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.
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.
I don't have any evidence to the contrary, but in general it's suspicious when a company markets features like that so hard when there's no reliable way an outsider can verify that the claim is accurate (still)
I remember this, and a quick google corroborates, that they've had 3 independent 3rd party audits and have been verified each time as not keeping activity logs. I think they're one of the good ones.
“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
Oh sure. Use the company known for mining the fuck out of personal data to protect my personal data from being mined.
A VPN doesn't really protect you from Google though. They get their data through trackers, which doesn't get blocked by a VPN. Obviously I'd still not use a Google VPN, because who knows what they'd do with that data
No one knows what any VPN provider would do with that data so that's not google exclusive.
All the traffic is now attributed to you, like it was before your self hosted VPN.
It also depens on what informations the host has about you. Bare minimum is the IP, but it isn't really an identification
If you're hosting a VPN in your house, all traffic is going to/from your device and your home encrypted, and your home and the isp unencrypted. Since it's in your home, everything you do on the VPN tunnel can be seen on the other side by your isp.
E: autocorrect corrections
Idk... maybe not great for privacy but I just test it (I have been a subscriber for a while and didn't know there was a VPN) and it bypasses my country blocks of certain piracy pages so so far it's kind of usefull.
This is funny. Please pipe ALL of your online activities through us. We won't spy, gather, sell, or snitch.
Get fucked.
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.
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.
I used it when my wife was at the hospital and they had a public wifi network with no password. I already have Google One, so it was a no Brainer in my case.
They are left with a sample size exactly as large or as small as the body of users who still google anything.
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.
I pirate the shit out of torrents on Google VPN for years no problems. Spectrum kept hassling me getting caught twice in one month. Switched to Google and never got bothered again. They don't throttle torrents either.
The point of a VPN is to protect your privacy. Google is the last company I would trust to do that.
There are way worst VPNs out there, they are not only a scam and spyware, like Google- or Opera"VPNs", they also dangerous. eg Hola VPN 🥶 Apart of Windscribe, Proton and maybe Calyx, there isn't any trustworth free VPN out there, and all free, even if they are trustworth are limited, in use of monthly amount of data (10 Gb in Windscribe), or/and in the amount of servers. If a free VPN offers a lot of servers AND unlimited amount of data, by definition is a scam or worse. Servers cost money and free VPN only can offer free dedicated public servers and there a not so much, only a few in some countries.
I'm surprised meta don't create a vpn product.
But yeah, No way either of them would ever be my vpn.
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.
There are quite simply better services out there, why defend a mega corp? You said it yourself they will sell every fucking byte of data, VPNs aren’t hard to figure out especially these days with ezpz UX.
Truly fuck this service, it’s not like it’s the only one with low barrier of entry, it provides some security but by nature dissolves privacy. You also can’t shift your location at all so it’s even less useful
Mullvad for example is easy as FUCK is super cheap (google one vpn is essentially the same pricing model for basic, $2 diff, the difference being mullvad doesn’t limit your data like google one does!!!!) and performative, as well as anonymous, no account or bullshit, plays nice with their simple-as-fuck default user apps or with others like WireGuard for more config
WHY use an inferior service that fucks you? Especially as it limits amount of data whereas mulvad doesn’t.
It’s worse in every fucking way
An easy barrier of entry isn't always the issue at hand. I think what the user is saying, hate Google or not, you are at the very least safe to some degree. A lot of people don't realize that VPNS are just ways of manipulating where your data goes and who sees it and that VPNs can be abused as services even if they aren't Google.
Those same services can sell your data just the same as Google. Let's not forget that the "mega corp" everyone loves to hate is the reason you have Android competing against iOS which is part of another mega corp. People on Lemmy should get the fuck off their high horses.
I just find out and I have been paying for years... so they don't advertise it very well that's for sure...
Most people browse with Chrome and possibly with Google's DNS, so this really doesn't make any difference from a privacy standpoint.
So long as the majority doesn't know any better, it's profitable.
looks at my Pixel 6
Well, now I feel dumb.
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.