Hundreds of millions of rubles for the Sputnik search engine: why didn’t it take off? Sputnik - a censored search engine from Rostelecom State search engine satellite

Sputnik Browser is a fast and secure browser based on Chromium. The Sputnik browser was developed by Rostelecom for family use.

Rostelecom first created the Sputnik search engine, and then its own browser of the same name. The search engine positions itself as focused on interaction with social services and the provision of government services. The Sputnik family browser has a similar purpose.

The Sputnik browser has built-in protection from harmful and dangerous content, with a filtering system, quick access to the government services portal, a children's mode, and no advertising.

The main advantages of the Sputnik browser according to the manufacturer:

• Simple - the browser is easily and quickly installed on your computer
• Convenient - when you start the browser, a panel opens with the “Satellite” search and specially selected widgets
• Useful - the panel with widgets provides direct access to useful information: “Government Services”, “My Home”, “Medicine”, “Maps”, etc.
• Smart - the browser uses a smart search bar to quickly access sites
• Secure - the browser is protected from spam, pornography, viruses, fraudulent sites, etc.
• Child - a special children's mode in the browser that will protect the child from most threats on the Internet
• Mobile - Sputnik browser is installed on mobile devices running Android, iPad, iPhone

The smart browser bar allows you to quickly access the sites you need. As you enter a search query, suggestions appear based on the text you enter. By default, the browser uses the Sputnik search engine. In the browser settings, in the “Search” section, you can change the search engine to another: Yandex, Google, @MAIL.RU, Sputnik, Sputnik.Children.

The Sputnik browser can be downloaded from the official website for the operating systems Windows, Android, iPad, iPhone.

download satellite browser

To install the browser on your computer, run the downloaded file. Installing the Sputnik browser is very simple.

Convenient access in Sputnik

The Sputnik browser will open the “Easy Access” page, which contains widgets for quick access to the most popular everyday information: weather, exchange rates, news, TV programs, government services, my home, maps, medicine. You can open the easy access page using the “Go to Sputnik services” button, which is located in the left corner of the panel.

On the "Easy Access" page, you can change the background by uploading an image from your computer, select your location. By default, after entering a query in the search field, the search will be carried out using the Sputnik search engine. In the browser settings, the search can be changed to another search engine.

After clicking on the “Medicine” widget, the “Satellite / Medicine” page will open, where you can get a lot of useful information.

In the “Pharmacies” tab, the addresses of the nearest pharmacies with contact information are available: telephone numbers, opening hours, pharmacies are displayed on the map.

After entering the “Medicines” tab, you will have access to a description of the medications. Select the name of the drug, after reading the description, click on the “Prices and Availability” button. If this drug is available, you will see the price of the drug and the address of the pharmacy where it can be purchased.

In the “Articles” tab, in sections you can get information about diseases, treatment methods and recommended medications for this disease.

On the Gosuslugi portal you can obtain government services: pay traffic police fines, pay for housing and communal services, file a tax return, make an appointment with a doctor, get information about tax debts of individuals, etc.

After clicking on the “My Home” widget, the “Satellite / My Home” page will open. Enter the full address in the search field in order to obtain the necessary information about organizations: management companies, MFCs, schools, kindergartens, clinics, post offices, tax inspectorates, police departments, pharmacies, ATMs, and much more.

On the “TV program” page you can familiarize yourself with the program schedule, get additional information, and watch online broadcasts of TV channels.

Safe search in the Sputnik browser

The Sputnik browser has built-in search filters: “Light filter”, “Moderate filter”, “Strict filter”. Depending on the selected filter, sites with dangerous and prohibited information will not be shown in the search results. Family filter in the browser protects the user's computer and personal data from viruses, spam, pornography, fraudulent sites, etc.

Using the “Setting filtering of search results” icon (in the form of a shield), which is located in the address bar of the browser, you can adjust the level of filtering of search results. The icon image will be changed after selecting the appropriate filter.

The browser has a built-in “Advertising Blocker” that blocks pop-up windows and advertising blocks on web pages. In the Sputnik browser, you can block all advertising after activating the “Block all advertising” option. The Advertising Removal module does a good job of blocking ads.

The browser has a built-in “Stalker” security system that warns the user of danger. If you mark a site as “bad”, then the next time the browser will not allow you to open this site.

The Sputnik browser has a built-in “Invisible” mode. In the "Invisible" mode, the browser will not remember the browsing history, in order not to save user data while surfing. You can launch the “Invisible” mode after entering the “Satellite Main Menu”. To do this, you need to select the “New window in invisible mode” item in the context menu. After this, a new browser window will open.

Not long ago, the Russian company Rostelecom developed its own Internet access tool in combination with a search engine. Of course, this is the Sputnik browser. Reviews about the new software are, in principle, quite contradictory: some like it, others don’t. Let's try to figure out what's good and what's bad about it.

Sputnik browser: official introduction

So, what is the new Russian Sputnik browser? Reviews of its work from the creators are trying to convince the Internet community that this is a new system that combines both a means of accessing the World Wide Web and a search engine.

