In the last four years, the number of applications on the Google play store reduced from 3.6 million to 2,591,578, representing 28 percent drop by March this year.
According to tradingplatforms analysis, which presented data showing that the store’s app numbers had fallen by a million, the decline is due to Google’s periodic purges of apps violating its terms of service. Tradingplatforms noted that some of the apps were malicious intruding into users’ privacy and compromising their security.
Commenting on the development, tradingplatforms.com’s Edith Reads said, “Google owes its customers the duty to protect. Its Play Store is teeming with apps that could interfere with the proper functioning of users’ devices. Some could even jeopardize the security of users who download them. This reality makes such cleanups inevitable.”
Google Play’s almost 2.6M Android apps listing makes it the largest app store in listing terms, followed by Apple App Store with 2.3 M applications for devices running on the iOS technology. Amazon App store supplies its customers with about 500K android apps. Its best-sellers are in utilities, gaming, and education. The Chinese app market is bursting with third-party Android stores, which include Tencent’s app store hosting nearly 44K apps.
Protecting users
Google sets standards that developers wishing to list their apps on its store must adhere to. These include their commitment to adhering to its user data policies. Those policies stress transparency in how those apps interact with users’ data. The threshold is higher for any apps handling sensitive and confidential information.
The firm uses a two-pronged approach to ensure compliance with its listing terms. Beginning in 2015, it uses a combination of human reviewers and AI tools to flag malicious or non-compliant apps. It then bans any apps that are in serious violation of its terms.
The apps store comes with the Google Play Protect feature. This software scans all apps for threats alerting Google’s engineers to step in if needs be. It also follows a peer grouping policy. Here it groups and compares attributes of apps with similar attributes for easy monitoring.