Android users need to uninstall these apps ASAP as they are a security risk
Android users need to uninstall these apps ASAP as they are a security risk
https://www.phonearena.com/news/android-users-need-to-uninstall-these-risky-apps-now_id181042
Publish Date: 2026-06-11 19:39:00
Source Domain: www.phonearena.com
When it comes to older apps that you don’t use anymore, do you uninstall them from your phones or do you leave them installed on the off chance that they might come in handy one day? In some cases, the developers of these apps might have dropped support for them, and Google might have removed these titles from the Play Store. If you weren’t informed about any of these actions, you could end up with these apps and their icons remaining on your device, creating a security risk.
Google will soon inform Android users when an app they installed has lost developer support
Currently, Android users are only warned via Play Protect when a serious security threat forces Google to remove an app from the Play Store or to label it a “potentially harmful app.” When an app is removed from the Android app storefront by a developer, no warning or notification is issued.
Google Play Protect scans your apps every day and also scans your device when you install a new app via the Play Store or by sideloading it.
The hidden strings of code all have something in common
The only way you might find out whether an app you have installed has been delisted from the Play Store would be if you read about it in PhoneArena or tried to install it on a new phone. But as noted earlier in this article, this might be about to change.
The strings of code that were found in the latest version of the Play Store say:
- webp was removed from Google Play and will no longer receive updates.
- webp and %2$d other apps were removed from Google Play and will no longer receive updates.
- webp and type=”image/webp” were removed from Google Play and will no longer receive updates.
It seems pretty obvious that Google plans to inform Android users when apps installed on an Android user’s phone have been removed from the Play Store. Based on the strings of code, it would seem that the main point of these alerts is to inform Android users that apps that they had downloaded on…
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