• Dojan@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Honestly every single Google product should be added to it with a “TBD” or “Coming Soon” on the death date.

    • eronth@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      For sure. I no longer buy into new Google products because they’re going to die. It also makes it hard to recommend anything Google. They’re literally killing their ability to expand by constantly doing this.

      • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 months ago

        Makes me think of when they brought out Stadia… Friend of mine was all into it, and didn’t understand why I just shrugged and didn’t bother with it.

        I think he learned a valuable lesson there… Oh well, at least they refunded people’s money

    • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      The only plus in this situation is that switching VPNs is far easier than other services since it’s just a pipe you’re swapping out.

      Still annoying though, since Google VPN was nice if you were already paying for Google One. Now people will have to pay extra for something else.

        • youmaynotknow
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          7 months ago

          3 years (and more since some of my friends used my link to sign up) of NordVPN for 78 dollars.

          • Woozythebear@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Surfshark, I don’t know much about VPN’s but I’ve been told they are pretty secure and don’t share your info. I mainly use VPN’s to pirate shows and movies and for that it’s worked well, havnt gotten any letters from my ISP.

            I’m not endorsing them just to be clear as I am not knowledgeable enough to know if it’s good or not but it was recommended by someone I trust with that stuff like 3 years ago.

        • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          Yeah, but that’s still an extra expense. Most people using Google VPN were using it because they were already paying for Google One.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Me, deeply cynical: “Google is just using their VPN to spy on you. They’ve got an entire department dedicated to checking what websites you visit while using the VPN and building a profile on each individual, which they will turn over to the authorities the moment society collapses into a state of anarchy and military law must be imposed.”

      Google CEO: “Shut down the secret VPN counterintelligence program that tracks all the future domestic terrorists in the event of a widespread domestic insurgency. Its not making us enough money.”

    • smolyeet@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I feel like it would be weird to if you got a vpn for the purpose of downloading isos or making it harder to track you. It wasn’t always available to iOS users either ( I have an iPhone so that’s why I’m mentioning it) , so you already neutered those two bases. It seemed like a niche offering to begin with

  • cum@lemmy.cafe
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    7 months ago

    Yeah I can see why people weren’t using it lol. Google is entirely the person they’re trying to hide from.

    • xe3@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah voluntarily using a VPN from Google (the largest tracking and Adtech company), is like voluntarily seeking out Mob “protection”

      • Jojo@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Reasonable when the alternative is literally getting mugged on the daily?

        • youmaynotknow
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          7 months ago

          I would argue that you could negotiate with muggers much easier than with mobsters.

        • xe3@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Considering that in this analogy you’d be asking the mugger to be your protector it is still unreasonable.

          Particularly considering there are plenty of reputable and privacy respecting vpn providers

          • Jojo@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Oh, I’m with you. I don’t think anyone using Google VPN was using it because it protected their privacy on the Internet generally. At least I hope not.

    • Twitches@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      They didn’t refund nest thermostat users when they verified those devices.

  • ITeeTechMonkey@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Google is removing the VPN and free shipping (which was only available on some photo orders) to make way for more “in demand features”?

    I could understand if this was coming from a smaller company with more limited resources and staff, but that’s not Google by any means.

    They really don’t care about the poor reputation the general public has of them regarding shutting down services on a whim.

    What’s worse though is they don’t seem to realize that, with the exception of Android and maybe Google Docs, their services/products are easily replaced by competitor offerings.

    In my opinion it’s a good thing if Google gets knocked of their high horse and allow competition to flourish in their place.

    • kbin_space_program@kbin.run
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      7 months ago

      Google docs is only good for collaboration. Otherwise its insane that MS Office is still superior to it.

      Hell, Libreoffice is admittedly slightly behind MS for features, and its still superior to Google Docs.

      • bamboo@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        The big advantage of google docs is that it is free and good enough. Most people don’t need advanced formatting options, font size and a few choices are sufficient.

          • bamboo@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Sure but I can’t run libreoffice on my iPad, and that’s a deciding factor for more people than the licensing.

            • kbin_space_program@kbin.run
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              7 months ago

              Oh sweet green earth. Why the hell would you ever edit documents on an ipad

              You need a job with a sane IT policy.

