The Russian government has approved the regulation requiring applications and software of domestic origin is pre-installed on mobile and other devices sold in the country, reports Cnew.ru. The regulation will published on the governmental legal information portal and enter into force on 01 January 2021.
The regulation identifies 16 types of software, and several applications in each group are expected to be approved. The list of approved software still needs to be decided by the Ministry of Digitalisation, which is accepting applications from Russian developers. It will aim to include popular applications that already had at least 500,000 downloads in the past year.
Producers of smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, notebooks and desktop PCs will be obliged to pre-install the Russian software on their devices sold in the country. Smartwatches aren’t covered by this requirement.
According to the regulation, browsers, news aggregators, search engines, navigators, digital assistants, office applications, software for messaging and email, applications for access to social networks, anti-virus software, software enabling access to the Russian payment system Mir, as well as OTT media applications, depending on the device, will be pre-installed in this way.
According to the Ministry of Difgitalisation, users will be able to download any analogous software of their choice after purchasing the devices. Whether they can remove the pre-installed software hasn't been disclosed.
The law on mandatory pre-installation of Russian software was signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin at the beginning of December 2019.
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