Google Play Store brings inline app update changelog to all users

It’s taken almost a year for Google to bring the convenient inline changelogs for app updates to all its users but it’s finally here. So now, when you check the Updates tab under My apps & games you see the drop down icon right beside the Update button. When you tap on that you’ll see the “What’s new” section, which you only usually see when you’ve gone to the full app listing. This option isn’t just available for those in the Updates available section but also for the Recently updated section.

Now you no longer have to head to the app listing to see the changes to an app. One thing that can be improved, as 9to5Google points out, is that for apps that don’t provide changelogs, you’ll only see the note “Information not provided by developer.” Perhaps it would be better to not have the drop down icon show up then.

Google Play Store now shows more users what an app’s ranking is in its listings

Want to find out how popular the app you’re downloading is? Google Play Store is rolling out to more users the ability to see how popular an app is. Right below the Install/Uninstall and Open buttons you’ll see what the rank of a particular app is. Perhaps this might sway your decision whether you wanted to download a specific app or not. Google was seen testing this feature out last fall but it looks like it’s being released to more users now.

Source: Android Police

Google took down over 700,000 malicious Android apps in 2017

There are over 3,500,000 “approved” applications in the Google Play Store but not all of these are useful or fun, a bunch of them are designed to wreak havoc on users lives and that’s where Google has been hard at work to take these bad apps out. The company recently announced it has taken down over 700,000 apps from the Play Store, which is a 70 percent increase from the total removals they’ve done in 2016. “Not only did we remove more bad apps, we were able to identify and action against them earlier,” Google Play product manager Andrew Ahn wrote in a blog post. “99 percent of apps with abusive contents were identified and rejected before anyone could install them.”

Google claims they’re able to do this with the company’s “new machine learning models and techniques.” It made it easier for them to detect the bad apps as well as any of the copycat apps that try to deceive users. Google says they’ve taken down a quarter of a million of these impersonating apps in 2017. They’ve also kept “tens of thousands” of apps with inappropriate content (those that have pornography, hate, illegal activities, and extreme violence) out of the app store. Machine learning has helped the human reviewers make sure these apps and developers were kept away from the Play Store. They’re also working on keeping Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs) out of the Store, even though these are as Ahn says “small in volume.” Of course, they aren’t 100% successful and have had a few bad apps slip into its system but Google promises they’re working to improve their methods and machine learning models so that they keep these apps out.

Source: The Verge + Inquirer.net

Google takes down gaming apps found with pornographic malware

Over 60 games in the Google Play Store, many seemingly targeted towards children, have been found to contain malware that has pornographic ads. Researchers from security firm Check Point discovered the malware called AdultSwine and have found them in apps that have already been downloaded over three million times. Some of the titles include Mcqueen Car Racing Game, Subway Banana Run Surf, and Paw Puppy Run Subway Surf. According to Check Point, Google took action hours after they were informed of the issue.

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