Millions of Android smartphones facing certificate issues starting late 2021
Starting in September 2021, many websites will fail to load or open at all.
Let's Encrypt announced that a root certificate (used by the vast majority of hosting services), provided by IdenTrust, will expire on September 1, 2021.
Unfortunately, due to the dire Android update situation, millions of devices running Android versions older than 7.1.1 will be unable to connect to websites using certificates. Let's Encrypt. Not only will this affect websites visited via browser, but apps that connect to a website to extract data will also be unable to connect.
To make the problem less serious, Let's Encrypt It will offer a series of alternative certificates linked to the old root certificate to increase compatibility; this could be a long-term solution. However, some temporary solutions are possible for web platform administrators, which could:
- Display a message prompting Android users to switch to Firefox Mobile (which updates certificates independently of Android)
- stop supporting older versions of Android
- revert to HTTP for older devices
- Switch to a Certificate Authority (CA) installed on older devices.
Let's Encrypt Firefox recommends users of older Android devices install Firefox Mobile. As mentioned above, Firefox comes with its own list of trusted root certificates; this will allow sites to continue functioning even after the old root certificate expires next year.