Privacy
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
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
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.
Oh sure. Use the company known for mining the fuck out of personal data to protect my personal data from being mined.
This is actually really useful if you want to be tracked more by google
This is funny. Please pipe ALL of your online activities through us. We won't spy, gather, sell, or snitch.
Get fucked.
At least Google VPN is honest about who tracks you with this VPN, LOL
The point of a VPN is to protect your privacy. Google is the last company I would trust to do that.
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.
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.
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
Most people browse with Chrome and possibly with Google's DNS, so this really doesn't make any difference from a privacy standpoint.
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
That would be like hiring professional bank robbers with a long string of hits to provide security for a bank.
I'm just upvoting all the "lol", "lmfao" and "hahaha" comments.
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.
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
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.
Lol. These people!
Will Google ask me to solve a captcha while connected to a Google VPN?
Imagine trusting a corrupt mega corp lmao
How about we start getting paid for all the information they steal.
Google VPN lmao