It is also stated that this browser is designed to simplify the work on the Internet for people who are completely far from knowing the principles and means of accessing the Internet, for example, children or pensioners. Rostelecom specialists claim to constantly saturate the browser with new content and support the most popular social networks. But is this really so? Let's look at the Sputnik browser itself (Rostelecom). Reviews about him will clearly not leave anyone indifferent. Although the company that created it expects a constant increase in the number of users and fans, alas, the number of downloads is just over 50 thousand. As they say, the popularization failed, and this has absolutely nothing to do with the developers’ marketing strategy. Rather, it refers to the application itself and some aspects of its functioning.

Sputnik browser: description

Let's try to consider the new product without bias, based on the opinion of specialists specializing in the development and testing of this kind of software products. What is the Sputnik browser? Reviews from experts, not to mention the opinions of people who have tried it in practice, indicate that this is yet another “Chrome-like” application.

Yes Yes exactly. It is based on the well-known Chromium browser version 41, which served as a platform for the creation of the same Yandex Browser and Amigo. In turn, Chromium itself is based exclusively on technologies used in one of the most powerful and popular products, Google Chrome.

That is, one must assume that the creators of Sputnik took the path of least resistance and cost, borrowing technology so as not to rack their brains. On the one hand, this may be good. The browser does not seem to slow down, opening pages is quite fast. On the other hand, this is reminiscent of some plagiarism used to create the Sputnik browser. User reviews, unfortunately, only say that the copy, although slightly revised, turned out to be clumsy. And that's why.

Sputnik browser for Windows 7 and higher: first look

Now let's try to look at the desktop version of the program. As an example, we’ll use the Sputnik browser; let’s leave it alone for now, and just launch the application and look at the interface.

Frankly speaking, nothing special. A standard panel with tabs, plus built-in bookmarks, the content of which raises legitimate doubts about the advisability of their presence. Well, tell me: why search for instructions for medications, study hot water shutdown schedules, or look for notaries using maps? Are there really no other suitable topics to search for? But there is a weather widget and the main news.

The “My Home” tab doesn’t look the best either. It would seem that there are a lot of links, but if you take a closer look, you will immediately notice that they all have a narrow focus on the topic: pharmacies, libraries, schools, shops, post offices, kindergartens, churches, etc.

With the release of the G8 version, the interface has clearly changed to match the system itself. Here a “figure eight” tile has appeared, which presents the main sections of news, TV programs, weather, exchange rates, electronic maps, the “My Home” tab and again, for some unknown reason, a medicine search section. What is this? Sensitive subject?

By the way, is it necessary to explain that the search engine does not use popular and advanced engines, but works according to its own principles? And these principles, as it turns out, are far from perfect.

Search content filtering

Moreover, filtering of sites and their content, even in the search section, is very strict. Although you can dig around in the settings and find changes in the security level, there will still be such restrictions that sometimes you simply won’t find the things you need.

Please note that this is not filtering content, but rather search results. And one more thing: it is unclear why this setting was moved outside the search engine, but in the same Chrome or Yandex browser you can change the security level directly in the search service. In general, it's inconvenient.

Ad blocking

Now another look at the Sputnik browser. Reviews of the ad blocking system are also divided. True, it’s hard not to agree that the browser does a good job of filtering out too intrusive advertisements, however, this thing is called “Advertising Diverter”! Here!

But the level of settings can be changed, up to complete blocking. On Rutreker, taken as an example, almost everything was blocked. But there is also a rather fat minus. The fact is that the browser does not allow you to install add-ons in the form of AdBlock Plus (or any other add-ons in general, although there is a corresponding section in the settings). However, judging by user reviews, because of this blocker, some sites do not want to open at all.

Kids mode

Let's move on to the so-called children's mode. Why is he interesting? When activated, the tab that appears when the browser starts turns into a real children's entertainment portal.

True, it is absolutely incomprehensible why it is immediately suggested to watch all the episodes of “Well, wait a minute!”? On the other hand, access to some settings is lost from the menu, absolutely all resources with abstracts, social networks, torrent trackers, not to mention other content are blocked.

The children's mode itself is protected by a password, which cannot be easily disabled. This is a clear plus. Apparently, such a precaution was introduced solely for the reason that the browser was supposed to be installed as the main browser in schools. However, as evidenced by reviews from experts on the Internet, many still find ways to bypass the blocking.

As for sites with dubious content, the browser relies on its own database, which contains quite a lot of resources. However, many experts believe (and not without reason) that the list is based on the Roskomnadzor database, supplemented by what was found manually on the Internet. That is, we are not talking about any automation.

Settings

Finally, a few words about the program settings section. As soon as you enter it, you immediately see a complete copy of “Chrome” (this can be seen even in To be absolutely frank, at least for the sake of appearance something could be changed.

By the way, in the initial group settings one of the control parameters of the initial page “Satellite/Start” is specified. Why it is needed here is unclear, because, by and large, the user cannot disable it anyway.

