You must log in or register to comment.
A private vpn is an oxymoron. Since you tunnel all your data to some server.
Google and privacy is an oxymoron.
“Google private vpn” would be a mega oxymoron.
Not really. What if it’s your VPN? Mine allows me access to my home network, which is its primary focus, but it also obfuscates what my phone is doing online, and blocks trackers.
(Adguard home and wireguard)
It also lets me use my phone on 4chan… so there’s that.
Commercial services have tainted the word for sure.
If you’re of the few people on earth to care enough and knows enough to set it’s own vpn, sure. but otherwise, NordVPN gonna still sponsor youtubers and lure people into a false sense of privacy.
Strps to set up my own VPN:
- Navigate to my router’s configuration page
- Select Configure VPN server
- Click Generate Certificate button
- Download certificate
- Enable VPN networking on my device
- Import downloaded certificate
It’s that simple. If you don’t have your own firewall, you can just deploy Tailscale on all devices you want to be able to communicate with each other, which uses Wireguard under the hood.
As someone who manages a tailscale network at my work…I just want to point out that tailscale is a tiny bit more complicated than just downloading and installing. Not much but…
That said the ability to automate wireguard connections is wonderful and everyone should check it out.
“Private” in “virtual private network” means “routed by different rules”. It’s the same “private” that’s in “private Internet Protocol addresses”.
It was never about personal privacy.
It’s an oximoron in every company which make money with surveillance advertisings. Google undoubtedly has apps and services with a very high quality and often without real competition or alternative, but this has a very high cost and if the main income, apart from some paid services, is based on selling user data to advertising companies, it is logical and almost inevitable that it becomes a data moloch that uses any dirty trick to obtain these. It is an axiom: power corrupts
Mozilla now regrets having signed with Google as a sponsor and is now trying to get out of this contract, especially since Google plans to introduce this WEI DRM, but Alphabet is not doing this the easy way and Mozilla depends a lot on this money to maintain its infrastructure. We will see what comes of this, but it is really urgent that Mozilla changes its business model, it would be very desirable and necessary.
Moral: If you want to maintain your independence and freedom, do not accept outside investors
It was an Interesting read, thanks
deleted by creator
Makes me cringe thinking of all those years I was using Google DNS, back when I believed that “don’t be evil” shit
What do you use now?
And it’ll be gone in two years.
That long? Make your bets folks!
Or, they’ll bake it into Chrome, thus controlling all advertising.
I’d put money on it.
This is actually really useful if you want to be tracked more by google
At least Google VPN is honest about who tracks you with this VPN, LOL
Does it really say that?
Only on chrome
I was also curious, so I found this page. It looks nothing like the screenshot (maybe because Im on mobile), and the only sentence coming close, under the “Extra online protection” heading, is: “Reduce online tracking by hiding your IP address”. As if that means anything if you have Google apps installed on your phone.
But after reading more, I found a link to their how-it-works page, which then linked to their github page. Is beeing open-source really enough to show it’s secure and private? I still wouldn’t trust them.
Being open source by default doesn’t make a project secure and privacy friendly (especially if it’s server sided code. You can’t really verify for sure)
The VPN itself is secure, but it depends of an Google One account (not free). And respect of this, I found this in the FAQ page
Also, while VPN by Google One secures your device connection, it does not affect how Google collects data when you use our other products and services. For example, depending on your sync settings, Chrome will continue to store your Chrome browsing history to your Google Account. To manage the kinds of data saved to your account, you can review your Google Account’s privacy controls.
This mean, that my Screenshot isn’t a Joke, even if you use this VPN which certainly protect you from third party tracking, Google remain logging your data, because the VPN use it’s own Google servers with your Google One account, not free public servers, like other VPN. It’s a similar scam like the Opera “VPN”. Nice try, Google
If you want a good VPN, use Nord VPN, or if you want a good trustworthy free VPN, use Proton VPN free (no logs, no limits in amount of data nor speed, encrypted at military level, but limited to 23 servers in three countries and use in only one device (PC or Mobile) in the free version), Proton is also OpenSource.
At least, if you only need a VPN to protect your mobile in a public WiFi, Calyx VPN also maybe enough, it’s FOSS, encrypted, no logs, no account needed, no limits, but only one server from the Calyx institute, a non-profit education and research organization. Download from F-Droid.
