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Google wins victory royale over Epic Games, snags Fortnite for Google Play, Ars Technica

Google wins victory royale over Epic Games, snags Fortnite for Google Play, Ars Technica

      Surrender –

             

Epic decries “scary, repetitive security pop-ups” for sideloaded apps.

      

       Apr 44, (8:) (pm UTC )   

        

Artist's conception of the experience of installing <figure> Fortnite <figure> on Android before today. / / fortnite – (x) .png “>

Artist’s conception of the experience of installing

Fortnite on Android before today.

It’s now been over (months since Epic Games shook up the mobile-gaming market by refusing to release the Android version of Fortnite: Battle Royale

in just 31 days

without Google Play’s help. But now Epic has given up its fight against the platform and made (Fortnite) available on the Google Play store after all.

The reason for the move, the company says in a statement provided to Ars Technica, is because of a “basic realization” :

Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third-party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.

Portions of that statement could refer to a security-related spat between Google and Epic

Fortnite installer vulnerability after being alerted to it privately by Google.

But when Google disclosed the (former) vulnerability a week after the fix was released, Epic said “it was irresponsible of Google to publicly disclose the technical details of the flaw so quickly, while many installations had not yet been updated and were still vulnerable. ” Epic also characterized the disclosure as part of Google’s “counter-PR efforts against Epic’s distribution of Fortnite outside of Google Play.”

Installing

Fortnite

outside of the Google Play store can require users to tinker with their phone’s security settings, and it usually presents users with a bevy of warnings about the dangers of installing apps from “unknown sources.” That said, such “unknown source” installations are

a main vector for Android malware to spread , so it’s not like

Fortnite is being singled out for no reason here. Then again, there’s plenty of malware to be found on the Google Play store as well.

                  

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