It’s a free anti-malware app built into your phone
Malicious Android apps aren’t new, in fact the number of rogue apps have been steadily increasing over the years. Google is now taking steps to protect the phones of literally billions of Android users around the world with their new Play Protect feature for any Android device that’s connected via the Play Store.
Protect continually scans your apps for threats and keeps those apps from installing on your phone. If a rogue app does manage to find its way into your device, Protect will try to uninstall it and limit the damage that it can potentially wreak in your device.
Protect is constantly updating and is powered by Google’s machine learning algorithms so it evolves with the threat landscape. Aside from keeping malicious apps from your phone, Protect also helps you locate and wipe your phone (if necessary) if it ever gets lost.