In 2021, many websites will stop opening on an impressive number of smartphones. Restricted access is reported by Android Police.

According to journalists, we are talking about Android smartphones, the software of which has not been updated since 2016. The problem is that from the fall of 2021, the validity certificate of Let's Encrypt and the company IdenTrust, which since 2015 has introduced cross-signature for the certification of sites with encryption, expires. The standard is supported by Windows, macOS, Android and most platforms.

The Let's Encrypt website says that the agreement with IdenTrust will expire on September 1, 2021, and the companies are not going to renew it. As a result, browsers and operating systems without a root security certificate will not be able to open many sites supported by Let's Encrypt. The journalists noted that the operating systems – Android 7.0 and earlier – will be left without access to millions of sites. At the same time, in current versions of Android, security certificate support is built in by default.

According to journalists, the share of smartphones that run on outdated versions of Android is more than 30 percent of the total number of devices based on the OS from Google. Let's Encrypt certified sites account for about 30 percent of all resources on the web.

The authors noticed that smartphone owners will have to update their devices. The material also says that on older Android devices it will be possible to use the Firefox browser, which has built-in support for Let's Encrypt certificates.

Earlier it became known that Microsoft is going to transfer Internet Explorer users to Edge. A special file will be added to the outdated browser that will block access to popular resources – YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, VKontakte and other sites.