Killed by Google is the Google graveyard; a free and open source list of discontinued Google services, products, devices, and apps.

 

“We aim to be a source of factual information about the history surrounding Google’s dead projects.”

Contributors from around the world help compile, research, and maintain the information about dying and dead Google products. You can join the discussion on GitHub, or follow us on Twitter. A project by Cody Ogden.

If you dislike a certain company you stop using its products. It doesn’t kill off anything without what it thinks is a good reason. Google simply has more products or kills them before they can lose enough money to affect the bottom line.

Google will kill off very old versions of Android next month

Google’s tighter login security means Android 2.3.7 and lower will lose functionality.

Google has started emailing users of very old Android devices to tell them it’s time to say goodbye. Starting September 27, devices running Android 2.3. 7 and lower will no longer be able to log in to Google services, effectively killing a big portion of the on-rails Android experience.

Notes:

After September 27, the oldest version of Android you’ll be able to sign in to is Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which is only for tablets.

This OS still isn’t modular, but Google realized that login security updates would start to be an issue in the future, and Honeycomb added a “sign-in via browser” option to the initial setup. The hard-coded Android login can still be broken, but “sign-in via browser” will kick you out to a webpage—which can be updated with newer technology—and can then forward that login to the OS. It’s still not enough to save Honeycomb from the “less-secure app” designation and doesn’t work well with 2FA, but it’s enough to keep the OS trucking for now.

The login procedure became updatable in Android 5.0 Lollipop, which checks for initial setup updates before you even log in.