{"id":477581,"date":"2023-01-25T08:43:45","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T06:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=477581"},"modified":"2023-01-25T08:45:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T06:45:58","slug":"android-14-will-block-sideloading-old-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/477581-android-14-will-block-sideloading-old-apps.html","title":{"rendered":"Android 14 will block side-loading old apps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Google&#8217;s next mobile operating system (OS), Android 14, will block the side-loading of apps targeting older versions of the software to prevent the spread of malware, 9to5Google <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2023\/01\/23\/android-14-block-install-outdated-apps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reports<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The company recently updated the guidelines for the Google Play Store, requiring newly listed apps to be compatible with Android 12 at a minimum.<\/p>\n<p>There is a way around this. Developers that create apps for older versions of Android can get users to side-load APK files manually.<\/p>\n<p>However, a newly posted code change has revealed that Android 14&#8217;s API requirements could be much stricter and block the installation of older apps entirely.<\/p>\n<p>This includes blocking the side-loading of some APK files and installing those same apps through various app stores.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If the minimum installable SDK version enforcement is enabled, block the install of apps using a lower target SDK version than required,&#8221; the changes read.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This helps improve security and privacy as malware can target older SDK versions to avoid enforcement of new API behaviour.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It should be noted that Google plans to increase the threshold to Android 6.0 over time. The company added that it has a mechanism to &#8220;progressively ramp [it] up&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>However, it will likely be up to individual device manufacturers to decide on a threshold for outdated apps.<\/p>\n<p>Google hopes that blocking outdated apps will help restrict the spread of malware on Android.<\/p>\n<p>9to5Google noted that installing outdated apps on Android devices will still be possible.<\/p>\n<p>However, this will require users to process the installation through a command shell. The steps required to get this right will help ensure that only people who better understand the risks can side-load older apps.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/477449-facebook-adding-customisation-to-encrypted-messenger-chats.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Facebook adding customisation to encrypted Messenger chats<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A newly posted code change has revealed that Android 14&#8217;s API requirements could block the installation and side-loading of older apps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":477585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,17934],"tags":[83875,59094,167,10570],"class_list":["post-477581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","category-smartphones","tag-android-14","tag-apk","tag-google","tag-side-loading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477589,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477581\/revisions\/477589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}