As already mentioned, there is an extensions section, but nothing can be installed. So its presence in the settings is also not justified.

The browser also, as it turns out, also has a function for creating your own account, however, as numerous reviews say, registration codes arrive as early as two months, or even later.

General impression

In general, if we sum it up based on the considerations of specialists and users, the results are very disappointing. Despite all the advertising moves, the popularity of the Russian development is at zero. Some, evaluating the application’s performance on a 5-point scale, give the new browser almost a score with a minus. Here, however, many do not take into account the specifics of the program, but it must be assumed that it was developed specifically for school institutions.

Then it’s not hard to guess why it has such strict filtering of search queries, blocking of ads and inaccessibility of many resources. However, the speed of work is clearly not too bad. To be objective, this development is suitable specifically for children's institutions, but not for the average user who would like to use this browser in everyday work. And if you consider that it is also state-owned... You understand.

By the way, the mobile version of the application was not considered here, since it is clearly inferior in popularity to the desktop one. And reviews of the new Sputnik browser clearly do not tip the scales in its favor.

Rostelecom's launch of its own socially oriented search engine, Sputnik, was perhaps yesterday's main news on the Runet. Its presentation took place at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, as promised earlier.

What is this “Sputnik”? What is its target audience? Isn't this just another tool for Internet censorship? Let's think about this together.

The first thing that catches my eye personally is the name, which evokes sharply negative emotions and associations with “Mail.ru Satellite”, which was once popular with Windows OS users. In addition, the blue color of the logo of the newly-minted search engine is also somehow subconsciously associated with Mail.ru. In my opinion, this is a bad decision, both the name and the color scheme of the logo. Well, oh well, that’s what it’s all about IMHO.

The second is the main page (sputnik.ru). Everything here is standard for domestic search engines - weather, news aggregator, own services... The appearance is a kind of symbiosis of Yandex, Mail.ru and.. Bing

Since the search engine was initially developed as socially oriented, its services are exactly that - search for organizations near your home, search for pharmacies, quick links to regulations and instructions for obtaining various documents, and so on.

In general, anyone can see and “touch” all this for themselves. Let me remind you the address – sputnik.ru

What is noteworthy is the inaccessibility of the search engine from foreign IP addresses. This is truly a national search engine. It is stated that this is a temporary measure so as not to cause severe overload of the servers in the first days of beta tests (such as a “habra effect”).

To be fair, I note that yesterday during the day I personally did not observe any freezes, inaccessibility or anything like that. So, the search engine had enough power on the opening day. Already good. Go ahead.

Sputnik target audience

The main goal of the search engine is to focus on social services and safe search.

“Zuckerberg Will Call” joked yesterday: “Sputnik is the world’s first search engine that, for the queries “wet pussies” and “hot peppers,” returns wet animals and baked vegetables.”. And indeed it is. Finding “adult” content in Sputnik is not so easy.

In fact, yesterday a lot of different “lulz” were identified in the search engine. For example, when requesting “Cartoons,” the pictures displayed were far from children’s cartoons. True, identified “bugs” are corrected very quickly. That's what beta testing is for. By the way, many compared the launch of Sputnik with the launch of Proton-M =)

So, let's return to the target audience of Sputnik:

• inexperienced Internet users who need to find some social as well as official information (in fact, regular search engines also do an excellent job with this);
• children - Sputnik will protect them as much as possible from accidentally viewing “adult” and “harmful” content. And this, in my opinion, is the main and the only benefit from this search engine is;
• people of retirement and elderly age looking for relevant information;
• schools and the public sector. So I personally would oblige the entire public sector to use Sputnik exclusively =)

To whom contraindicated"Satellite":

• to all adults and sensible people.

What is the goal of the project?

It is obvious that this search engine is taught exclusively for plausible purposes - helping pensioners and young families, etc., as well as protecting children from harmful content. But perhaps this is just for now. In the future (and in the near future), it is possible that this search engine will be required to be used by all the same schools, the public sector, and not far from the entire Runet.

The likelihood that Sputnik will be used as a powerful censorship tool is very high. I am almost convinced that soon FB, Twitter, Google, etc. will be closed in the Russian Federation. Large-scale exercises are already underway =)

Regarding the “money”: at the current stage of development, the project management denies any monetization of the search engine.

What should webmasters, optimizers and bloggers do?

The first step is to visit the page http://corp.sputnik.ru/webmaster and read the recommendations on the robots.txt file. If you are too lazy to bother, then don’t worry - the Sputnik robot will use general directives for search bots: User-Agent: *

The search engine doesn’t have any add-ons at the moment, so you’ll have to wait for natural indexing. If it happens at all. My blog, for example, has not yet been indexed. How are you doing with this, gentlemen bloggers?

There have been opinions that the Sputnik engine is a clone of KM.ru. The output is too similar. Perhaps this is all true, because there is information from various media outlets that the project was developed by the KM Media company, purchased by Rostelecom.

