Android problems in Russia: can they arise? Expert opinion

• Smartphones running the Android operating system are the most common in Russia, according to a survey conducted by the media. Rambler&Co and Megamarket, are chosen by 74% of Russians (as of April 2024).

According to Gorelkin, who made it public on September 17, Google is no longer formally present in Russia due to US government sanctions. The bans do not allow it to work with Russian contractors, but the equipment continues to function. The MP hopes that sooner or later the US corporation’s servers in Russia will stop working.

“And what worries me most here is not YouTube (the video service is slow in Russia), but the stability of the Android operating system, which also depends heavily on these servers,” the MP said.

A day later, in an interview with the Parliamentary newspaper, Gorelkin clarified that there would not be a complete collapse of the operating system; the degradation of Google’s equipment could result in “a maximum slowdown in the speed of downloading content.”

It’s not about the servers.

Lead Analyst at Mobile Research Group and Editor-in-Chief of Mobile Review Eldar Murtazin I am sure that there can be no problems with Google servers and most likely we are talking about blocking. The expert cited Africa as an example, where “there are no cache servers” but Android works.

“There is no example of Google cache servers being needed. In Africa and many other countries, they do not exist physically. However, the services work very well. Our telecommunications are better than in Africa, and it is impossible to say that we somehow lived without these servers, and now they are suddenly no longer vital. There are blocks by Roskomnadzor, blocks that, apparently, are going to increase. This will harm not only Android, but a whole range of services. And we are prepared, as Deputy Gorelkin said, for all this to fall apart,” Murtazin told RB.RU.

The expert added that it is no longer possible to strengthen the selective blocking, which could have been aimed at YouTube.

According to Murtazin, blocking actions lead to increased traffic and increased costs for operators.

“Since August, our costs have increased by tens of percent due to foreign traffic, the use of means to bypass the blockage and other things. Well, in other words, this is a man-made disaster through Roskomnadzor’s blocking. A disaster for the telecommunications industry,” the expert said.

Not just Android

“The question of the relationship between cache servers and Android is open: we do not know the details of the architecture. But even without this, it is obvious that the degradation of the Android and YouTube ecosystems in Russia did not begin today and continues: applications are removed from Google Play, developers are blacklisted, the Google Pay service has stopped working, interaction with Russian brands in the Android Enterprise area has been stopped, monetization and advertising services for Russian content creators on YouTube have been disabled, etc.,” RB.RU said. Mikhail Pisarev, Director of the Corporate Mobility Department of Open Mobile Platform (developer of the first domestic mobile operating system Aurora).

This is happening in the context of problems such as “wiretapping”, sending data to a foreign cloud, the possibility of disabling the “wrong” application or even the entire smartphone at any time at Google’s request.

Head of the Association of Professional Users of Social Networks and Messengers (APPSIM) Vladimir Zykov believes that the stability of the Android operating system in Russia has already been compromised and its future does not look very bright.

“On the one hand, Google itself introduced a number of restrictions for Russian developers. On the other hand, due to the slowdown of YouTube, problems arose among Google Play users. Many people cannot download or update applications without a VPN,” says the expert.

Zykov analyzes the reasons for this. First of all, Android is an operating system with cloud services tied to Google servers and IP addresses, which means that if one service crashes or slows down, others may be affected. For example, when the Google news service began to crash in Russia, many users stopped opening the web version of the Google Play app store.

“The more lockdowns there are, the more problems there are. It is not for nothing that YouTube slows down on mobile devices: it is connected to the app store and other apps via IP,” said the expert.

Zykov adds that if crashes or slowdowns begin, the problems will also affect applications that do not belong to Google but use its SDK.

“Don’t forget that many sites use Google AMP – this is a lightweight page service, similar to Yandex Turbo. Many users will no longer be able to open websites on mobile devices. “Capcha” is another service closely tied to Google’s IP. Users will be shown ReCAPTCHA, but they will not be able to go beyond this page, because the service will not work, which means that users will not access the site and sites will begin to lose audience,” Zykov explained.

The expert added that authorization on websites via Gmail is already banned in Russia, but many people continue to use it. This method of authorization via Google Authentication works not only in our country, which means that users will not be able to access these sites without authorization from Google mail or its authentication service.

The choice depends on the Russian operating system.

Zykov from APPSIM believes that the state should start actively supporting developers of domestic operating systems and encourage the transition of services to domestic platforms, such as ROSA Mobile or Aurora, which are the two main Russian mobile platforms. One reason is security.

For example, ROSA Mobile is launched solely on the reliable R-FON smartphone, which is produced in Russia at a plant in Saransk. ROSA engineers also create drivers for smartphones to prevent software bugs in hardware components, the expert says. It also has its own app store, anti-spyware messaging, a set of system apps, and support for Android apps running in an isolated container. The OS was compiled from ROSA’s own repository. It is expected to enter the consumer market in 2025.

Pisarev adds that Russia has its own mobile platform, Aurora, which is completely independent of Android, including a mobile operating system and devices based on it – everything necessary for a technology-independent mobile environment. The expert says that Aurora includes notification services, a management platform, software development tools, and technical support for developers and users. The operating system has already been added to the Russian app store RuStore and has unlimited and free access for all software developers and any user.