As mentioned, Advanced Protection is comprised of six categories of settings. Some of the settings found in Advanced Protection are available on their own—like Caller ID & Spam in the Google Phone app. But enabling Advanced Protection enables that and more with one big switch.

This section is all about protecting your phone if it’s lost, stolen, or confiscated. It enables three features:

• Theft Detections Lock: Locks automatically when motion indicates theft
• Offline Device Lock: Locks automatically when your device is offline
• Inactivity reboot: Restarts device if it remains locked for 3 days

This section helps protect you against malicious apps or apps that are negatively impacting your device’s performance. It enables three features:

• Google Play Protect Scans for unsafe apps and malware
• Unknown apps: Blocks installation and updates of apps from unknown sources

Memory Tagging Extension: Protects against memory corruption in supported apps.

As you have probably caught on by now, this section is all about protecting you against web-related nonsense. There are three features that get enabled:

• Android Safe Browsing: Live threat protection blocks harmful web pages
• Chrome browsing: Warns you before you visit non-HTTPS sites
• Javascript protections: Turns off some advanced capabilities to reduce risk.

Now we’re to the sections with features you probably already have enabled even without Advanced Protection. Starting with the Google Phone app, there are two features:

• Called ID & spam: Identifies business and spam numbers.
• Automatic Call Screen: Screens suspicious calls & declines spam.

For text messages, there are two features included with Google Messages:

• Spam Protection: Filters spam and warns you of scams.
• Suspicious links: Warns you about links from unknown senders.

If everything on that list sounds like something you want, it’s easy to run the gamut in one go. There may be a few inconveniences, but for most people, the security gain outweighs the occasional hassle. To enable Advanced Protection:

1. Open your phone’s Settings app
2. Navigate to the “Security & privacy” or search for “Advanced Protection”
3. Scroll down and select “Advanced Protection”
4. Toggle on “Device protection.” You’ll see a pop-up with some extra information—tap “Turn on” to continue
5. Lastly, you’ll need to restart your phone to complete the process.

That’s it! Advanced Protection will be enabled after your phone restarts. If security is one of your top priorities, there’s no better way to get as much protection as possible. On the off-chance that some of these features interfere with how you use your phone, you can also go back and disable Advanced Protection. It will take a restart to apply the change as well.