Nothing is known about promotion in Sputnik yet. One factor remains obvious - do everything as before, that is, for the people. Although, according to many observations, the top rankings for some queries are not “government” or “social” services, but the most common commercial ones. So, the developers still have to work and work (if they really strive for what they loudly proclaim).

Somehow like this.

My personal summary - the true purpose of the search engine is very vague (well, I don’t believe that all this is being done for the benefit of the people). The project is still raw.

I don't see any special payload in it. Maybe for children's safety (I will use it for children and advise it for these purposes). This search engine will not be popular. For people of sober mind and solid memory, Sputnik, as the main search engine, is generally contraindicated. And most importantly: Sputnik is a potential mechanism for collecting statistics, human sentiments and interests. This is a completely state-controlled system. Naturally, there is no talk of any encryption of requests.

I look forward to your opinions, friends and colleagues.

By the way, there is a good review on Lenta, and the comments to it are worth reading. And in general, there are a lot of thoughts on the Internet about the newly-minted search engine. In particular, comments on TJournal and Habré are delivered.

“Everything is not so simple” ©

57 Comments → Is Sputnik just business, censorship or good intentions?

1. Web-Cat

   Hello, hello)) I knew that you would write about Sputnik)
   Just now I tried to find at least some of my sites in it - nothing...
   The design is not bad, in fact, although everything is still somewhat crude: both the output and the appearance.
   Now I wonder how to move under it. And even more interesting is whether this will make sense. That is, if Sputnik becomes available in Russia along with Yandex and Google, that’s one thing. But if with Rambler, then it’s different. Well, only time will tell.

2. Sergey

   I looked at this satellite... damp is putting it mildly. Well, let's write it off as beta =)

   I don’t know, but for me the design is too monochromatic and gray; some colors could be added.

   I entered my blog into a search by name - it returned a link right up to page 18 (page18), although in robots they are generally closed from indexing, which didn’t please him at all)

   There are also great doubts about the feasibility and relevance of this search engine, but the pressure of Yandex against this background seems to me to be too frightening a sign.

3. Basil

   I looked at it on the day of the presentation. There's nothing to discuss yet. By the way, my site was already in the search results. :)
   Now I looked through the search engines, today I had 2 visitors from there, and yesterday no one.
   They talk about Yandex and Google, but there is also Mail.ru and Rambler, not to mention Nigma and so on. The satellite will first need to grow to them.
   Well, they will oblige you to use it; anyway, you can’t assign an inspector to every computer, and the way everything happens here, no one will really check it.
   It will not be so easy for Sputnik to gain ground in the battle of search engines. Once upon a time, Rambler was our giant, and Yandex was cute. And where is this Rambler now?
   Without forceful imposition, Sputnik has no chance.

4. Alexander Viktorovich

   I looked at this new search engine. But won’t it repeat the fate of the last communications satellite that did not reach orbit?
   I tried to create my own real estate website. The output worked, but it was a little strange. I posted my comments on other sites, but with my links it’s somehow not clear.
   In general, we'll wait and see.

5. Alexander Viktorovich

   I tried to find it through Sputnik and a second site, it is still very young (two months). Displays records with a link to the site (the link is not active). For example, my ad, a link to the bulletin board, and from there I can get to my website.
   The site does not provide information directly, only through intermediaries.

6. Ilya

   Another project to drain the state's money down the drain)) Rostelecom is generally playing an interesting game, on the one hand it is completely subordinate to the state, and on the other hand it has its own warehouses of pirated content (proof -)

   1. Alexander Mayer

      Even so! I didn't even know. There are some kind of double standards. Although I didn’t follow the links there, maybe those torrents are “law-abiding”? Although, again, Shareman is still a pirate (it seems)

7. Ilya

   Sorry for being offtopic. Alexander, your site has recently started loading endlessly, the problem is in the social network buttons from Pluso, I used to have exactly the same thing. It's better to try others...

8. Julia Qween

   Why are you laughing at him? Search engine as a search engine. It’s just right for grannies - look for cheap medicine, watch TV, pay for utilities. Everything in one bottle. Fewer viruses will be caught :)

9. Kipelovna

   Greetings Sasha! I just scoffed at this miracle today, it seems to me that it will work for a year and die safely, like all wonderful government programs.))

10. Dmitriy

    Remember how everyone laughed at Android five years ago? They said that VinMobile was invincible and so on. Now VinFon occupies less than 10% of the market.
    Therefore, I would not rush to conclusions :)

11. Dmitriy

    I laughed at him myself :) But in general, if the satellite shoots, I will be happy.
    More competition for Yandex wouldn't hurt :)

12. Mikhail Solovyov

    Thanks for the article, Alexander. Let's see what comes of this. In the meantime, I’m pleased that my site for the query “Active lifestyle” is on the first line in the search results :)

13. atomicsky

    This satellite is another project of “nanosaws” -) Without forced cleaning of the market by the state, it has no chance... Although the Duma will correct this matter...

