The Android 15 release will be detailed at Google I/O 2024 next month, but the new beta tells us what all Android users can expect from this year’s new releases. Android malware is a big problem that Google claims to have worked on and fixed in most cases, but the cases we encounter often suggest that the problem hasn’t been completely fixed.
Android 15 could be a step in the right direction for the company, where it looks like Android users will have the benefit of quarantining apps that your phone may perceive as dangerous.
Details of this upcoming feature have been spotted in the code strings of the latest Android 15 beta, where you can spot the Quarantine app permission toggle that will likely be part of the app settings on Android 15. It’s interesting to see Android 15 working on a feature to prevent users from accessing apps that might be malicious.
Google already has a feature that prevents apps from sending notifications and it is likely that the quarantine section could be another version of this feature to prevent you from using supposedly dangerous apps on the phone.
We still don’t know how Google is able to detect the nature of apps, and there is a good chance that some innocent apps might get trapped in this section.
That said, Google should at least notify the user about dangerous apps and give them the option to remove them from the quarantine list from the settings, which it seems to have built into the feature.
The report also makes it clear that quarantine apps are in the works, but it’s unclear whether Android 15 will see an official release, which we’ll find out about in the coming weeks during the version’s big developer preview Android 15 which will be released with the new Pixel phones later this year.
first publication: April 18, 2024, 12:08 p.m. IST