With claims that sideloaded apps are 50 times more likely to contain malware, Google is tightening restrictions for ...

Google used to do very little curation of the Play Store (or Android Market, if you go back far enough), but it has long ...

Currently, developers who create “sideloaded” Android apps are exempt from Google’s verification requirements.

Google wants to make sideloading safer on Android by verifiying the identities of developers who distribute apps outside the Play Store.

Google will be starting an early access program for verification in October 2025, where participants can join a community ...

More than 50 times more malware came through internet-sideloaded sources compared with Google Play.” That sober statistic, based on Google’s own telemetry, supports a broad policy change that will ...