Is Google VPN trustable?

Questions
24

Are you actually comparing Google to Meta?

Birds of a feather

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25

Speaking from a privacy POV/mindset, all of big tech may as well be the same company. They are all doing same or similar things for themselves in the name continuing to keep providing ā€œvalueā€ to their ā€œcustomersā€.

From a practical and pragmatic POV, there should be no differentiation. If one still feels that a differentiation is warranted, I can only think itā€™s because of ones lack of understanding of the industry and surveillance (late stage) capitalism at large.

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26

So at this point apple is as bad as meta or Microsoft?

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27

I fail to see your point. I think we all wish we could escape big tech services if we could but the reality is we canā€™t make ours own phones it doesnā€™t really matter if it is Google, Apple, Samsung, LG or Sony. We just have to choose the best OEM for ours goal, it just happened to be a Pixel I donā€™t think anyone is happy about it.

The different here is Google VPN is a chose if you trust Google then fine use it. We canā€™t really say if it is good or bad from a privacy point of view yet.

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28

From at least an enshittification POV, they are getting there fast. Some may argue Apple is fully there.

From a privacy POV, they are not doing enough anymore for their users nor providing then with built in easy to use and toggle tools.

Had they released their own easy to use VPN with oroer privacy protections for the device and all apps, had they made it possible to block each apps connection to the internet in full whether on WiFi or cellular, had they jumped on board with realizing the benefits of RCS much sooner, had they included Mail and others in their ADP by now, had they actually made a proper password manager with integration of aliasing the already provide with apps for other operating systems - I would still be on Appleā€™s side. But Iā€™m tired of giving them the benefit of the doubt they used to deserve.

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29

@anon4124882 says in hist post that he canā€™t understand people that question if google products have some privacy. This means that he assume that every product is already privacy invasive from Google. If you think this further this would also mean that the pixel hardware itself is privacy invasive (some really low level code).

If you assume Google has actual privacy invasions in such low-level code than it would mean you canā€™t buy a pixel if honor privacy and might use an alternative like apple (if you donā€™t think the same way about apple)

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30

Youā€™re clearly and knowingly misrepresenting facts. I also clarified software products from Google. Apps and such. This is not a discussion of hardware. I donā€™t understand why you donā€™t understand this.

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31

So you differentiate between apple and meta.
But why is this in google and meta not the same case?
I see the difference between apple and google, google and meta, meta and apple.

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32

I donā€™t understand why you donā€™t understand this.

Because you differentiate between hard and software. Which doesnā€™t make sense.
If Google is soo evil, then why are you not assuming this on the hardware site too? I donā€™t see any rational logic why you see hardware and software from the same vendor complete different in the aspect of privacy and security.

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33

You ostensibly appear to be unable to fathom what and how I mean from all that I am saying in this thread.

And I am at the end my capacity to yield the English language such that you can understand. I donā€™t believe itā€™s possible because there is clearly a more fundamental cultural difference or a difference in reading and comprehending English itself.

Perhaps someone else can do it better but there are only so many permutations and combinations of words that can be used for the same. I donā€™t know which will work however.

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34

By default and with the very close hardware and software integration that comes with a Pixel, they are all bad.

But you keep changing the goalpost to GOS from Google VPN and now you hardware with stock Android when the discussion was about GOS which in turn wasnā€™t even the original point of this thread in the first place.

I genuinely thought better of you as a lurker for so long, though I am glad for the revelation.

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35

But you keep changing the goalpost to GOS from Google VPN

No, I just stated to say a company is bad and should not be questioning if a product (google VPN) from them is good, while also recommending a different product from the company (pixel) is contradictory.
Iā€™m not changing the topic, Iā€™m comparing the topic.

you hardware with stock Android when the discussion was about GOS

Where did I ever talk about stock android?

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36

This is just a conversation about threat models, right? VPNs are a tool with different use cases:

Surveillance Capitalism

I would not consider this trustworthy. Even with encryption like SSL, Google will see the sites/servers accessed by your account & surely find a way to profit off that data

Edit: as @fria pointed out, Google claims to employ techniques that mitigate any means by which to link VPN traffic & your Google account. Taken at face value (big if), users would allegedly have anonymity, though I believe the privacy of that anonymized data would still be at risk

Adversarial Governments

probably not. Google has a tendency to openly comply with government requests. Maybe thereā€™s a case to make that certain governments with adversarial relationships to the US may be safeā€¦ But given how hungry Google is for global marketshare, I wouldnā€™t personally rely on any protection here

Local Network

To hide internet activity exclusively from your local network and its administrators - probably fine, right? If your local network blocks some mundane service like YouTube, and you just want to access it on WiFi, this is a free VPN tool that will hide your activity. There is a strong case to make that free VPNs from providers like Mulvad or Proton are preferable on ideological grounds, but from a functional standpoint, I think VPN by Google would be fine for this specific, singular threat model

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39

I see no difference.

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40

Did google every bypass security mechanisms in place to spy on their users?

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41

Well given google controls Chrome and Android that is a bit of a hard comparison. But afaik no. However Google has definitely favoured spying on their users over security measures in several occasions. Like for example with not blocking third party scripts and cookies and other insecure browsing practises or granting themselves deeplevel control in standard android phones.

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42

Yes. Google is one of the most evil companies to ever exist.

Basically yes. The latest version of their OSes defaults to harvesting all of your activity and data from all of your apps in order to train their AI. People, generally speaking will not know to go though and flip the 3 toggles necessary to disable this for every single app they already have and every single app they install in the future. This is egregious behaviour from Apple. They are not to be trusted.

NO. With stock Android, yes. The hardware itself can be made secure. GOS can be made to make essentially zero connections to any Google server, and the connections it makes do not provide useful information to Google. (GOS can possilby be configured to make zero connections to Google at this point, I havenā€™t kept up with all the recent privacy updates.)

Yes. Google has been caught activating microphones without consent (as well as hundreds of other purposeful privacy violations). This is just what they have been CAUGHT doing. Google is an absolutely trash company and should be out of business. Google to pay $68m to settle lawsuit claiming it recorded private conversations

Please stop blowing up the forum with this weird, pedantic discussion. (No, I will not reply to you.)

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43

NO. With stock Android, yes. The hardware itself can be made secure. GOS can be made to make

No, GOS doesnt replace deep low-level code like verified boot or the adaptive battery health.

Yes. Google has been caught activating microphones without consent

You are talking about google assistent, which only works with consent given while setting up the phone, creating a google account or on first use.
Also the article says ā€œinadvertentlyā€.

There is a big difference between users who send google by accident personal data and google actively bypassing security systems.

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44

Yeah, I see your point here.
Still comparing google to meta isnā€™t right. Meta has done so many things way more fucked up than Google.

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45

I actually agree with this. Meta is way worse.

Doesnā€™t mean Google isnā€™t still terrible.

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