A quote from Google System Updates for September 2023 - FIDO2 support and more
Google Play Store
[3] Available through Google Play Store v37.5 updated on 09/11/2023
- [Phone] Google Play Protect install-time protection now performs real-time threat detection for new apps. [3]
Article: Google Play Protect is upping its game by scanning apps in real-timeOf course, outside of this new layer of protection, Play Protect will continue to check apps uploaded to the Play Store for any malicious code. This is no small feat either since, according to a report from 2020, Google scans over 50 billion apps per day and in that same year stopped 790,000 dangerous apps from publishing on the Play Store.
Mishaal Rahman, a well-known Android expert and researcher, pointed out on Twitter that Google Play asks you to submit a form to Google for analysis when you sideload an app that hasn’t been checked over by Play Protect, which is most likely used to gather data to facilitate this new real-time scanning feature.
However, real-time app scanning hasn’t been rolled out to all users just yet, but since it’s a part of the September 2023 changelog then it should be publicly available by the end of the month. The Play Protect changes will be available after update 37.5 and the current version is 37.4.