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Google explains why it's not fixing web security in old Android phones

Accepted submission by Fnord666 at 2015-01-24 17:30:48
Mobile

Fnord666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

In a recent post [google.com] on Google Plus, Adrian Ludwig explains why Google is not fixing web security in old Android phones.

Engadget [engadget.com] explains:

it's no longer viable to "safely" patch vulnerable, pre-Android 4.4 versions of WebView (a framework that lets apps show websites without a separate browser) to prevent remote attacks. The sheer amount of necessary code changes would create legions of problems, he claims, especially since developers are introducing "thousands" of tweaks to the open source software every month.

He does offer some suggestions though (and engadget summarizes them) on how to avoid or mitigate issues if you are on an older version of Android.

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