The integrated malware defense mechanism of Google has yet failed again in an Antivirus Lab Test conducted by AV-TEST, which was a rigorous real-world security test. Between January 2021 and June 2021, the play store ranked lowest amongst all the 15 security Android apps examined. 

A test comprising of 15 safety apps on Android devices reported that the system detected only two-thirds of 20,000 harmful apps. Unlike Google Play Protect, the detection rate of applications from firms such as Bitdefender, McAfee, NortonLifeLock, and Trend Micro came out to be as high as 100%. 

During Google I/O in May 2017, Google unveiled Android mobile threat prevention, which works constantly for scanning more than 100 billion apps every day. Google Play Protect is used on billions of devices ever since, and today provides integrated malware security on more than 2.5 billion Android apps. 

In 2017 Google rolled out Google Play Protect, which helped decrease a large number of vulnerability cases on Android in 2018. Nevertheless, recent studies have shown that although Google Play Protect is installed by default, several malware applications might still target consumers. 

Google Play Protect features device capabilities that help maintain security for devices and data. These on-device services include cloud-based elements that enable Google to upgrade its performance consistently. 

Whereas every program that's loaded and opened on the smartphone is continually running and screening, "the endurance test revealed that this service does not provide particularly good security: every other security app offers better protection than Google Play Protect." 

The safety apps had to uncover more than 3,000 new malware samples including 3,000 existing malware samples, each one month old, in complex testing sessions. The AV-TEST reports that only the five programs – Bitdefender, G DATA, McAfee, NortonLifeLock, and Trend Micro – were in real-time able to identify malware with 100% precision. 

In real-time testing and reference set testing, Google Play Protect could only filter 68.8% of harmful apps from 76.6%. However, Ikarus also scored better than Google Play Protect for security, the lowest-rated third-party security app. 

Google didn't perform very well in respect to inaccuracies in malicious application detection. It found 70 applications to be unsafe, with approximately 10,000 more harmless applications for random testing. 

The best approach to be safe is to have one of the Android device's best-rated third-party apps. It is not a prudent option to rely solely on the Google Play Protect, as this exhaustive test by the AV-TEST demonstrates.