After Backlash, Amazon Promises To Bring Back Encryption On Fire OS
Just to close the loop on this one: just after the firestorm last week when Amazon was called out for removing device encryption from Fire OS 5 (at the very same time as its CTO was saying encryption is "mandatory" and the company signed on to a brief supporting Apple in the encryption fight, the company has admitted that it will restore encryption to Fire OS 5 "sometime in the spring."
The company had insisted that no one was really using it -- and some suggested that there may have been performance issues when encryption was turned on. But, even if that's the case, it still makes little sense to have yanked the feature entirely. For the small number of people who were using it, it was clearly an important feature. And, given all of this, it's no surprise Amazon is bringing it back. It still doesn't quite explain why they removed it in the first place, but it's good to see that this got settled in the proper way in the end.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
The company had insisted that no one was really using it -- and some suggested that there may have been performance issues when encryption was turned on. But, even if that's the case, it still makes little sense to have yanked the feature entirely. For the small number of people who were using it, it was clearly an important feature. And, given all of this, it's no surprise Amazon is bringing it back. It still doesn't quite explain why they removed it in the first place, but it's good to see that this got settled in the proper way in the end.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story