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Draft:Ukr.net

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Ukr.net (Ukrainian Укр.нет) is a popular news Internet service in Ukraine.[1] As of 2024 it ranked 5th among the top ten most visited websites in the Ukrainian segment of the internet.[2]

About the service

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Every day, around thirty thousand entries from 1,500 sources are automatically added to the site's news feed.[3] The news is collected every minute and placed in the appropriate thematic sections. On the main page, the most popular news is displayed using an algorithm. In addition, the site features a regional news feed. The editorial team does not create news but oversees the automatic categorization of aggregated reposts and filters the content.[4]

The news is presented regardless of the political stance or ideology of the websites that publish them. [4]The service also offers an email inbox with a bilingual interface (Ukrainian and Russian).

The email service was founded in 2000.[5] Part of the portal includes the weather forecast website Sinoptik.ua.[6]

History

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1998 — the Ukr.net web portal was founded.[7]

2000 — free registration for the Freemail.ukr.net email service was launched (since 2017, it has been known as mail@ukr.net).

2003 — news feed started developing by integrating popular and reputable news sources, international and Ukrainian news agencies, as well as regional websites.[7]

October 17, 2007 — the Ukrainian-language version of the portal was released.[8]

July 14, 2009 — the FreeMail service became available on mobile phones.[8]

2024 — the monthly visitors' number exceeds 2.7 million users, 45% of whom regularly use the email service.[7]

Popularity

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As of April 21, 2017, there were 16.7 million accounts registered on the @ukr.net email service.[9]

According to Semrush,[10] as of June 2024, Ukr.net became the seventh most visited website in Ukraine and ranked 712th globally. Over 80% of its audience is from Ukraine, with a smaller portion of visitors coming from the USA, the UK, Germany, and Ireland.

Country % of visitors
Ukraine 84.46%
USA 2.16%
United Kingdom 1.95%
Germany 1.94%
Ireland 1.3%

After the 2017 ban of several Russian websites and portals in Ukraine, the popularity of Ukr.net began to grow rapidly in Ukraine.[11]

Criticism

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Ukrainian Language in the Service

Despite positioning itself as a Ukrainian email service, Ukr.net lacked a Ukrainian-language interface for a long time, and it distorted emails written in Ukrainian. Letters such as Єє, Її, Іі were not displayed correctly in the text of emails, appearing as foreign symbols. Starting from 2004, initiated by the Domivka.Net portal, users of Ukr.net email began contacting support services. On June 18, 2004, UTF-8 encoding, which correctly displays Ukrainian letters, was implemented.[12]

Low-Quality Sources

There is no emphasis on primary sources. Due to weak news filtering, the main page often displays information from repeatedly republished articles (copy-paste), as well as content from publications that attract visitors through "black" SEO and advertising (see Clickbait). Data as of 2017.[13]

Vulnerabilities

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On July 26, 2024, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine issued the following warning: the hacker group UAC-0102 is imitating the Ukr.net website to steal user email accounts. Of particular interest to the attackers are employees of government agencies, military personnel, and employees of Ukrainian enterprises and organizations. The hacker group distributes emails with attachments in the form of archives containing an HTML file. When the recipient opens the file, they are directed to a phishing website that mimics the appearance of the Ukr.net service page. If the recipient enters their login and password, the data is sent to the attackers, leading to account compromise.[14]

Service Outages

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On the night of March 7, 2024, Web.com, a subsidiary company, and the domain registrar Network Solutions blocked the domain ukr.net without prior warning. As a result, the ukr.net news feed and the @ukr.net email service were temporarily unavailable. The blockage occurred due to the presence of three materials on the portal that were prohibited by the California Superior Court on January 23, 2024, following a lawsuit by Stanislav Kondrashov and the company Telf AG.[9]

References

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  1. ^ https://internews.in.ua/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Ukrainski-media-stavlennia-ta-dovira-2023r.pdf
  2. ^ "Top Websites Ranking". similarweb. September 1, 2024.
  3. ^ "КУРСИ «ЦИФРОВА ГРАМОТНІСТЬ» – Центральна міська бібліотека Місто Олександрія" (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2024-09-13.
  4. ^ a b "Про стрічку новин".
  5. ^ "Александр Костюченко, «Укрнет»: «Я советую переходить из аутсорсинга в продуктовую компанию»". DOU (in Russian). Retrieved 2024-09-13.
  6. ^ "Эксперимент The Village: Какие сайты о погоде точнее". The Village Україна (in Ukrainian). 2013-04-29. Retrieved 2024-09-13.
  7. ^ a b c "Інформація про портал UKR.NET".
  8. ^ a b Приходько, Тарас (2019-11-18). "Ukr.net (Укр.нет) - история компании. Год основания. Владельцы. Новости Украины. Синоптик". ua-rating.com (in Russian). Retrieved 2024-09-13.
  9. ^ a b "Домен одного з найбільших українських порталів Ukr.net заблокували. Що про це відомо? (оновлено) Джерело: https://biz.censor.net/n3477345". БІЗНЕС ЦЕНЗОР. 7 March 2024. {{cite news}}: External link in |title= (help)
  10. ^ "ukr.net Website Traffic, Ranking, Analytics [August 2024]". Semrush (in Turkish). Retrieved 2024-09-13.
  11. ^ "Порошенко підписав наказ про заборону "Яндекс", "Вконтакте" й "Одноклассники"". Archived from the original on 2017-05-19.
  12. ^ "Укр.НЕТ починає виконувати перші вимоги українізації!".
  13. ^ "Де читати новини крім "Яндекса": найкращі українські новинні агрегатори".
  14. ^ Поліковська, Юлія (2024-07-26). "Держспецзв'язку: хакери імітують сайт Ukr.net для викрадення поштових акаунтів". ms.detector.media (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2024-09-13.