Google Is Killing Its VPN Service (engadget.com) 30
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you're -- apparently, one of the few people -- using the VPN service that comes with Google One, we've got bad news for you. In an email you're going to receive from Google if you haven't gotten it yet, it revealed that it's phasing out the perk sometime later this year. The company rolled out Google One's VPN feature back in 2020, but you could only access it then if you're paying for a plan with at least 2TB of storage, which costs at least $10 a month. Last year, the company expanded its availability across all One plans, including the basic $2-per-month option, making it more affordable than before.
Wait, wait, let me guess. (Score:4, Insightful)
It has to do with that lawsuit they settled where they were spying on incognito mode in their browser?
They're also spying on their vpn users despite the whole idea behind a vpn is for privacy and security. With the notice tucked away in their user acceptance boilerplate that the service that's commonly used for privacy cannot and will not be guaranteed to be either private or secure because they're busy harvesting data from it.
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They're also spying on their vpn users despite the whole idea behind a vpn is for privacy and security.
That's not accurate.
A VPN is an encrypted tunnel that should prevent the traffic between two points from being intercepted. When your data emerges on the far end of the tunnel (unencrypted) it isn't private.
All you're doing with a VPN is shifting trust around.
I have a handful of clients that VPN into their offices from home. The VPN ensures they are who they say they are and allows them to access their corporate resources. There's absolutely zero privacy though. I can connect to the router and snif
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VPNs controlled by your employer are fine, so are those by yourself. Those c
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Those controlled by some commercial entity are not to be used.
You never asked me what I use it for, and whom I'm hiding from. Privacy isn't a black and white, on or off concept. There's many bands of grey. For example it's why I'm happy posting under a pseudonym here instead of as AC. I don't need complete privacy for this post.
Likewise many people don't give a shit about Google spying on them because Google doesn't sell their data wholesale to any idiot with a credit card, rather they sell access to you via API and targeted adverts but keep that juicy data to themsel
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Just because Google is spying on their VPN customers, doesn't make the VPN worthless for many use cases.
No, and that is reducing a small part of my argument. VPNs are worthless for reasons including: the deployment of HSTS and TLS throughout the internet, making eavesdropping and "coffee shop" attacks a thing of the past; the use of trackers that can easily detect when most users are using a VPN and correlate them to an identity; the ease of traffic correlation attacks on VPN users vs Tor when law enforcement is involved; and the false sense of security garnered by VPN users.
Don't just believe me: https:/ [nytimes.com]
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the whole idea behind a vpn is for privacy and security.
That's the marketing bullshit various VPN services sell you, but that is NOT what a VPN is about.
All a VPN is is a secure connection between two points and disallows interception of that communication between these two points. Nothing else. One point is the VPN client, the other point is the VPN server. In case of such a "privacy VPN provider", that would be you and that VPN provider.
What happens after the VPN provider is anyone's guess. And whether there is any security or privacy after your connection eme
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Google VPN sounds like an oxymoron.
Never mind the "oxy" - anyone who trusts Google to keep a virtual network private is simply a moron.
It's not supposed to lure you into the heart of the beast, bend you over, and uhm, "log" you with no Vaseline.
Second good laugh of the day - thanks!
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Google VPN sounds like an oxymoron.
Never mind the "oxy" - anyone who trusts Google to keep a virtual network private is simply a moron.
Get yourelf a decent scriptblocker and see just how much Google gets on you - it ain't just your search engine.
And beyond privacy, if it's a Google Service, it will probably be discontinued. I thinnk that is getting common enough that it is affecting people even using their services.
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And beyond privacy, if it's a Google Service, it will probably be discontinued. I thinnk that is getting common enough that it is affecting people even using their services.
It's not "common" so much as standard practice and intentional.
If it is not a core project, and what a core project is can change year to year, then there is rarely an officially assigned team to fully support the project.
Yes there will be officially assigned project management in place, most often people who are not programmers but in management.
Beyond that, people will generally choose to work on such a project as a secondary task.
They may have many secondary tasks. Their primary task always takes priori
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The message needs to be: VPNs barely increase privacy, and even come with some security risks. They have limited use cases for geo-ip changes and other niche cases, but 99% people are paying for something that gives them no tangible benefit.
Re:Who in the actual fuck would trust Google VPN? (Score:4, Funny)
Not me - so I've switched to Facebook VPN!
Shit service anyways (Score:5, Informative)
Had that service for a year included with a separate deal. The VPN was complete crap -- slow as hell, probably not even private, useless for geoblock avoidance, no split tunneling. I've used better services that were completely free.
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Had that service for a year included with a separate deal. The VPN was complete crap -- slow as hell, probably not even private, useless for geoblock avoidance, no split tunneling. I've used better services that were completely free.
Have you noticed that using European countries with VPN, a lot of people are geoblocking them. I geoblock Europe on my sites, but I thought I was just a crank. Nope. They are trying to dictate the internet, and many are saying GFY.
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VOIP is also blocked by a lot of services for the purpose of authentication. Another problem. Well, problem for me. Great for companies that want to spy on people.
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VPNs are blocked by a lot of services. I wouldn't call that geoblocking, since it usually doesn't matter where the VPN servers are located. And yeah it's a problem.
Although many cases do say something along the lines of "This content is not available in your country". And those are almost exclusively EU. A couple hang on Brazil.
But yes - vpn has some weird issues. My printer doesn't work if I am on VPN, and some of my services like Zoom don't like it either. And sites like Lowes and Home Depot, get very weird. Trying to access either site, they seem to randomly guess where you are.
What else (Score:3)
under google's terms... (Score:3)
They are literally the last company (Score:5, Insightful)
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Honestly that's a false dichotomy there. If Google already know everything about you then they are precisely the people who you should trust with your data as trusting literally anyone else can only increase the number of people who know shit about you, which isn't a good thing.
Now if on the other hand you managed to keep yourself private from Google then you'd most definitely be on point, but it's also worth remembering what happens to your data. Google make a profit on selling access to you, they don't se
As a wise man once said... (Score:5, Funny)
Par for the course for Google (Score:4, Interesting)
They are killing everything they touch. They're even killing their search engine, it just happens more slowly. You can already smell the rotting of flesh, though.
Seems that (Score:5, Funny)
You only find out about Google services when they announce its cancellation
I use the Google Fi VPN (Score:2)
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"Google Shuts Down Search" (Score:2)
I expect to see this headline on Slashdot within in the next 10 years.
Google VPN? (Score:2)
What?! (Score:2)
Also comes with Fi (Score:2)