Bring back Android 4.4 and earlier system images (legacy / archival support)

[gumoraes525]

Since September 2022, Genymotion no longer provides Android 4.4 and below images.
I would like to request bringing these legacy Android versions back, even if marked as deprecated or unsupported.

• Maintaining and debugging legacy Android applications still used in production environments
• Reverse engineering, security research, and malware analysis targeting older Android versions
• Historical Android research
• Educational purposes (understanding Android platform evolution)
• Compatibility testing for devices that never received updates past 4.x

Suggested implementation:

• Reintroduce Android ≤4.4 images in a “Legacy / Archived” section
• Clearly mark them as unsupported / no security updates
• Optional download or manual enable toggle to avoid confusing new users
• No Google services required

Why this matters:

Other emulators (and physical devices) are increasingly hard to obtain or unreliable for very old Android versions.
Genymotion already has a strong x86 virtualization engine that historically supported these versions very well, making it one of the best tools for legacy Android testing.

Even a read-only or frozen image set would be extremely valuable to developers and researchers.

Audience benefited:

• Developers maintaining old apps
• Security researchers
• Android historians
• Education and training environments

[agavignet]

Thank you for taking the time to submit this detailed feature request and for outlining the use cases so thoroughly. We genuinely appreciate that users like yourself care enough about Genymotion to suggest improvements.

I understand the value of legacy Android versions for the specific scenarios you mentioned—maintaining older applications, security research, and educational purposes are all legitimate needs in certain contexts.

However, after careful consideration, we won't be able to reintroduce Android 4.4 and earlier images at this time.

Here's why:
Resource constraints: We're a small team, and we need to focus our development efforts on features and versions that serve the majority of our user base.
Market reality: Android 4.4 represents less than 0.1% of the active Android ecosystem today, and we haven't received other client requests for these legacy versions.
Industry direction: Even Android Studio no longer offers Android 4.4 as a minimum SDK option, reflecting the broader industry shift away from these versions.

That said, we do monitor user feedback closely. If we see significant demand that would justify the investment, we're always willing to reconsider. For now, though, we need to prioritize our resources toward the Android versions that our clients actively use in their development workflows.

We hope you understand our position, and we're grateful for your continued interest in Genymotion.