Securing an operating system like Android is no small feat, especially with a store offering several million applications and a plethora of alternative stores.
The Mountain View company recently carried out a major cleaning by removing hundreds of thousands of applications considered abandoned from its platform.
A healthy decision, which does not however prevent the majority of these applications from being obtained outside the official store, the Play Store. It was even possible to redownload them if they had been present on the terminal before. A godsend for hackers who target the large number of devices running Android versions that are several years old.
Hunt for malware
Google intends to intensify its efforts with Android 14. According to the 9to5Google site, the next update will prevent the installation of applications that particularly target older versions of Android, and which are no longer updated regularly. It will also no longer be possible to load APKs directly onto the smartphone (sideloading), and stores will no longer be able to install them automatically. The goal is to gradually go back in time (and OS versions) to secure as many devices as possible in order to stop the alarming development of malicious applications.
An exit door available
If you still need to install an outdated application, it will still be possible. The note published on Android Open Source Project specifies that it will always be possible to go through the command interface, and to create an exception. A somewhat laborious process, which should prevent the majority of accidental installations.