Think of app quarantine as a middle ground between allowing a potentially harmful app to run free and completely removing it from your device. If a piece of software exhibits suspicious behavior, Android 15 may automatically place it into quarantine. This effectively isolates the app, preventing it from causing harm while you investigate or wait for an official verdict from Play Protect.
While in quarantine, the app will still appear on your home screen and in your settings. But a quarantined app is heavily restricted from doing things like showing notifications, running any background activity, ringing your device, or interacting with other system processes.
The groundwork for app quarantine appeared in late 2022, within a developer build of Android 14. However, there’s no guarantee it will arrive with Android 15, or when a wider rollout might happen. We’ll need to wait and see if Google Play Store starts utilizing these new permissions.
Implementing this app quarantine sounds like a smart move for user security. It offers a flexible solution to deal with apps that might not be outright malicious but exhibit questionable behavior. Of course, Google Play Protect has other areas for improvement, and there’s always more work to be done in keeping Android devices safe.
