The construction of the latest OS has bought in a lot of notable features, with the new Material U Theming design taking away a lot of limelight. But at the same time, Google quietly rolled out another functionality that went under the radar – the ability to disable 2G on your Android 12 device. Well, its functionality was also explicitly mentioned in the OS release notes, but it was the UI changes that probably overshadowed it. While this is understandable, it is not clear why this feature was needed first.
Why do I need to disable 2G feature in Android 12?
5G technology has begun to gain momentum recently, but all of a sudden it’s 2G technology that has been in the news lately, thanks in large part to the Silicon Valley giants. So why did it suddenly become a topic of discussion? Well, that was something that had been going on for a long time, and with the release of Android 12, everything came to its place, and that’s why Google rolled out the Disable 2G feature along with this OS. decided. But why the need?
Well, this is a very important step from a security standpoint. 2G was introduced in 1991 and since then there have been some improvements and security improvements, but it is not even close to today’s security requirements. Taking advantage of this, the hackers started attacking the strings. So whenever you are close to a 2G network, these stingray attacks force your device to connect to these networks but in the middle of the process, it will intercept all your calls and messages.
Therefore, all data packets that leave your device and reach the 2G network will be intercepted by these sting rays and their owners will have access to all your important data. And these stingray attacks are carried out only through 2G networks because of their weak encryption system. So to prevent this from happening, Google has added a feature to disable 2G on your device running Android 12.
How to Disable 2G in Android 12
Well, disabling 2G on your device is pretty simple. All that you need to do is head over to Settings > Network & internet > SIMs > Disable the toggle next to Allow 2G. That’s it.
Why is Disable 2G Feature Missing on my Android 12 Device?
Therefore, many questions have come up from different users that even after updating their device to Android 12, they can not find the option to disable 2G. Well, the point is that for your device to support this feature, it must support Radio 1.6 HAL. And that requirement is only checked with devices that have been launched out of the box with Android 12, such as the Pixel 6 / Pro.
However, since devices such as the Pixel 5/4/3 and Samsung Galaxy S21 / 20 did not run Android 12 by default and received an update, they do not appear on this support list. Therefore, these sets of users will not have this option on their device. In this regard, some users have also exchanged their existing device with the device which has Android 12 so that they do not lose this important security feature.
Well, it boils down to the individual preferences and the resources at their disposal. On this note, we will end this guide on the inactive feature of 2G in devices running Android 12.
