i sold my DJI drone recently but used their app. I couldn't tell you why they want it off the play store, but i never experienced an issue with viruses. Google play protect should scan it regardless i believe
Regardless of company size or popularity, that is sketchy. While not perfect by any means , google play affords some security scanning and privacy awareness info on apps that are published there. Others are probably right. And I bet DJI probably wanted to skip that step to trade for ease of management. But any time you install something off a non play store repo you take on a little extra risk.
You might consider buying a cheap 7" tablet on Amazon and using that for your dji. Assuming your controller can handle the size. I have an older dji and that's what I do. Nothing of importance on the tablet. I think a Lenovo 7" was like $99 when I got it.
Given the size and reputation of DJI, you shouldn't have any concerns.
I'm sorry, but i disagree with this mentality. The size of a company means nothing. We've had so many security breaches from companies large and small. Be it from malice or incompetence.
And speaking of reputation, this, this, and this doesn't really scream "good reputation" to me.
From memory there's a fee in order to publish an app the the play store so I would assume they're circumventing that by hosting the app on their own website.
You could also upload the app to virustotal and see what that says if you are concerned.