14. Alex

    Exactly, in an original way, it is looking for a satellite. Exactly as Alexander Viktorovich described here.
    Search query = site name. Position in search results: G-1, I-3, Yah-1, Bing-did not work.
    The satellite issued in the second position. link to a comment on a third-party site. And in the comment there is a link to my website. Funny wedge.
    Well, I think everything will be fixed...

15. seoonly.ru

    A useless search engine because it doesn’t look for you know what...
    PS. Come and visit me on my blog, I’ve already subscribed to yours :)

16. Seoptimist.ru - SEO blog in verse.

    A satellite is not just a PS. This is a kind of catalog of various services. Only promoted sites are included in it. This is for now...

17. Vladislav

    Or for the sake of control.

18. Natalya Pogorelova

    Yes, our state is trying to bring everything under its control. Nothing is allowed... And nowhere is allowed... If they put him on the “obligatory” list, it seems that we will all cry bitter tears. Accustomed to using everything and everyone without any restrictions.

19. Denis Skripnik

    Hello. Quite often I look for some information on Sputnik and send requests to them with recommendations for improving the service. I think that it is the future, and the fact that there will be censorship is good. The Westerners will fool our people less.

    1. Alexander Mayer

       Denis, hello! Glad to hear you!
       Yes, everyone has their own opinion, their own needs. I personally am exclusively against censorship.

       The Westerners will fool our people less.

       “Ours” have brainwashed ours worse than the Westerners. This is my opinion, of course, I do not impose it on anyone.

20. Alexander Mayer

    NikolayHAOS, everyone has their own opinion.

    I'll leave a few links, just food for thought:

    • Rating of countries in the world by level of media freedom (2015): http://gtmarket.ru/ratings/freedom-of-the-press/info (spoiler: Russia is in 181st place out of 199, between Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia
    • World Press Freedom Index (2014-2015): http://gtmarket.ru/ratings/worldwide-press-freedom-index/info
    • Freedom of speech in Russia: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_Russia
    1. NikolayHAOS

       by giving a link to Wikipedia you just made me laugh.
       And pointing to the assessment of foreign studies about ourselves, well, this is at least illogical, it’s something like asking a characteristic about a person from himself, who would write something bad about himself?
       And in light of the events I mentioned, take the UK for example, what the hell kind of free press is there? Well, if you just think like this:
       If you write what suits our censorship, then you are free to write what you want.
       BUT if, God forbid, you write something that does not suit us, then we will quickly try to cover you up. And once again only the free press remained. :-)
       ZY Tell me at least in the UK or the USA analogues of rain or echo? And even with the support of the state or foreign funding.
       Alas, they don't have those.

21. Alexander Mayer

    Nikolay, in fact, you are now repeating almost word for word our state media and the zombie box. My advice to you is to get information from different sources, not just those you are used to.

    "Giving a link to Wikipedia just made me laugh.
    And pointing to the assessment of foreign studies about ourselves, well, this is at least illogical, it’s something like asking a characteristic about a person from himself, who would write something bad about himself?”

    What's funny about Wikipedia? At least in this particular article? Have you even read it? By the way, it contains 234 supporting links. Don't believe what is written in the article itself? Check the original source links.

    As for the foreign research from Freedom House, I personally do not have the slightest reason to believe that it is biased or anything else. This is an international non-profit organization, on their website there are all “names, addresses and passwords” (and yes, I’ll say right away - Khodorkovsky is listed among their charitable sponsors =)), there are clear methodologies for all research (https://freedomhouse.org/report /freedom-press-2015/methodology), etc. Everything is completely transparent. This is not our valiant Levada Center or VTsIOM, which, for example, ask their questions about Internet regulation to people who have never used the Internet at all. Do you think this is objective research? (and here is an alternative opinion about one of Levadov’s “research” http://rublacklist.net/7759/)

    Regarding the foreign press and its freedom, I recommend reading Glenn Greenwald’s book “Nowhere to Hide. Edward Snowden and the Watchful Eye of Uncle Sam.” Greenwald (human rights journalist) is the guy who Snowden first contacted and to whom he gave his first interview and entrusted all the available materials. Greenwald, in turn, contributed to the appearance of these revelations in the press. Precisely those loud ones, the first ones.
    So, this book (it can be considered a documentary) very informatively describes modern journalism (in the USA and Great Britain), without bias, without embellishment and all kinds of propaganda. And there really is quite strict censorship if the issue concerns national security. But at the same time, there are also publications (those that published the first revelations, for example) that were not afraid to publish such information. Some of them were then put under quite harsh pressure, journalists were detained at the airport on suspicion of aiding terrorism (then, nevertheless, they were released, quite quickly, within the framework of the law), there was persecution on TV in various talk shows (against Glenn himself, including .ch.) etc. In general, almost the same thing is happening here, and probably everywhere. But there is a huge difference between their media and ours - transparency and the lack thereof. They have censorship where it may be really needed (national security, for example), while we have total censorship (from concealing military casualties in peacetime (!), to concealing bribery and blocking articles like “how to get your paw”) . That's the whole difference.

