VPN by Google One is shutting down for good
VPN by Google One is shutting down for good
Google is phasing out VPN by Google One in favor of other features and benefits it intends to provide Google One users.
Google is probably the last company I would pay for a VPN from
Facebook VPN
Touché
Tencent VPN
X
Nestlé VPN
Fuck Nestlé
Stealing all my streams
It's bundled with Google One, so if you pay for more Google Drive storage you get it for free. tbf it's a shit VPN that doesn't even let you choose your country. I could see it used when on public wifi, but other than that I don't see the point.
NSA VPN
If you really just are worried about China or Russia spying on you and definitely don't want them to see what you write then that'd be a good option.
Russian, Chinese or Iranian dissidents might be happy to use one hah.
The NASA VPN, on the other hand
It's already been added to the Google Graveyard.
Honestly every single Google product should be added to it with a "TBD" or "Coming Soon" on the death date.
Kinda makes one not want to become dependant on google products.
For sure. I no longer buy into new Google products because they're going to die. It also makes it hard to recommend anything Google. They're literally killing their ability to expand by constantly doing this.
The only plus in this situation is that switching VPNs is far easier than other services since it's just a pipe you're swapping out.
Still annoying though, since Google VPN was nice if you were already paying for Google One. Now people will have to pay extra for something else.
People have trust issues with Google services.
Me, deeply cynical: "Google is just using their VPN to spy on you. They've got an entire department dedicated to checking what websites you visit while using the VPN and building a profile on each individual, which they will turn over to the authorities the moment society collapses into a state of anarchy and military law must be imposed."
Google CEO: "Shut down the secret VPN counterintelligence program that tracks all the future domestic terrorists in the event of a widespread domestic insurgency. Its not making us enough money."
What's crazy is in this time line that sounds plausible.
Pretty reasonable
I am part of people... I hate google, Microsoft, Apple. So you're right. We need a new hero.
The young upstart Microsoft fatally wounded the International Business Machines behemoth and brought us an OS for the common man. Something simplified that could provide a GUI and run on just about any hardware a normal person could afford. And thus everyone lived happily ever after.
The scrappy competitor stepped in with better design and a great deal of care about the customer experience to knock the dominant OS bully off... Whoops, the scrappy competitor stepped on his own dick... And again, and again... And then the scrappy competitor had to be bailed out by the OS bully. And thus everyone lived not un-happily ever after.
Until, the people's hero entered the ring with their open phone OS, a replacement for the Netscape browser but this time with real money backing it, and a moto of righteousness, "Don't be evil". Once in the ring they began kicking all the Goliaths in their dicks... Cellular teleco, oppressive OS makers, even home Internet providers. There was no monopoly whose reproductive organs were safe from the swift boots of our savior Google. And thus everyone lived happily ever after.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
I feel like it would be weird to if you got a vpn for the purpose of downloading isos or making it harder to track you. It wasn’t always available to iOS users either ( I have an iPhone so that’s why I’m mentioning it) , so you already neutered those two bases. It seemed like a niche offering to begin with
So those of us that pay for google one yearly will get a partial refund?.... right?
They didn't refund nest thermostat users when they verified those devices.
Yeah I can see why people weren't using it lol. Google is entirely the person they're trying to hide from.
Why would anyone use this shit?
It's cheap and easy for me to use it while traveling around and going on god knows what public wifi network. I am not using google VPN for privacy, but using it for some sense of security out of my home. Already paying for Google One storage, so this was a nice perk.
Google is removing the VPN and free shipping (which was only available on some photo orders) to make way for more "in demand features"?
I could understand if this was coming from a smaller company with more limited resources and staff, but that's not Google by any means.
They really don't care about the poor reputation the general public has of them regarding shutting down services on a whim.
What's worse though is they don't seem to realize that, with the exception of Android and maybe Google Docs, their services/products are easily replaced by competitor offerings.
In my opinion it's a good thing if Google gets knocked of their high horse and allow competition to flourish in their place.
Google docs is only good for collaboration. Otherwise its insane that MS Office is still superior to it.
Hell, Libreoffice is admittedly slightly behind MS for features, and its still superior to Google Docs.
What's actually is worse that people do not care and continue using Google, being arbitrarily dependent on them.
This is shocking.
I'm shocked.
This is my shocked face I have on right now.
Kind of funny that they sent an email with like 3 benefits of Google One being dropped but nothing added back.
They should drop Google One. It's literally just storage afaict.
Google had a VPN?
Didn't they advertise this as one of the benefits of buying a pixel phone?
Less than a year and it's gone... Not that it was much of a feature in the first place
It will remain a feature for Pixel 7+ users
That's not a feature. Just clarifying that.
But... Why are they taking it down if they still support it?
Anyone here even use this?
Yeah I use it all the time. For one you can download torrents at full speed with it. And it's great for when you are connecting to random wifi connections at restaurants and other businesses. Everyone in all of the threads has been like huurrr durrr Google for privacy hyuk hyuk, while giving themselves a reach around for being so smart. That's not the point of this VPN. It was a great tool that was a good value add to a storage service I already pay for.
A quick lightweight security tool for situations that require minimal security, which frankly for the public at large is all they ever need, the boogeyman is in fact not hacking your local coffee shop wifi work zombie access nodes, relax. It was also pretty handy when tmobile wants to throttle YouTube you could pop this on and get back to videos without buffering.
I didn't trust Google enough to torrent but definitely used it on my pixel while traveling. Especially when at relatives houses. I don't need my DNS requests being logged by their router.
I very much felt like you: it's a convenient feature-add for something I was paying for. I did not use it for privacy. I used it for convenience.
Most people who truly care about privacy wouldn't use google products at all, including their remote storage or whatever you're using that makes this an inexpensive add-on.
There are plenty of affordable remote storage and vpn services that aren't google that have much better track records on privacy and don't owe $7,000,000 in fines for an antitrust case.
It's nice that you're saying people believe they're super smart and make 4chan style noises because they write that they don't like google for a privacy product, but I have to tell you: you do not need to give yourself a reach-around. Your genitals are on the front of your body.
I have, yeah. While I was traveling internationally and the roaming mobile data rates were insane. So I used the VPN while connecting to hotel/public wifi.
Just use the free tier of Proton VPN, it's a million times better
A way to give Google even more of my personal data? I'm good, thanks.
I use it when I'm traveling and am on insecure WiFi.
However, it doesn't let you pick your egress location,.so if you're trying to get to PornHub in Texas, it won't help.
I've never even heard of it. They sure weren't putting their VPN front and center.
If you have Google one you can download the Google one app there's a list of things you get in there and to redeem it from the app
I do when on unencrypted wifi
Shocker