Android Phones: WATCH OUT FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE

Android phones from all over the world they are being targeted by a last minute announcement for people using them, and this is because an extremely important change is about to take place and many people will be affected. Specifically, those with older-generation Android phones – that is, any model that doesn’t have Android 7.1.1 installed – will no longer be able to access secure websites with HTTPS certificates starting in 2021, according to Let’s Encrypt.

Android phones that have a version older than Android 7.1.1 will be released without the ability to access these websites because Let’s Encrypt, and probably other companies, will block the ability to pre-sign certificates for them. Everything will happen on January 11, 2021, when the default signing of certificates will be stopped and from September 1 it will be completely blocked for those phone models.

Android Phones: WATCH OUT FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE

Android phones those who use Firefox as their main browser will still be able to surf the Internet without problems thanks to it, but they will not be able to use applications that access data from secure servers. The biggest problem is that 33.8% of users who use Android phones have an operating system version older than Android 7.1.1, and here we are talking about hundreds of millions of people around the world.

“The DST Root X3 root certificate we relied on to leave the field will expire on September 1, 2021. Fortunately, we are ready to stand alone and rely only on our root certificate. However, this introduces some compatibility issues. Some software programs that haven’t been updated since 2016 (roughly when our root was accepted for many root programs) still don’t trust our root certificate, ISRG Root X1. Specifically, it includes Android versions older than 7.1 .1. This means that those older versions of Android will no longer trust the certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt. Currently, 66.2% of Android devices are running version 7.1 or later. The remaining 33.8% of Android devices will start to receive certificate errors when users visit sites that have a Let’s Encrypt certificate. “

Android phones Those affected by this radical change will need an emergency update to Android 7.1.1, but the manufacturer must offer it first, and then it must be installed by users. However, it is surprising how many active Android phone models still use such an old version of the operating system, especially since we have now reached Android 11 and it already runs on Android 12.

Android phones they will be left without this support without users being able to do anything and many people will not understand what is happening with their phone, but they will not be able to find out, because they will not be able to log into Google to find out.