With the latest statistics from the Android Developer data being released, it has been found that the Android 5.0 Lollipop is running on only 3 percent of all Android devices.
At 42.6 percent, versions 4.1 through 4.3 of the Jelly Bean are still deemed as the most popular updates among such gadgets. The KitKat upgrade, which was rolled out in 2013, is equally popular as it is currently running on 40.2 percent of the Android devices.
Although at a lower percentage, Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich are still doing better than Lollipop at 6.9 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively.
Those with devices still running on the Ice Cream Sandwich may take a more recent upgrade into consideration as Google announced that Chrome's 42nd release will be the last one for the Ice Cream Sandwich platform.
"Developing new features on older phones has become increasingly challenging, and successful ICS takes time away from building new experiences on the devices owned by the vast majority of our users," software engineer Aurimas Lutikas explained in a blog post.
Therefore, following Chrome 42, users who have devices running on ICS can still use the browser but will no longer be receiving any more updates.
These recent findings on Android OS data can be associated with the reports that Lollipop has not yet been fully encrypted by default. Last September, Google claimed that, with Lollipop, "encryption will be enabled out of the box, so you won't even have to think about turning it on."
On the other hand, Ars Technica noted that Lollipop encryption has been recently found on the Nexus 6 smartphone and Nexus 9 tablet whereas other third-party devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Moto E, have not been incorporated with the upgrade.
Google has responded to such concern by explaining that the absence of Lollipop encryption on many devices has been caused by performance and hardware issues.
"Due to performance issues on some Android partner devices, we are not yet at encryption by default on every new Lollipop device," the company explained. "We remain firmly committed to encryption because it helps keeps users safe and secure on the Web."
