Google One is Google’s paid online storage service: it provides a quantity of storage cloud additional to the 15GB available with free user accounts. The space is shared between the various services of the Google ecosystem and can also be made available to family members and collaborators.
Just over a year ago, the Mountain View company announced the general availability of Google VPN as an integral part of Google One. The Google VPN allows, when enabled, to navigate safely even using other people’s networks (think of WiFi managed by third parties), avoiding tracking of your public IP address.
The reasons for the closure of the Google VPN service
The company led by Sundar Pichai has officially confirmed that Google VPN will close by the end of 2024. In short, Google One loses a piece because, according to the company, its VPN has failed to carve out significant market shares. “People aren’t using it“, we read in a comment from the company.
An exception concerns only owners of smartphone Pixel. Those who use Pixel 7 and later devices will have the option to continue accessing Google’s VPN service, which will however always remain available.
Furthermore, according to the company, the decision to “retire” Google VPN will allow it to recycle the resources currently allocated to this service to focus on the most requested and appreciated features of the Google One package.
The real reasons for users’ lack of affection for Google VPN
The choosing a VPN managed by third parties is not always simple. Those who choose a VPN usually do so to protect their online browsing, overcome geographical limitations, protect their privacy and resolve temporary routing problems.
Usually, the attention of users interested in using a VPN focuses on those services that they guarantee policies no-log. In other words, preference is given to the offers of those platforms that do not collect and store information on the online activities carried out by their users.
Google has historically based part of its business on information relating to preferences and to interests of users: a VPN designed by the Mountain View giant, therefore, has kept user interest cold.
It should also be said that the Google VPN service does not, for example, allow you to choose the geographical location preferred: it is not possible to define the country to which the public IP address with which you present yourself to remote hosts belongs. This shortcoming is particularly serious and undermines the usefulness of the VPN in many contexts.
Again, the features of split tunneling (possibility to specify the apps whose traffic must pass through the VPN) and the so-called kill switch they are only available in the Android version.
Google had provided solid guarantees
Users’ disaffection with Google VPN appears evident despite the reassurances that the company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin had shared during the launch of the service.
Google, for example, had shared the details of the VPN operation in an exhaustive white paper; you had subjected the service to a third-party audit; had finally opened the source code of the libraries underlying your instrument.