Since last June, when Google released Jelly Bean 4.1, a lot of new things have been brought in by Google. Jelly Bean 4.1 came with Project Butter, spelling an end to lagging on devices for most people. When 4.1 first released, who would have thought we would be seeing Jelly Bean 4.3 less than a year later? Android 4.3 turned out to be a mixed bag for customers, and saw many improvements, a few new features, as well as more optimizations. But people generally ignore the footnote at the bottom saying “security”.
Malware stories can be heard everywhere, but most of them occur after you have downloaded content from channels outside of the approved network. The threat of malware has pushed customers to flock toward anti-virus apps on their Android devices.
Security enhancements in Jelly Bean 4.3
Since Android 4.2, Verify Apps has been added to devices, which scans the side-loaded as well as downloaded content for malware. About 95% of Android devices currently have Verify Apps. The Google Play app scanner had also been added to Verify Apps, increasing device security.
But this is not everything. Android 4.3 devices have another security layer called as Security Enhanced Linux, or SELinux. It essentially helps in keeping the important phone parts safe, including the operating system. So, there is comprehensive security in Android devices. Over the past two years, the following security enhancements have been done by Google:
- The Google Play app scanner which scans all submitted apps for malware.
- Verify Apps has been added to devices to scan all the apps installed in the device for malware.
- Apps Ops, which allows you to control the permission of each application individually, allowing you to block some features when you have to, for instance location services for Facebook.
- SELinux, which protect the functionality of the core OS of the device.
Apart from these, you as customers can do the following for more security:
- Download only the apps that are from trusted and known sources, such as Amazon App Store and Play Store, among others.
- Apply common sense when downloading things. Some of the malware can be spotted directly and should be avoided, such as ads claiming to give you a million dollars.
So, even without an anti virus installed in your device, you have six other ways of protecting your Android device, as explained. Google is constantly working on enhancing security for its customers and more can be expected from it in coming times.
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