At Google I/O 2017, Google announced that Android has surpassed 2 Billion monthly active users. At the same time, the company introduced Google Play Protect, keeping in mind Android users’ security concerns. Google Play Protect is the search-giant’s latest surge to safeguard Android users against malicious apps, which are quite common these days.
One less worry for over a billion users. Google Play Protect has rolled out on all #Android devices. Learn more: https://t.co/zHytZgxg9a pic.twitter.com/g41CtOVjzj
— Android (@Android) September 8, 2017
Meanwhile, Google Play Protect service isn’t an entirely new concept and was already available on your device for quite a long time. Since it was never visible to the users and was running in the background scanning your apps, therefore, a majority of users were never aware and didn’t notice that all the apps were scanned for threats and vulnerabilities.
It is an always-on service which is capable of scanning around 50 billion apps per day on almost one billion Android devices to ensure that safety and security is up-to-date on these devices. Google Play Protect will automatically start scanning your apps once they’ve been installed on your Android smartphone and warns you if there are any security issues with the apps. Moreover, Google Play Protect also includes features like browser protection, and anti-theft measures.
Google started rolling out this feature from July with Google Mobile Services 11 or higher. It is quite possible that you are already having the latest version of Google’s security suite as everything happens silently in the background. In order to check if Google Play Protect is active or not on your device, tap Settings > Google > Security > Google Play Protect. If not activated, we would advise to activate it as you get an option to enable or disable the service.
However, if you don’t see Google Play Protect on your device, there’s nothing to worry as the service has not been rolled out to all Android devices and you’ll surely get this update in the coming days.