    I repeat, everyone has the right to their own point of view. And I'm not going to challenge yours. Think as you see fit.

22. NikolayHAOS

    “In general, almost the same thing is happening here, and probably everywhere. But there is a huge difference between their media and ours - transparency and the lack thereof.”
    Well, the criterion for a free press has been determined - the main thing is transparency, the question is what?
    The fact that Snowden was published? So, if we did the same thing (shooting unarmed people, intimidating, torturing), and if some agent was already sick of it and decided to publish it, do you think that it wouldn’t be published? Well, my friend, you are very naive. It is possible that it would have started, of course, not from the first channel, but the fact that the information would have become publicly available is unambiguous, because you can’t hide something in a bag.
    The example of the USA shows this.
    And about the free foreign media, of course, you are exaggerating, for example, the fact that they accused us en masse and in unison of shooting down a Boeing over Ukraine, then this is, of course, freedom of speech, and certainly not unsubstantiated slander.
    They are already singing in chorus; this cannot be done without prior agreement.

23. Alex

    There was an interesting discussion. But about what?
    Does it affect the situation in the country? No.
    Exchange your points of view on types of censorship and other social phenomena. Has it affected your perception? In my opinion no.
    Emotional outbursts only affect the state of the nervous system or vice versa, which makes no difference.
    What's constructive? Undoubtedly, content has been added to this site.

Legal entities that use the key media Rutoken on the website of the Federal Tax Service of Russia for authentication in the “Taxpayer Personal Account for Legal Entities” service can now use the Sputnik browser to work in their personal accounts. The Aktiv company reported this on August 18.

This became possible as a result of the expansion of the Federal Tax Service of Russia lists of browsers for working in a personal account for legal entities. Previously, for full-fledged work in your personal account, it was necessary to fulfill a number of technical conditions, including the presence of a browser that supports encryption of secure connections in accordance with GOST. Until now, Internet Explorer met these conditions. You can download versions for Microsoft Windows on the official Sputnik website. You can read more about this.

The creation of a national search engine was considered unsuccessful

As a technical project, Sputnik succeeded, but as a popular search engine on the RuNet, it did not, states one of the publication’s interlocutors. According to LiveInternet, sputnik.ru does not even have 1% of the Runet search market. Thus, in April, the number of transitions from Sputnik to other Russian sites was about 100.8 thousand, while the most popular search engines - Yandex and Google - had billions of transitions. The share of Yandex in April was 54%, Google – 40.8%, Mail.ru – 4.4%, LiveInternet recorded.

2015: National search engine "Sputnik" in numbers

2014

Sputnik.ru is being transformed into a service portal

As of April 2014, Rostelecom is completing the creation of the Sputnik.ru Internet portal (it will be located at sputnik.ru), said company president Sergei Kalugin, answering a question from CNews. A prototype of the resource will be presented in April, he said. The company does not disclose details of the project.

The idea of ​​the project has been transformed, and now it is planned to launch not only a search, but also a service portal at sputnik.ru. An interlocutor of CNews, close to Rostelecom, says that the portal will allow citizens to use a variety of government and commercial services. For example, it will be possible to receive services related to housing and communal services, make an appointment with a doctor, call various specialists to your home, etc.

According to a CNews interlocutor in one of the large Internet holdings, Sputnik.ru will have its own personal account called “Elka” (probably integrated with the Unified Identification and Authentication System, in which users of the public services portal are registered). Various services will obviously be ordered through him.

In May 2014, Rostelecom began public testing of the Sputnik portal (located at sputnik.ru, not available in the .РФ domain). The announcement about the launch of the service will be made today during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. This is the first time that Rostelecom is creating the Sputnik system.

A separate subsidiary of Rostelecom, Sputnik LLC, is responsible for the operation of the portal. The development of Sputnik was carried out by a team of programmers from the KM-Media company acquired by Rostelecom two years ago.

Sputnik will be positioned as a service platform based on a socially oriented search engine. It is planned that the search robot will index the entire Runet, but the relevance of search results will be focused on services useful for citizens. Search results will also be cleared of content inappropriate for children.

At the end of 2014, the project managers of the Sputnik search system, owned by Rostelecom, announced that in the near future the resource would acquire a full-fledged email service and its own browser. Currently, a search is underway for specialists who can implement this project.

Sputnik included a pharmacy chain in the Medicines service

On March 12, 2015, it became known that about 1 thousand points of the A5 pharmacy chain were included in the “Medicines” service of the “Sputnik” portal.

The “Medicines” service was created by the team of the “Sputnik” portal as a “3 in 1” service to help users find the nearest pharmacies, compare prices and obtain descriptions of the required drugs. The service displays the balance of the required drug in a specific pharmacy and will help you find a medicine not only by name, but also by active ingredient, choosing inexpensive analogues.

Partner pharmacies interact with the Sputnik service using a special API. This interaction interface allows pharmacy owners to upload the range of their points of sale. Using the API, information on drug availability, stock and prices is updated daily.

