You could soon temporarily pause Play Protect to sideload apps

Android OS is popular among users who often sideload apps from pretty much anywhere on the web. All it requires is disabling the Play Protect feature to avoid installation blockage of third-party apps. Now, Google is reportedly working on a new security feature that will allow Play Store users to temporarily pause Play Protect instead of disabling it.

Google is testing a new feature that will allow to pause Play Protect for a day instead of disabling it

As you may know, Play Protect performs all the safety checks to ensure the apps downloaded from the Google Play Store is safe to use. While having the option to disable Play Protect is handy, it’s important to re-enable Google Play Protect afterward. Currently, when you disable Google Play Protect, the system doesn’t re-enable it automatically. You are required to enable it from your end.

However, failing to do so might be harmful to you. If you end up getting tricked into installing malicious apps in the future, it could turn into a nightmare. Google is seemingly aware of this issue and is working on a new feature.

Today, folks over at Android Authority shared these findings via an APK teardown report of the Google Play Store. While investigating the Google Play Store’s app version 43.4.23-31, the publication found a new feature that allows users to temporarily pause Google Play Protect instead of disabling it altogether.

The security feature might be widely available soon

With this feature in place, you can pause the Play Protect for the day when you want to sideload an app. The best part is that the new security feature will re-enable Play Protect automatically the next day to ensure your device isn’t vulnerable to any malicious apps.

As you can see in the screenshot below, there’s a new setting and a prompt to temporarily pause Play Protect. The accompanied prompt also warns users that “requests to pause or turn off play protect may be a scam.” It’s possible that Google could soon roll out this feature, but when exactly we don’t know yet.