Are Google right to abandon security fixes on Androids older than KitKat?

Amidst much controversy, Google is sticking to its guns regarding their decision to cease providing fix patches for versions of necessary software that is used in versions of Android prior to 4.4 "KitKat". This means that Android 4.3 and earlier devices are vulnerable to security breaches.

The patch relates to WebView - an extension of Android's general view coding class that allows applications to show web pages as part of a screen layout.  WebKit uses the rendering engine WebView to do what it needs to do, and it's with this software that the problem is said to occur.

Adrian Ludwig of Android Security posted on his Google+ blog;

"Keeping software up to date is one of the greatest challenges in security [and while Google] invests heavily in making sure Android and Chrome are as a safe as possible [this means frequent updates are required].

He also mentioned that the WebKit on its own is "over five million lines of code" and "hundreds of developers are adding thousands of new commits every month". Ludwig said that going backwards to a "two-plus year-old branch of WebKit required changes to significant portions of the code and was no longer practical to do safely".

Ludwig also said;

"With the advances in Android 4.4, the number of users that are potentially affected by legacy WebKit security issues is shrinking every day as more and more people upgrade or get new devices."

However, AppBrain.com has reported that 49.9 percent of its current users are still using Android versions 4.1 - 4.3, and 36.5 percent are running Android 4.4. In fact, only 0.5 per cent have upgraded to 5.0 “Lollipop”.

Only 40 per cent of Android users would be running an Android that is suitable for a fully weakness-patched build of WebView, if Google continue to deny support.

What do you think about Google’s decision? Will customers feel that they have no choice but to upgrade to avoid security breaches?

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