NortonLifeLock, which develops Norton antivirus, has announced the suspension of activities in Russia, from the sale of software products to technical support. The “related” company responsible for the release of Avast antivirus has also joined it.

Users of Norton antiviruses report that it is impossible to update the antivirus databases of already purchased software. It is also impossible to reinstall already purchased products.

The creators of Avast antivirus also announced the termination of activities in Russia. At the same time, such coordination of the actions of the two companies is not surprising. NortonLifeLock and Avast have long agreed to merge, but the closing of the deal was postponed until April 4, so the companies can already be considered almost one entity.

The search engine DuckDuckGo will be down-ranking sites that spread Russian propaganda and disinformation. In a tweet, founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg wrote that the privacy-focused search engine would be releasing updates that would ensure Russian disinformation sites rank further down in search results.

Freedom and independence always are nice, especially if your finances come from banks and government and both hate them.

Earlier this month, DuckDuckGo announced it would pause its relationship with Russian-state owned search engine Yandex.

Yandex is not state owned, idiots.

Facebook's new content policy in relation to Russia will be the absence of a ban for calls for violence against Russians, including their murder. Meta will also temporarily allow moderators to post death wishes to the residents of Russia and Belarus.

It is noteworthy that the new policy will mainly affect users from Russia and the post-Soviet republics: Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Poland, Hungary and Romania were also added to the list — countries that have received a large number of refugees from Ukraine and periodically lean towards anti-Russian discourse.

Freedom.

On Thursday, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said Russia decided to suspend fertilizer exports. This comes when global food prices are at record highs, and European fertilizer makers are struggling to produce nutrients ahead of the spring growing season, increasing global food inflation risks.

President Vladimir Putin said the fertilizer export ban was a move to ensure stable domestic food prices. This is another sign of growing protectionism worldwide as countries grapple with soaring food prices. Putin said fertilizer markets are deteriorating, making food a lot more expensive. Putin added that Russia has agreements with "friendly countries" on fertilizers.

In addition Moscow is considering retaliatory economic measures to ban exports of certain agricultural products to countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union.

Note that up to 80% of EU fertilizers industry is stopped now due to extreme gas prices.

It'll be very grim year for EU.