Google finally announced the new “Advanced Flow” feature to enable the manual installation of applications from untrusted sources on the Android system, and it will reach all phones during the coming period.
This step aims to improve the experience of installing APK files while maintaining a higher level of security, as Google explained through an explanatory video that the user will not need to re-activate this process when moving to a new phone, as the settings can be transferred automatically during the initial setup of the device.
On the other hand, Google revealed several important details, most notably that installing applications via ADB will not be affected by the 24-hour waiting period, and this period cannot be exceeded with direct commands. Also, apps cannot know if the feature is enabled because it works at the system level.
The company also explained the necessity of continuing to activate the feature to update untrusted applications, especially when using the temporary activation option for 7 days, which is reset after the end of the period. On the other hand, there is no requirement to keep the developer mode activated after completing the process, which solves the problem of some banking applications conflicting with this mode.
Despite the new answers, some questions still remain, such as the effect of factory reset or installing custom operating systems on the continued activation of the feature, which Google may clarify later.
