Up to a third of existing Android smartphones will start receiving error messages from websites protected by Let's Encrypt.
It may not be cool and it certainly isn't up to date, but there are millions of old Android smartphones out there running Android 7.1 Nougat from 2016 or earlier. On September 1, 2021, however, those phones will start failing when trying to connect to websites protected by Let's Encrypt Secure-Socket Layer (SSL) / Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates.
Let's Encrypt is a hugely popular, free, open-source certificate authority (CA). Over a billion websites have been “secured” using its service. It works well, but Let's Encrypt's original root certificate, which was cross-signed by IdenTrust, “DST Root X3,” will expire on September 1, 2021.
With most operating systems, this wouldn't be a problem. Let's Encrypt now has its own root certificate, ISRG Root X1, and most operating systems and browsers can work with it. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Android.
It's nothing new that Android isn't updated frequently enough by vendors. Any Android phone running Android 6 or older hasn't received security updates since last year. But users, like the tens of millions still running Windows 7, don't pay much attention to security until they actually encounter a problem.
This upcoming problem, however, is one they won’t be able to ignore. At best, if you’re still using one of these older phones, you’ll get an error asking if you want to go to the website. At worst, you won’t be able to get to your favorite website at all.
So, what can be done about it? Well, don't look to Let's Encrypt for an easy fix. You see, it's not really his problem. From day one, Android hardware vendors have refused to update systems . If you want an Android smartphone that keeps up with the state of the operating system, your only option is to buy a Google Pixel or a Samsung.
Of course, not everyone can afford to buy a new phone, so you can install Firefox Mobile. It currently supports Android 5.0. It helps because Firefox is the only web browserthat ships with its own list of trusted root certificates.
