[YoshiRulz]

In this case you don't have to find and sideload an .apk though, it's available in the main F-Droid repo.

I'd argue that it would be safer than the Play Store version because F-Droid builds are at least reproducible, while it's not clear what checks are actually done by the Play Store before publishing an update. Most of what Play Protect claims to do could be from a simple malware signature check.