Soon, more than a quarter of a million subscribers to Kyivstar, Vodafone and lifecell will be deprived of access to Google products. They will not be able to log into their YouTube account, they will not be able to use Google Maps, and they will also lose access to many other YouTube software products.
They will be deprived of the opportunity to use these programs as of September 27. Also, all this is not the fault of the Ukrainian mobile operators. However, Google is not to blame. However, the disconnection of users from their products will continue to occur at Google’s initiative.
Why did Google choose this?
By blocking access to its programs, Google wants to protect users from scammers. It will block access to those Kyivstar, Vodafone and lifecell subscribers who have an outdated operating system. After all, it is thanks to the outdated system that hackers easily penetrate users’ personal accounts and steal their data.
Therefore, Google will block access to its products to all owners of phones with Android 2.3.7 or later. To avoid this, users must update their device’s operating system to at least Android 3.0.
Mobile operators have many of these subscribers who are in the risk zone. In particular, Kyivstar advertises more than 100 thousand of these clients, Vodafone, more than 130 thousand, and Lifecell, more than 36 thousand.
This information caused outrage among customers of mobile operators.
Those who have to reinstall the operating system are especially outraged. Even though Google is doing this for its own good, people are outraged. However, this will not change anything, and as of September 27 they will still be blocked from accessing software products. Therefore, those who do not want to lose their familiar connection to the world will still have to reinstall their operating system to a newer and more secure one.