New Google Play Store update now available
Android 15 is now on Pixel phones, but one of its best new features has been missing until now. Google is working to close the security and privacy gap between Android and iPhone, and this could be one of the biggest moves to change things for millions of users.
When Android 15 was tracked earlier this year, live threat detection was one of the standouts. The idea is that by using on-device AI, users will be alerted in real-time if an app exhibits potentially malicious behavior before Play Protect flags it outright.
When announcing the update, Google explained that Live Threat Detection “analyzes additional behavioral signals related to the use of sensitive permissions and interactions with other apps and services.” If suspicious behavior is discovered, Google Play Protect sends the app to Google for additional review and can warn users or disable the app if malicious behavior is observed. Masu. ”
Now it’s here. “Live threat detection with real-time alerts from Google Play Protect is now available on Pixel 6 and newer devices, and will be available to other phone manufacturers in the coming months,” Google said in a blog post Wednesday. he admitted.
Introducing new live threat detection features in Android 15
This will be released in stages, as new technology is essentially trained on real data and real app behavior. Obviously, the more malicious apps that are intercepted, the more powerful the AI will be. Google says, “At the start, live threat detection will focus on stalkerware, which is code that may collect personal or sensitive data for surveillance purposes without a user’s consent, and in the future, live threat detection will We plan to consider expanding detection to other types of harmful apps.”
It was also announced that this new feature will work privately without any user data leaving the device. “All of this protection happens on your device in a privacy-preserving way through the Private Compute Core, which protects you without collecting any data.” Users will be issued a broader warning. You will be able to remove apps that misbehave before.
Google has been fighting not only malicious apps in the Play Store, but also malicious apps sideloaded from third-party stores or installed directly from the web. Play Protect currently works with all apps regardless of source, but Google is directing users to the official store more than before. Google is also reducing the number of apps that appear on the Play Store in the first place, clearly raising the bar for quality and eliminating many high-risk apps in the process.
New fraud detection in Android 15
Live threat detection isn’t the only new Android 15 released this week. Google also announced the somewhat controversial Scam Call Detection. It uses “powerful on-device AI to notify you of potential fraudulent calls in real-time by detecting conversational patterns commonly associated with fraud.” If a person claims to be from your bank and requests an urgent transfer of funds due to a suspected account compromise, Fraud Detection processes the call and determines if it is likely to be spam. and provide an audio and message if it is spam. Tactile alert and visual warning that the call may be a scam. ” which also leverages on-device AI to deliver new levels of security and privacy.
Scam call detection will also roll out first to Pixels, specifically “English-speaking Phone by Google public beta users in the US with Pixel 6 and newer devices.”
Samsung Galaxy owners may be watching these new updates with envy. Headlines have been all over the place this week speculating about when the company will release its own Android 15 beta, but there’s no chance of a stable version being released before next year and the launch of the S25 series. Given that Google controls both the hardware and software, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Samsung to compete with Pixel in the pace and scale of updates, and we’ll see more of this in the coming months. will be noticed with interest.