“We are interested in expanding the list of our partners,” noted Armine Danielyan, commercial director of the A5 group of companies. “Thanks to connecting to the Sputnik service, we save the time of our customers - using the Medicines application, finding the right medicine in the nearest A5 pharmacies has become faster and easier.”

According to the developers, the task of Sputnik, as a federal project - presence in the maximum number of regions and settlements of Russia and cooperation with such large networks as A5, meets the conditions of this task.

2013

Rostelecom is developing a search engine Sputnik.ru

In March 2013, it became known that Rostelecom was creating a search system that would be based on the Sputnik.ru domain. A source in one of the Russian Internet companies told CNews about this. The corresponding domain is registered to a subsidiary of Rostelecom - RTKomm.ru, the page itself is now locked with a password.

Earlier, another source - in the government - told CNews that the task was to launch the search engine in March 2013. The project was supervised, according to him, by the presidential administration (the presidential assistant is now the former Minister of Communications Igor Shchegolev). But the publication’s interlocutor in the administration claims that they have nothing to do with this project.

Previously, the list of tasks that the government set for Rostelecom as part of the execution of the contract under the Information Society program included the item “Development of information search tools for various types of content.” But what exactly was hidden behind this clause has not yet been explained by the company.

Rostelecom did not comment on the reasons for the acquisition of KM Media and information about the use of this asset to create a search engine, referring it to its report. It only says that this transaction was carried out with the aim of diversifying the business.

Shortly before this, a new vice president from the Internet industry, Alexey Basov, came to Rostelecom. Before that, he was vice president of Mail.ru, and even earlier, he headed the Begun contextual advertising system. It is logical to assume that it will be Basov who will oversee the Sputnik.ru project.

According to some reports, the project will be promoted “at the state level” - using the default setting in government agencies and state-owned companies. The search engine should be launched in the first quarter of 2014. The Vedomosti newspaper reported that $20 million was spent on the creation of the project.

Gossearch.ru - a parody of the state search engine

On April 25, 2013, the gossearch.ru domain was registered, on which the Gospoisk website appeared - a parody search engine, allegedly made with the support of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Rostelecom company.

When a user enters a query into the search bar, he is required to indicate his first, last and patronymic names, then his passport details, residential address and the reason for the request. Each subsequent question is accompanied by explanations of the following nature: “Your address may be used to contact you in the event of suspicious and potentially dangerous search queries or gross violations of the site rules” or “Indicating incorrect data is classified as giving knowingly false information.” After the user answers all the questions, he receives a notification with the number of his search request and an offer to come to the nearest branch of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation and give this number.

The user does not see any explanation that the site is a parody. At the same time, its source code states that “all of the above is false.” The creators of the resource explain that it “is an absurd fantasy of what a national search engine could be.”

In April 2014, Vladimir Putin for the first time voiced his subsequently widely quoted thesis that the global Internet arose and is developing as a special project of the CIA. It is not surprising, the president continued, that the main Russian search engine Yandex is still subject to Western influence. “But they, too, at one time, when they were just starting their work, they were also crushed: they should have so many Americans, so many Europeans in their governing bodies, remember? And they had to agree with it.” It is difficult to find a similar episode in the history of a Russian IT company, but ideas about state control over the issuance of information had been developed for a long time by that time (according to some information, since the conflict in Georgia in 2008) and were in great demand among the authorities.

A month after these words from the president, in May 2014, Rostelecom structures launched in beta testing mode the “safe” search engine Sputnik, focused on government services and content filtering. The stated mission of Sputnik is to make it easier for Russians, including those living in small towns, to access the Internet, protected from “destructive phenomena” and “unreliable information.” “At the request of a “schoolgirl,” sputnik.ru should find girls in neat white aprons, and not what other search engines now give out,” said Rostelecom Vice President Alexey Basov, introducing the new site. He emphasized the ambition of the project, saying that Sputnik’s goal is to become one of the top 10 RuNet resources in terms of traffic within 4 years, using exclusively market methods, and not administrative resources. Monetization of the project was planned to begin within a year. At the same time, Sputnik did not seem to intend to compete directly with the industry giants - Google and Yandex; the bet was placed on the uniqueness of the product.

The launch of the search engine (the project leaders themselves prefer to call it a search service portal) was accompanied by noise in the media and active discussions on social networks, thanks to which more than half a million people visited it on the first day: the servers fell under load for some time. After users’ curiosity about the strange new product subsided, site traffic returned to near-zero levels: 100 days after the launch, Sputnik’s audience decreased by 90%. Positioning as a special portal for family and children's audiences, as well as for older people and active users of government services, did not work. Traffic continued to plummet; it got to the point that in August 2015, a tender worth 10 million rubles appeared on the government procurement website to “increase the audience of users of products” posted on Sputnik. Analytical companies could not provide data on site traffic: the search engine’s audience was so small that it was not included in their sample (according to the Mail.ru Rating service, in July 2016 the site was visited by 18.2 thousand users; the portal’s share in the search engine market was about 0.01%). According to CNews calculations, in the same month the average daily number of user clicks based on search results on Sputnik was 4.1 thousand. For market leaders - Yandex and the Russian version of Google - these figures are 74.2 and 49.7 million clicks, respectively.

