Google’s mission to make Android more like iPhone continues, at least when it comes to security and privacy, narrowing the gap. Android 15 moves the bar significantly, with a raft of updates including AI-based live detection of malicious apps and even cellular network defense. But there are also huge changes coming to Play Store.

Google's building a new way to filter the apps you see in the Play Store, and we've got some questions about what it's for.

Google has released the list of best apps and games from Google Play this year, with party planning app Partiful named Play’s Best App, while the “AFK Journey” fantasy RPG won Best Game of the year. Streaming library Max was named the Best multi-device app as it let viewers resume watching content across devices. These were the U.S.-based winners.

A new leak suggests that 2.5 billion Google Play Store users could soon see apps disappear with the introduction of a new filter. But the unanswered question is why?

The Play Store hosts millions of apps, and it looks like Google is working on a way to warn users about potentially low-quality apps.

The Google Play Store is working on a new filter in Settings to avoid certain app types in recommendations and searches. There's some ambiguity about what this filter is supposed to do, with Google's support page document not live yet.

The Play Store app purge focuses on lower-quality, likely higher-risk apps, most of which are free but which open users to malware or fraudulent ads or subs. And now, even when apps have not yet been flagged by Google,