Google Security really praising Play Integrity API

n2gwtl

The Play Integrity API allows developers to check if their apps have been tampered with or are running in potentially compromised environments, helping them to prevent abuse like fraud, bots, cheating, and data theft. Play Integrity API and Play’s automatic protection helps developers ensure that users are using the official Play version of their app with the latest security updates. Apps using Play integrity features are seeing 80% lower usage from unverified and untrusted sources on average.
https://security.googleblog.com/2025/01/how-we-kept-google-play-android-app-ecosystem-safe-2024.html?m=1

Watermelon

n2gwtl Apps using Play integrity features are seeing 80% lower usage from unverified and untrusted sources on average.

This includes us. F**k them. I'm terrified thinking that they can just enable this crap in the Play Store page of every app by default. Imagine opening the Play Store and seeing a blank screen.

Foggy

It's happening. For the three apps I installed this week from Aurora:
com.ebay.mobile (6.195.0.3)
com.wizzair.WizzAir
energy.octopus.electricjuice.android

I just get a 'login to Play Store' page. If I try that on a profile with a Google account logged in, I get 'this app is not available for your device'. I don't get any popups that they tried to access Play Integrity, but they appear to be using something to stop me using them. I downgraded to ebay 6.192.0.2 and it worked again, so perhaps something has changed in one of Google's libraries?

Watermelon

Foggy For the three apps I installed this week from Aurora: […] I just get a 'login to Play Store' page. […] I don't get any popups that they tried to access Play Integrity

This isn't caused by Play Integrity, it's caused by the apps detecting that their APK was installed by something that's not Google Play Store. It's because you installed them from Aurora Store.

You should be aware that Aurora is insecure, and (as far as I know) doesn't give a privacy benefit over using sandboxed Google Play with a dedicated Google account created just for sandboxed Google Play.

Foggy I get 'this app is not available for your device'.

This is caused by Google Play Store and/or Google Play services using Play Integrity.