Yahoo To Shut Down Mail And Contacts On Old Apple Devices

Yahoo is also determined to pull down Maps and Pipes feature as well.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has announced that for those who operate their Yahoo Mail on devices, such as iOS 4 or earlier, will no longer have access to those accounts through their iOS’s native Mail app. Simultaneously, the web search engine will also pull the plug on Macs and OS X Lion.

A Yahoo spokesperson has said that the changes are necessary, as they try to streamline the speed, security, and the functionality of Yahoo services. However, those who possess unsupported operating systems can still access their Mail and Contacts on the web via mail.yahoo.com. It is not going to eliminate its maps product though, since Flicker and Search, as well as other properties, still needs it.

These are part of Yahoo’s theme, which has made it clear, as it published its second quarterly progress report for the year 2015. It is time to kill off antiquated features and products that have slowed down the performance of Yahoo!’s apps. These changes will come into effect from June 15.

In addition, by the end of the month, Yahoo will also shutter its Yahoo TV in countries, ranging from France, Germany, Canada, and the UK, along with Yahoo Autos, though it will keep that product in Canada for the time being. By the mid of this month, Yahoo Movies will vanish in Spain, and pull the final curtain for much of Yahoo Philippines, where most of the traffic will be redirected to Singapore home page. Even the smallest country in Southeast Asia will also face the disappearance of its Yahoo entertainment page sometime early next month.

As for ‘Pipes’, which is an app that gives people an easy platform to develop their own apps and also aggregate the web feeds, it will not allow any new creation to be entertained, effective from the end of August, after which, developers will have a month to scoop up any essential data that may be permanently eliminated, once the service comes to an end eventually after a month long deadline.

The shutting down of these websites is the clearest indication of Yahoo struggling to cope up with Google and other web search engines, and is putting pressure on the CEO, Marissa Mayer, to be shown the door, following the departure of several executives in recent months that are putting the company at discourse and flowing through uncharted waters without a lack of strategy.

Yahoo stock price ended the day at $42.88, down 0.77% from the previous day.

Yahoo Inc. to bring changes to the way user log-in

As passwords remain vulnerable to the hackers, Yahoo has announced inventive ways to sign in--but it had got some mixed reviews.

Majority of the users find it really hard to remember different passwords for each of their account or feels nervous of using single password for all of their accounts. Tech specialists believe that conventional passwords are too outmoded and can be hacked easily.

Earlier this week, Microsoft and Yahoo had offered some alternatives to the problem; Yahoo came up with the plan that it can send a text to the users every time they try to open their accounts. On the other hand, Microsoft is coming up with the facial recognition and bit-metrics technology in upcoming operating system windows 10, which will allow the users to log on to the computer by using face or fingertip recognition. Although the two methods had diverse reviews

Yahoo Inc. is promising security and convenience to its users choosing to get password each time they want to login to the account. Once a user opted for this service, there will no need for them to remember their password for email and other services of Yahoo.

However some of the expert believes that this is not a god move by the company. A Cyber security firm Tripwire risk strategist, Tim Erlin said, "Yahoo just made it easier for attackers to compromise an account,” Temporary passwords can get to anyone if a phone got stolen. While majority of phones have password to unlock the screen but mostly people don’t do that. He also said that phone can get malware virus that captures or replicates text messages.

However Erlin said, it may be more convenient if the company offers a two factor authentication, by using that a user will be required to enter a conventional password as well as the password sent to their phones. This will have a stronger impact on making the security better as the hacker will need both the password to crack the account.

Security chief of Yahoo groups, Alex Stamos supported the 2 factor authentication is better. But some people do not use it. However, users choose to have a short password which is easy to type but it is also vulnerable to hackers.

Stamos said, almost every online accounts offer user to reset their passwords through e-mail or text messages, users are exposed in the case of losing their gadget.

Stamos tweeted, "The truth is that passwords are so incredibly, ridiculously broken that it is almost impossible to keep users safe as long as we have any,” He also said Yahoo has been finding solution to the problems.

Yahoo stock stood at $44.20 on Wednesday after a decline of 0.50%.