Google’s Advanced Protection Program is intended for often-attacked accounts like journalists, activists, political campaigns and such but it’s free and available for anyone. There are many security benefits but here are some reasons I’ve found that you may not want to enable it.
- Play Store Only
- Android apps may only be installed from Google Play on the pretext that Play has anti-malware features. No third-party app stores or direct APK installs are possible.
- Third Party Apps Are Blocked
- Data access from third party apps, in particular IMAP mail clients, is blocked on security grounds. Only Gmail web and official phone apps are allowed.
- Google Takeout is Delayed
- Google Takeouts are artificially delayed by days or weeks, ostensibly to allow you to cancel them if initiated by somebody else somehow.
So you cannot:
- avoid the awful official YouTube app by using NewPipe
- avoid the awful Gmail web client or official Gmail Android app by using K-9, Thunderbird, Apple Mail or Outlook (the FAQ claims that Apple Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird are allowed, but I couldn’t get Thunderbird to work.)
- install Android apps from F-Droid or Aurora
- export data from Google quickly