• Dojan
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      131 month ago

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

  • @Potatos_are_not_friendsOP
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    911 month ago

    If you’re using Google as your primary anything, sorry but youre going to get screwed over.

    • @eronth
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      321 month 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        161 month 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

        • @kambusha
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          131 month ago

          Free controllers

          • JJLinux
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            31 month ago

            And all 3 of them are great for the Steam Deck.

    • @[email protected]
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      121 month 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.

      • @Woozythebear
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        11 month ago

        Vpn’s aren’t that expensive, the one I use is $55 for 2 years.

        • JJLinux
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          11 month ago

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

        • @[email protected]
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          11 month 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.

          • @Woozythebear
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            01 month ago

            It’s $2 a month… I think you’ll be fine.

          • @Woozythebear
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            01 month 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.

  • @0nekoneko7
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    381 month ago

    People have trust issues with Google services.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil
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      111 month 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.”

      • Howdy
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        1 month ago

        What’s crazy is in this time line that sounds plausible.

    • @werefreeatlast
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      81 month ago

      I am part of people… I hate google, Microsoft, Apple. So you’re right. We need a new hero.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 month ago

        The young upstart Microsoft fatally wounded the International Business Machines behemoth and brought us an OS for the common man. Something simplified that could provide a GUI and run on just about any hardware a normal person could afford. And thus everyone lived happily ever after.
        The scrappy competitor stepped in with better design and a great deal of care about the customer experience to knock the dominant OS bully off… Whoops, the scrappy competitor stepped on his own dick… And again, and again… And then the scrappy competitor had to be bailed out by the OS bully. And thus everyone lived not un-happily ever after.
        Until, the people’s hero entered the ring with their open phone OS, a replacement for the Netscape browser but this time with real money backing it, and a moto of righteousness, “Don’t be evil”. Once in the ring they began kicking all the Goliaths in their dicks… Cellular teleco, oppressive OS makers, even home Internet providers. There was no monopoly whose reproductive organs were safe from the swift boots of our savior Google. And thus everyone lived happily ever after.
        You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

        • @UnderpantsWeevil
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          1 month ago

          The young upstart Microsoft fatally wounded the International Business Machines behemoth and brought us an OS for the common man.

          Everyone knows that The OS For The Common Man was Apple, because the Common Man is Bad At IT.

          • @[email protected]
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            31 month ago

            The scrappy competitor had the superior OS, but they never delivered. They insisted on running their OS on their proprietary hardware. They couldn’t stop stepping on their own dicks right up until they needed Microsoft to bail them out. Windows was not the OS we needed, but was the OS we deserved.

    • @smolyeet
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      31 month 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
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    361 month ago

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

    • @xe3
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      81 month ago

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

      • Jojo
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        31 month ago

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

        • JJLinux
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          11 month ago

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

        • @xe3
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          11 month 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
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            230 days 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    331 month ago

    I’m usually interested in a VPN for privacy, using a VPN provided by Google feels like I’d have been less privacy.

    • @TexasDrunk
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      181 month ago

      It’s an easy way to bypass dumb states anti porn laws for those that already pay for extra space.

      • Dojan
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        71 month ago

        There are anti-porn laws?

        • @TexasDrunk
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          51 month ago

          Sort of. Texas and others instituted laws where websites have to age verify anyone looking at porn. So a bunch of websites just geofenced off those places. The easy way to watch porn is to connect to a VPN or go to shittier sites.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil
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      131 month 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 month ago

        I don’t know about you but trusting google with that sorta thing just seems risky to me

        • @UnderpantsWeevil
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          01 month ago

          I trust Google’s VPN more than I trust AT&T’s internal tracker, as Google’s never sent me an angry email complaining about my network traffic.

    • @Copernican
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      81 month 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
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          11 month 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
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            11 month ago

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

  • @ITeeTechMonkey
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    241 month 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
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      171 month 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 month 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            31 month 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
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              1 month 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.

              • @[email protected]
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                21 month 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
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      51 month ago

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

  • @[email protected]
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    131 month 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.

  • @hperrin
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    121 month ago

    Google had a VPN?

  • @[email protected]
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    111 month 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