Sideloading block in Android with the help of Google Play Integrity API which provides access to the apps to easily detect when they are not installed from the Google Play store.
What is the need of blocking sideloading?
Sideloading is the process of downloading or installing apps from other source and not from Google Play store. It shows that your account is ‘unlicensed’ which means that you have not installed or bought the app from Google Play.
There are so many demerits of sideloading. It is potentially risky and fraudulent for user’s device. Also, apps that are sideloaded do not contribute to the developer’s Play store metrics. Because of missing assets or code, sideloaded apps can also get crashed, or because of installing wrong version of apps might face lack of features. Other than this, many more reasons are there to block sideloading.
So, now work of developers get easier those who want to stop you or sideloading block in Android with the help of ‘Google Play integrity API.
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Benefits of Google Play integrity API?
This API is a remediation feature which helps to identify that whether the server request is coming from genuine app binary or not and also makes it easy for apps to offload the determination of whether the device and its software environment are “genuine. It enables Google Play Protect when detects that the app is running in an untrustworthy software environment.
It works like the SafetyNet Attestation and is successor to SafetyNet Attestation with more features for developers to easily block sideloaded apps.
When some apps are launched and block access depending on what the verdict is, they call for Play Integrity API, while some apps call API when any sensitive actions are performed for warning users not to proceed.
With the latest update to the API, it can be easily determine by the apps that whether the person who installed the app is “genuine”.
How will Google Play integrity API help to block sideloading?
In developer conference, it was introduced by the Google that the app will show some “remediation” dialogs to fix issue or problems with an integrity verdict. For example-
appLicensingVerdict returns Unlicensed = user account is unlicensed
Get_LICENSED remediation dialog = get app from the Play Store.
Users get to see the option “get this app from Play” to continue installing and option to close the dialog, but you cannot bypass it entirely.
By tapping “get app,” the app’s Play Store landing page is opened where an “install from Play” button is shown in place of the usual “install” button. Tapping the button shows a dialog that asks you whether you want to “install this app from Play.” By proceeding, the “unrecognized” version of the app will be removed along with any associated data.
‘Tesco’ , ‘BeyBlade x apps both started using this feature, while the popular game Diablo Immortal seems to be using something similar to this feature.
So, it can be said that Play Integrity will continue to be adopted by more and more apps. It’s already used by numerous popular apps on Google Play, including Stripe, Uber, and TikTok, and we’re likely to see more adopt it as time goes on.
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