In March 2020, the Ministry of Communications launched an experiment: Russians began to provide free access to 391 sites. You can access the resources from a smartphone or PC, even if subscriber 0 has an account. The only caveat was the 10 Mbps speed limit.
The authorities liked the results of the experiment: from December 1, 2021, the “social Internet” started working on an ongoing basis. All operators will be required to provide unrestricted access to sites that the state chooses. Vladimir Putin signed such a decree on July 2.
For “free” viewing, the following restrictions will apply:
- the site can be accessed through a browser or an application, if the service has it;
- video and audio calls are disabled, but video viewing in resolution up to 480p is allowed;
- There will be no paid services or third-party advertising when browsing sites for free, with the exception of government services.
The list includes only sites created or controlled by citizens of the Russian Federation, registered in domain zones. ru, .su,. рф or children.
The exact list has not yet been announced, but the sites that initially participated in the experiment and continue to work now can be viewed here . We will briefly list the main ones:
- social networks (Vk, Odnoklassniki, Moi Mir) and communities (LJ, Habr, Forumhouse, Drive2 );
- services of Yandex, Rambler and Mail.Ru : mail, cloud storage, search, online aggregators, weather forecasts, maps;
- government websites – from government services to ministry websites;
- messengers ICQ and TamTam;
- websites of newspapers and TV channels: NTV, Channel One, Russia Today, RBC, Izvestia ;
- electronic libraries , cultural and literary portals: Litres, LiveLib, Afisha magazine;
- entertainment , sports and information portals: Championship, Sport24, Down-the-line.com;
- educational and scientific services and sites;
- sites and services about health and medicine.
At the same time, another useful law will come into force on December 1: now, fraudulent sites can be blocked without a court decision. We are talking about phishing pages that copy the official websites of banks, and about the portals of financial pyramids.
