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.
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.
The scrappy competitor had the superior OS, but they never delivered. They insisted on running their OS on their proprietary hardware. They couldn't stop stepping on their own dicks right up until they needed Microsoft to bail them out.
Windows was not the OS we needed, but was the OS we deserved.
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
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."
Oh, I'm with you. I don't think anyone using Google VPN was using it because it protected their privacy on the Internet generally. At least I hope not.
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.
Surfshark, I don't know much about VPN's but I've been told they are pretty secure and don't share your info. I mainly use VPN's to pirate shows and movies and for that it's worked well, havnt gotten any letters from my ISP.
I'm not endorsing them just to be clear as I am not knowledgeable enough to know if it's good or not but it was recommended by someone I trust with that stuff like 3 years ago.
Sort of. Texas and others instituted laws where websites have to age verify anyone looking at porn. So a bunch of websites just geofenced off those places. The easy way to watch porn is to connect to a VPN or go to shittier sites.
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.
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.
The big advantage of google docs is that it is free and good enough. Most people don’t need advanced formatting options, font size and a few choices are sufficient.
Why wouldn’t you? They’re super convenient, being small and lightweight, with high quality keyboards that make them more laptop like, plus they support standard USB and Bluetooth keyboards. They aren’t full laptop replacements, but basic office productivity tasks they surely are, and have first class support from Microsoft office, google docs, and Apple’s office tools. In a meeting for example, they can be used to take notes, and then quickly screen mirror to a TV wirelessly or with a wired adapter and be used as a drawing tablet for sketching ideas or drawing diagrams. Extremely versatile, there’s nothing really like it (well, besides other tablets).
They certainly don’t replace a real laptop in all aspects, but they do for most people most of the time, hence why it’s common for people to use smartphones and tablets as their only computer.
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.
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.