Manufacturers will pre-install Russian software on gadgets from 2021

The corresponding decree has already been adopted by the government of the Russian Federation and will take effect from January 1, 2021.

In particular, the law states that 16 applications must be installed on all smartphones and tablets produced or sold in Russia, 3 on personal computers and laptops, and 4 on Smart TVs.

The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation is already accepting applications from domestic software developers in order to draw up an appropriate list of products for mandatory installation. According to preliminary data, it should include the most important categories of software: search engines, voice assistants, news aggregators, cloud storages, web browsers, email clients, instant messengers, antiviruses, navigators, etc.

The software must be free of charge, have at least 500,000 users per year, support the Cyrillic alphabet, and also meet other criteria aimed at a Russian-speaking audience. It is expected that such popular products as Yandex Browser, Atom browser, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Mail.ru, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Dr. Web, 2GIS, Gosuslugi, Payment system MIR and other popular applications and services.

First of all, Russian software will begin to be implemented on mobile gadgets, and then, over the next two years, on other devices. According to the authorities, this will make it possible to quickly popularize domestic digital technologies, as well as to protect the interests of Russian IT companies in the software market.