Last updated on March 9, 2021
In addition to many primarily smaller and specialized companies, Google is now also entering the VPN business for end customers. The new service is part of the Google One cloud storage offer and is available at no extra charge to all customers who have booked the most expensive Google One offer with 2 TB of cloud storage. This currently costs around US $ 10 a month or US $ 100 a year. The Google One VPN is also available free of charge.
Google describes the VPN as an additional layer of security that should initially be available for Android systems. As an example, in the announcement on its blog , Google cites the use of public WiFi in cafes, for example, which should be better protected by the VPN.
In an analysis in spring 2019, we described that this is unnecessary for most users, as the connection from client to server is already encrypted anyway. This also applies to the Google One cloud storage service. The actual security gain should therefore be assessed as small.
The offer of a VPN is nothing new to Google. For example, the company already uses a VPN for its own Google Fi mobile communications service, in which users first connect to the Google servers and network before the traffic ends up on the rest of the Internet. This routing of your own data through the Google systems is of course also possible with the Google One VPN. The company says that in this way your own IP address can be hidden.
The VPN in Google One is initially only available for Android devices and in the USA. The company plans to extend the service to iOS, Windows and Mac as well as to other countries in the future.
Source: golem.de
