• Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    1604·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • BlinkerFluid@lemmy.oneEnglish
      352·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        33·
        10 months ago

        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.

        • Em Adespoton@lemmy.caEnglish
          16·
          10 months ago

          Strps to set up my own VPN:

          1. Navigate to my router’s configuration page
          2. Select Configure VPN server
          3. Click Generate Certificate button
          4. Download certificate
          5. Enable VPN networking on my device
          6. 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.

          • rolaulten@startrek.website
            6·
            10 months ago

            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.

          • Natanael@slrpnk.net
            4·
            10 months ago

            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)

            • Daisyifyoudo@lemmy.world
              1·
              10 months ago

              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.

    • Slotos@feddit.nl
      4·
      10 months ago

      “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.

    • Zerush@lemmy.ml
      3·
      10 months ago

      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

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    773·
    10 months ago

    Oh sure. Use the company known for mining the fuck out of personal data to protect my personal data from being mined.

    • gerryflap@feddit.nl
      161·
      10 months ago

      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

    • XTornado@lemmy.ml
      92·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • _TK@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyzEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        Just be careful with that. If Google is logging your sessions, then your country’s government can request that data. The idea that Google wouldn’t keep logs is laughable.

        • XTornado@lemmy.ml
          1·
          10 months ago

          Sure, I don’t care in my case tough. It’s not illegal to access them even tough they are blocked.

  • Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world
    582·
    10 months ago

    This is funny. Please pipe ALL of your online activities through us. We won’t spy, gather, sell, or snitch.

    Get fucked.

  • Zerush@lemmy.ml
    586·
    10 months ago

    At least Google VPN is honest about who tracks you with this VPN, LOL

      • melooone@feddit.de
        111·
        10 months ago

        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.

          • Zerush@lemmy.ml
            3·
            10 months ago

            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.

  • jherazob@kbin.social
    502·
    10 months ago

    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…

    • Pietson@kbin.social
      391·
      10 months ago

      They’re fishing for people who think it’s important to have one because YouTube sponsorships told them so.

      • Fazoo@lemmy.ml
        7·
        10 months ago

        But they’re all using a discounted NordVPN thanks to Warographics.

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
      231·
      10 months ago

      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.

    • CoriolisSTORM88@lemmy.world
      121·
      10 months ago

      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.

    • cheese_greater@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      10 months ago

      They are left with a sample size exactly as large or as small as the body of users who still google anything.

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      3·
      10 months ago

      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.

    • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 months ago

      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.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.world
    492·
    10 months ago

    The point of a VPN is to protect your privacy. Google is the last company I would trust to do that.

  • socsa@lemmy.ml
    518·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • Fades@lemmy.world
      246·
      10 months ago

      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

      • Prethoryn Overmind@lemmy.world
        122·
        10 months ago

        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.