Huawei phones are saying that the Google app is a virus

Ben Schoon | Oct 30 2023 - 7:57 am PT

Huawei phones have been unable to officially offer Google apps for the past few years, but now customers who have manually installed the official Google app on their devices are being warned that the app is a virus.

As highlighted by Stack Diary and shown throughout several threads on Reddit as well as on Google’s forums, Huawei smartphones are currently telling users that the Google app, if it is installed, is actually a virus. Huawei marks the app as a “TrojanSMS-PA” virus, saying that the app “is infected.” The warning occasionally pops up, giving the user a warning that the app “poses a high risk.”

Huawei’s “Phone Manager” software tells users that they should uninstall the Google app “immediately” because it was detected as sending SMS “privately.” The notice (pictured below) explains:

This app was detected sending SMS privately, enticing users to pay with adult content, downloading/installing apps privately, or stealing private information, which may cause property damage and privacy leakage. We recommend uninstalling it immediately.

Why has this happened? Well, it’s nothing to really worry about. The official Google app is, of course, not a virus.

The most likely explanation here is that an issue in Huawei’s software has incorrectly identified the Google app as a trojan. Similar behavior has actually happened with Google’s version of this warning system, Play Protect. Just this month, Samsung users were alerted by Play Protect that system apps including Samsung Wallet and Samsung Messages were dangerous and should be uninstalled, but it was confirmed that this was an error on Google’s end.

Google has yet to offer any insight on the situation, not that it’s expected given Google apps are not officially available on Huawei devices.

Some users have noticed that clearing the cache of the “Phone Manager” app seems to fix the problem.