In February 2015, Sputnik released its own mobile browser, designed for the same target user groups as the search engine. In addition to standard browser functions, it supports “children’s mode”, simplified access to useful services and its own security system. In the fall of the same year, a version of the browser for PC was released, developed on the Chromium kernel (the technology belongs to Google and is used in the Chrome, Opera, Yandex Browser and other programs). How the Sputnik product could supplant Chrome or any other popular browser in Russia remains a mystery (its most noticeable feature was a widget with a hot water shutdown schedule). However, one assumption can still be made. In May 2016, the Sputnik browser was included in the register of domestic software, created as part of a three-year plan for the transition of Russian ministries and departments to domestic software. The law, which came into force at the beginning of this year, prohibits government agencies from purchasing foreign software if there are domestic analogues in the registry.

Billions of unknown whose money

Sputnik LLC, which developed the search engine and browser, is 74.99% owned by Rostelecom subsidiaries: RTKomm.ru and Rostelecom International Limited. The remaining 25% of the company is owned by minority shareholders Vyacheslav Rudnikov and Vasily Vasin. Rostelecom itself is 51% owned by the state. According to calculations based on an analysis of open government procurement data, Rostelecom has spent more than 2 billion rubles on the development and maintenance of Sputnik over the last 3 years alone. At the same time, in the spring of 2013, even before the official launch of the search engine, the media reported investments in the amount of $15-20 million at the active development stage, that is, within one and a half to two years before that. There is no official information on this matter, so one can only guess about the real cost of the project. The Times, for example, recently called Sputnik a “£25 million flop.” However, according to representatives of Rostelecom, Russian taxpayers need not worry: Sputnik was developed and operates with private money from Rostelecom,” said Alexey Basov in an interview with Afisha. “This is a completely commercial project.” It was not possible to confirm these data: neither Rostelecom nor the press service of the search engine itself answered Novaya Gazeta’s question about the source of funding for Sputnik.

In response to general criticism related to the poor performance of the search engine, Rostelecom says that it is incorrect to compare Sputnik with Google. According to Basov, this is not an ordinary “universal” search engine - it is designed to solve “utilitarian problems.” The point is that Sputnik is equipped with “socially significant” services: for example, it helps you quickly find medicines at the best prices, and using the “My Home” function you can find out the name of your management company or the name of the district police officer. As representatives of the company told Novaya, the system is currently used when searching on the government services portal, and work is also underway to introduce Sputnik search into the structure of the Rostelecom RT.ru portal.

Sputnik is being dismantled into pieces

At first, after the launch of the search platform, Sputnik’s management refused to post their own data on resource traffic, since “at this stage of the project it is difficult to draw any conclusions from this information.” Then, against the backdrop of the economic crisis and low popularity of the product, the project managers decided to change the business model. In June of this year, the press service of Rostelecom reported that Sputnik plans to focus on working with B2B and B2G - that is, from creating user services to refocus on products for corporate organizations and government agencies. According to sources of the Izvestia newspaper, in connection with optimization and the search for a new economic model, about a third of the developers and managers of product services left the company in 6 months. The change in vector is also noticeable in the latest projects publicly announced by Sputnik: an Internet browser with a built-in cryptographic encryption system and website traffic counters. Both products are designed for use by officials or civil servants. Rostelecom also plans to invest in a domestic secure messenger for officials, the development of which from scratch, according to various estimates, could cost up to $5 million.

Another investment of the state operator is the paid mobile application for calls and messaging “Allyo”, which is intended to become the “second version of the home phone” (2 years ago the cost of developing the service was estimated at 73 million rubles).

“Sputnik” may in the future lose its status as an independent product, becoming an integral element of a larger project. For example, a possible scenario is to use search engine technologies as a tool for promoting Rostelecom’s own products. “Sputnik is Rostelecom’s technology center in the field of big data, integrating solutions for processing and analyzing big data in order to increase the efficiency of the company’s business,” the press service of the search engine told Novaya. In 2015, pilot projects were launched for the purpose of “targeted offering of services to selected groups of subscribers” of Rostelecom, which is Russia’s largest broadband Internet access operator.

Sputnik’s infrastructure may be useful in the implementation of the sensational “Yarovaya package”, according to which telecom operators and Internet providers will be required to store all their customers’ traffic for up to six months from July 1, 2018. According to Vedomosti, at one of the government meetings, representatives of Rostelecom proposed creating a data storage system using its own capacities (in other words, the capacities of Sputnik, which already stores user data from social networks). The Rostec state corporation also claims the status of a single operator of data storage services. The decision about who will get the new “fat” contract and whether a single operator will be created at all will depend on further requirements that the FSB will put forward to the contractors.