From placing an order to playing Pokemon Go, the mobile apps on the Google Play Store have leveraged our lives with limitless features. However, they have also put our security at risk. Remember, the fake WhatsApp that was downloaded by millions of people overnight and the flashlight app that was found as malware stealing users banking information by ESET?
There’s no denying to the fact that Google has been trying every possible thing to wipe out such harmful apps since past few years. And now, they have come up with a new amazing tool. On Tuesday, Google announced that they have deleted more than 7,00,000 android applications from Play Store in 2017 – all thanks to Machine Learning.
“We have been employing Machine Learning (ML) technology to recognize mobile apps with malware, unsuitable content and copied elements,” said Andrew Ahn, the Google Play Product Manager, “and are proud to share that we have removed up to 70% more apps than that in 2016”.
As per the information shared by the company, nearly 99% of the android applications with ‘abusive content’ were wiped out before they reached Android app users. The tech giant has also kicked out about 2,50,000 of copycat mobile apps from Google Play Store. In addition to this, the Google’s ML algorithm has also detected and eradicated accounts of 1,00,000 android app developers building such potentially harmful apps (PHAs).
For this successful outcome, the Google also give credit to its Google Play Protect app, which has brought down the install rates of PHAs to nearly a half. The scanning tool along with the machine learning model evaluates the content and flag inappropriate apps, enabling users to get a secure experience and app developers stay away from the deceptive activities.
Though Google is working effectively on enhancing the user experience, they still haven’t addressed various other major issues like the irregular update scenario of Android mobile apps.
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