Your Android phone will soon warn you about that sketchy app sneakily changing icons

Joe Hindy / Android Authority TL;DR Google Play Protect will soon detect when an app changes its icon, and alert users to this behavior. Malicious apps sometimes change their app icon to evade removal, so this should help in a big way. Play Protect is also gaining improved on-device detection of malware. Google Play Protect is one of the first lines of defense against malicious apps on your Android phone. Google recently beefed up this service with real-time scanning protection, and the company has now announced more additions. Google confirmed that Play Protect’s live threat detection feature can now detect when an app changes its icon, subsequently alerting users about this behavior. Malicious app developers sometimes change their app icons to make it more difficult for users to remove them. So this will be another welcome layer of defense against sketchy apps. Google says this new capability will be available in the coming months on the Pixel 6 series and newer and a “selecti ... Read full article.