Removal of the app from the Google Play Store – a huge change confirmed for millions of users

Google’s mission is to fill the security gap that currently separates Apple’s iPhone from its Android competition. There was a lot of talk this week about the release date of Android 15, which will enable live threat detection – Play Protect using artificial intelligence will be able to mark dangerous applications on devices in real time. Google’s other major event is the demise of the Play Store itself, and it’s now clear that the store is changing more than ever before.

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As updated policies went into effect on August 31st, raising the bar for apps accessing the Play Store, I’m looking for metrics on the scale of impact this may have. The question remains to what extent this will actually reduce the threat from trivial, poorly developed applications used as Trojans to smuggle malicious code into phones.

We’ve already seen Statista’s report that since June 2024, the number of available apps in the Play Store has dropped by almost a million apps year-over-year, although at 1.7 million titles, the attack surface remains vast as the constant game of cat and The tussle between bad actors and Google’s security team continues.

While this is noteworthy, Statista’s latest report is even more stark, showing that the number of apps made available on the Play Store each month is declining rapidly. While this shows there was a “significant decline in September compared to the previous month”, it is even more pronounced compared to a year ago – 29,000 now compared to almost 80,000 then. However, this is nothing compared to March 2019, when over 140,000 applications were released.

While this is highly appreciated, it actively removes buggy apps, raises the bar for new apps and updates, and checks. behavior of applications on devices, it is the responsibility of users to consider what applications they allow on their devices and proactively remove their own applications periodically to remove applications that they no longer use or that contain trivial bugs.

Google provides a helpful guide on the “four pillars of Android app quality” that you can use to assess what you should choose. The warning signs are obvious – poor user experience, features that don’t load, a general feeling of underdevelopment, overstretching permission requests, no truly useful or entertaining tool.

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This has all become more important at the moment as Google pushes users to stick closely to the Play Store and avoid sideloading apps more than ever before. While this approach raises mixed feelings in the Android community, which has been raised by much lower restrictions than the iPhone, not to mention recent legal challenges, there is no doubt that sideloading carries a high risk for users and their devices.