I’m thinking of the target user for this: For us here it’s a really unfunny joke. For the people wanting to do “non-kosher” stuff like watching streaming for other countries or even outright pirating i don’t think Google’s gonna have their back. People trying to hide their identity while doing compromising stuff (like anything sexual or identity related, not illegal but not something they want in public) hopefully know not to trust Google on this. And corporate users already have their own corporate VPNs, don’t think they’re aiming for those (yet).
Who the fuck is left as potential user? My only conclusion is the terminally gullible. I see no other option. And since of course there’s a sucker born every minute it’ll have millions of users…
They’re fishing for people who think it’s important to have one because YouTube sponsorships told them so.
But they’re all using a discounted NordVPN thanks to Warographics.
It can be easy to forget when you run in these techy circles - There are alot of people whose entire knowledge/existence of the internet is entirely isolated within Facebook. They get a new phone, install Facebook, and never leave. Any web use is via the inbuilt browser.
That’s the most extreme, but beyond that is the same but anything non Facebook is exclusively Google. They don’t even know that you could have a non-Gmail email account. LOADS of people have never owned a PC now, they grew up on a smartphone and android (or istuff) is literally their only comprehension of the web.
Depressingly likely…
For casual people traveling that don’t want their free wifi being spied on. Also it’s free.
Any VPN is fine for piracy IMO. Any gap whatsoever between copyright troll torrent peers including you in their mass automated letters to ISPs solves the problem, it isn’t a high bar.
lol hard pass.
Damn, people here really misunderstand the threat surface. The Google VPN is just fine for staying safe from things like rogue wifi hotspots and even Stingray devices to some extent. It’s also makes it much harder for your ISP to data mine your web activity. Obviously if you have an Android device using Google services, Google already has access to pretty much any information they might get from the VPN service. If you are de-Googled, then obviously you’d never use this.
For the vast majority of people, privacy should be what happens outside of your curated public image. Everyone has a public image. If you try to be completely dark all the time, chances are you will slip up and just end up in an even worse position because you don’t understand when or how you’ve lost control. This is counterintelligence 101. Real first day stuff, but so many of the ‘pop-security’ influencers on the internet struggle with it, because they don’t have any practical CI training. However, having a public image doesn’t mean you cede all control to every observer. Obviously there are many choices for VPNs, but for everyday use, this VPN Google bundles with various other products is generally high quality.
A google VPN sounds as sus as huggies condoms.
if we’re being honest this is probably just as good for privacy as most popular vpns (sooo not much and over advertising how much they protect you)
they did release a white paper on how the service works if you trust it’s what they’re actually doing. https://one.google.com/about/vpn/howitworks
I keep literally all private data in Google. When I opened, refinanced, paid off my mortgage with Chase, I was inundated with calls and mail because my bank sold my data, account balances and contact info. Somewhere within Google is all of my private email and AFAICT, they haven’t ever sold any data from it.
Google does some bad stuff. They sell access to you, not your data.
When people talk about “Google stealing your data” they are referring to non personal data related to things you buy so that advertisers can target their market better, they aren’t like trading secrets and tracking where you go so they can jump out and I dunno, scare you or some shit? No it’s just for as revenue stuff. They aren’t even serving you more ads they are just serving you more accurate ones because those will generate more revenue from advertisers. Nothing is shared with them like your name or address or even your age really (just a general age group)
They’ve had one for a while as far as I know but it didn’t work for me outside of the US so it was useless for me since I used to be safer abroad.
And I guess they won’t put any recaptcha so, there’s that…
They really do think we are all fucking idiots, don’t they?
So long as the majority doesn’t know any better, it’s profitable.
looks at my Pixel 6
Well, now I feel dumb.
Had to buy a Pixel 6a to ne able to install grapheneOS, and I did buy it renewed
Same, with Pixel 4A. But now that the Pixel line has abandoned the 3.5mm jack I will look elsewhere for my next phone and ROM.
I’m just upvoting all the “lol”, “lmfao” and “hahaha” comments.
deleted by creator
They’ve had one for quite a while. My original Google pixel had the option to enable when on unknown wifi ie coffee shops and such. While it provides no value and even negative value for you guys here I can see how it’d be useful for places where you don’t trust the network you are on. But that also means you have to trust Google 🤣
Anyone that actually puts their trust in this deserves whatever happens to them
I used a Google VPN, and now my dog is addicted to heroin.
I honestly don’t know where he keeps getting the heroin
@socsa Probably because his web traffic is encrypted.
