Stronger security and privacy is coming to Android, but will it come in time?

If you use an Android phone, your device could be in line to get a privacy upgrade. Google’s bringing a new web standard to its mobile operating system to protect your web traffic from potential spies. However, only a small number of devices will have access to it at launch, and there is a caveat that could slow down the rollout indefinitely.

Unless you have a trusted VPN installed on your device, your web traffic is openly visible to a number of third-party groups, namely your internet service provider and your network administrator (if you’re using a public network). On top of that, every website you visit can see your IP address, device type, browser type, and more.

Google’s new tools are meant to make your phone and your apps safer, more secure, and private.

Even as websites have adopted HTTPS encryption to protect the data exchanged within your favorite sites, your ISP still knows every online spot you visit in a given day, month, or year. This allows outside sources to track your activity, both for innocuous and nefarious reasons.

Google’s new privacy upgrade aims to change that.

The new standard, dubbed Encrypted Client Hello, hides your web traffic from outside sources by encrypting destination websites, thus obscuring your browsing habits and making them harder to track. It’s not just the web either. ECH can also protect web traffic within your favorite apps. Furthermore, apps will be subject to Local Network Protection, another new feature that blocks the apps on your phone from scanning your Wi-Fi network for other connected devices without your permission.

Together, Google’s new tools are meant to make your phone and your apps safer, more secure, and private, but how do you enable it? To get ECH up and running on your Android phone, there are several things you’ll need before you’re protected.

First, ECH is only available on devices that run Android 17, which is a relatively small pool of candidates at the time this was published. Users that own a Google Pixel 6 and newer, or a Samsung Galaxy S23 and newer, either already have Android 17 or will get access very soon. To check the Android version on your device, open the Settings app, find the “About phone” section, and you’ll see your Android version under “device details” on Pixel or “Software information” on Galaxy.

RELATED: New malware is crippling Android phones, but not yours if you do this

Jutharat Pinpan/Getty Images

Second – and this one is the big caveat – many of those same groups that can currently track your web activity have to enable ECH before it will work. That means websites, app developers, and internet service providers all have to implement ECH, otherwise your traffic will remain visible, just as it is today. Even worse, these same groups can actively opt out of supporting ECH, rendering the new standard completely useless.

For what it’s worth, Google claims that it’s lobbying “industry leaders, service providers, and app developers to accelerate ECH adoption,” but it faces a difficult road ahead. Since the standard isn’t mandatory, plenty of groups will likely ignore Google’s attempts to make ECH a mainstream part of Android. In truth, the groups that implement it will be the ones that had no interest in tracking users’ browser activity in the first place, while the groups that are monitoring activity will simply ignore ECH altogether.

In this way, ECH is unlikely to offer much privacy to users in the Android ecosystem, at least not anytime soon. If you really want to protect your internet traffic, you’re better off with a trusted VPN instead.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!