps, especially published past times reputable developers, from the official app shop to minimize the jeopardy of getting their devices compromised.