              • bamboo@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                Why wouldn’t you? They’re super convenient, being small and lightweight, with high quality keyboards that make them more laptop like, plus they support standard USB and Bluetooth keyboards. They aren’t full laptop replacements, but basic office productivity tasks they surely are, and have first class support from Microsoft office, google docs, and Apple’s office tools. In a meeting for example, they can be used to take notes, and then quickly screen mirror to a TV wirelessly or with a wired adapter and be used as a drawing tablet for sketching ideas or drawing diagrams. Extremely versatile, there’s nothing really like it (well, besides other tablets).

                They certainly don’t replace a real laptop in all aspects, but they do for most people most of the time, hence why it’s common for people to use smartphones and tablets as their only computer.

    • Eheran@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      What’s actually is worse that people do not care and continue using Google, being arbitrarily dependent on them.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Same reason I’d use any cheap easily accessible VPN.

      To get AT&T off my back every time I pirate some anime or a new movie.

    • Copernican@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’s cheap and easy for me to use it while traveling around and going on god knows what public wifi network. I am not using google VPN for privacy, but using it for some sense of security out of my home. Already paying for Google One storage, so this was a nice perk.

        • fatal3rror@mastodon.social
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          7 months ago

          @asdfasdfasdf @Copernican
          It all depends if you trust the ISP less than a random VPN provider. With DNS over HTTPS and mostly encrypted traffic these days, the ISPs don’t get to see more than IPs. But IPs are sometimes all they need to figure out what your browsing, especially in some countries where they can throttle your traffic depending on what you’re doing. Luckily, in the EU that is illegal, so all you’d need a VPN at home for is bypassing geo-restriction and maybe hiding your Linux seeds

          • Copernican@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Hehe. Yeah. I dont need my ubiiquiti dream router categorizing how many gigs of porn hub gets into my home based on IP.

  • csm10495@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Kind of funny that they sent an email with like 3 benefits of Google One being dropped but nothing added back.

    They should drop Google One. It’s literally just storage afaict.

  • weew@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Didn’t they advertise this as one of the benefits of buying a pixel phone?

    Less than a year and it’s gone… Not that it was much of a feature in the first place

    • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah I use it all the time. For one you can download torrents at full speed with it. And it’s great for when you are connecting to random wifi connections at restaurants and other businesses. Everyone in all of the threads has been like huurrr durrr Google for privacy hyuk hyuk, while giving themselves a reach around for being so smart. That’s not the point of this VPN. It was a great tool that was a good value add to a storage service I already pay for.

      A quick lightweight security tool for situations that require minimal security, which frankly for the public at large is all they ever need, the boogeyman is in fact not hacking your local coffee shop wifi work zombie access nodes, relax. It was also pretty handy when tmobile wants to throttle YouTube you could pop this on and get back to videos without buffering.

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        I didn’t trust Google enough to torrent but definitely used it on my pixel while traveling. Especially when at relatives houses. I don’t need my DNS requests being logged by their router.

        I very much felt like you: it’s a convenient feature-add for something I was paying for. I did not use it for privacy. I used it for convenience.

      • Ben Hur Horse Race@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Most people who truly care about privacy wouldn’t use google products at all, including their remote storage or whatever you’re using that makes this an inexpensive add-on.

        There are plenty of affordable remote storage and vpn services that aren’t google that have much better track records on privacy and don’t owe $7,000,000 in fines for an antitrust case.

        It’s nice that you’re saying people believe they’re super smart and make 4chan style noises because they write that they don’t like google for a privacy product, but I have to tell you: you do not need to give yourself a reach-around. Your genitals are on the front of your body.

    • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I have, yeah. While I was traveling internationally and the roaming mobile data rates were insane. So I used the VPN while connecting to hotel/public wifi.

    • FlumPHP@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      I use it when I’m traveling and am on insecure WiFi.

      However, it doesn’t let you pick your egress location,.so if you’re trying to get to PornHub in Texas, it won’t help.

    • kescusay@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I’ve never even heard of it. They sure weren’t putting their VPN front and center.

      • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        If you have Google one you can download the Google one app there’s a list of things you get in there and to redeem it from the app