this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
567 points (93.5% liked)

Privacy

29784 readers
713 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 212 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 139 points 9 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Commercial services have tainted the word for sure.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 91 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh boy, all my internet traffic can be forwarded through Google’s servers? Where do I sign up for this?!

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (10 children)

Makes me cringe thinking of all those years I was using Google DNS, back when I believed that “don’t be evil” shit

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] [email protected] 78 points 9 months ago (4 children)

And it'll be gone in two years.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

That long? Make your bets folks!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Or, they'll bake it into Chrome, thus controlling all advertising.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 58 points 9 months ago

This is actually really useful if you want to be tracked more by google

[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago (10 children)

This makes zero sense. Google is the one you need to protect yourself from.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago

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

Get fucked.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

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

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (7 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Lmao "Cops sell drugs now" :D

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago

lol hard pass.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago

No fucking way will Google EVER be my VPN.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is nothing new It has existed for 3 years now.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They want to make sure noone else can steal your data..

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (6 children)

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

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (3 children)

They really do think we are all fucking idiots, don't they?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

So long as the majority doesn't know any better, it's profitable.

looks at my Pixel 6

Well, now I feel dumb.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago

Most people browse with Chrome and possibly with Google's DNS, so this really doesn't make any difference from a privacy standpoint.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Hasn't this been around for a while? I've had the option on my phone since last year. And while Google isn't exactly trustworthy, it's better than some of the shadier free options out there.

It's fast and it's accessible for non-techy people. Certainly better than using an unsecured network with no protection at all.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

I'm just upvoting all the "lol", "lmfao" and "hahaha" comments.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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 🤣

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Feel like I'll get flamed for saying it but I use this service and I think it's good. I don't see the privacy concern. If you look at the privacy policy they state that they essentially do not use your browsing activity for anything other than ensuring the vpn is working. They also open source their client application. Anyone can say they're evil and they lie or whatever but in my country and many others the statements they've made about how this works and the data they use mean something.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

Lol. These people!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

How about we start getting paid for all the information they steal.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Send all my traffic to google? No thanks

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

Google VPN lmao

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Anyone that actually puts their trust in this deserves whatever happens to them

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

Imagine trusting a corrupt mega corp lmao

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I'm super confused by the FUD spread in nearly every comment here.

Pretty much every argument boils down to "we don't trust google does what they say", which is funny because I'd like to challenge anyone to provide evidence that google actually sells any of your data. They sell advertising slots that they promise will find the right people, but your data never leaves google. No advertiser gets to see it.

This VPN service promises and has been independently audited to never log or analyze your traffic and even has built in provisions to anonymize your traffic within Google so they can't reconstruct it.

So apart from the questionable assumption that google is blatantly lying, what's the argument here? Apart from maybe missing some popular VPN Features like country selection.

Also this is for people that already pay for Google storage anyways, so I don't see the problem for the intended target audience, it's sticky an improvement in privacy for them and they get it for free. It sure as hell beats getting your traffic intercepted and ads injected into random http pages like some ISPs do.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (12 children)

Bruh, I can go to cybersecurity school, study it for a lifetime, audit this service myself, find that it does anonymise and does everything right, and STILL refuse to use it, simply because this just isn't who you get a VPN service from.

You don't buy your meat from the town gravekeeper, atleast not as long as there are other butchers, and especially not if the meat comes cheap.

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Will Google ask me to solve a captcha while connected to a Google VPN?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›