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When a doctor tells you: "this might hurt a bit"...

It will hurt. Definitely. Without doubt.

A lot...

I think Google did the same here...

I specifically like the footnote for the first point. What on earth would there be to clarify? If you don't track a user that means you don't store anything about their activity, not even temporarily. It's either a plain lie or an unambiguous sentence.

A Google VPN... so this one will still let me bypass copyright geoblocks, hide usage of iffy websites from ad profilers on my SFW socials, stuff like that?

@homo-lorens That clarification is key, you'd be surprised how many reviews I find on Amazon that are 1-2 star because the product had an app and "they asked me for permissions that are related, but I value my privacy so I didn't accept them, now I have a worthless product"

Seriously, it's one or the other with some people, either they accept the privacy policy without reading it or just straight up go into rage mode.

Wow, that is good news!
It means, that providing VPN services to the public isn't a grey area anymore. We can now say, that even Google offers a service like that...

Every VPN, ISP and hotspot should be treated as a honeypot.

You have to choose: Who do I trust? Do I trust the random VPN company who spams YouTube sponsorships, who claims to operate from a neutral country? Do I trust my own ISP? Do I trust my University? Do I trust my government?

I trust my ISP more than most VPN providers. I have worked for them, and they take their duties pretty seriously.

I trust Google a tad more than most random VPN providers. Only a tad.

For most cases, I use my ISP's VPN (they offer a free VPN for use in hotels, coffee shops, etc).

Your case might be different -- Depends on your ISP's scumminess level, your school, your government, etc.

I think Google offering a VPN is quite good.

Of course you can't be sure their guarantee about your privacy/security is valid.

They are jumping through the usual hoops of using open source(d) client/server code, external audits, etc

But for all you know they don't actually use the open source code on their server, or they have a switch to start logging when the auditors are gone, or those external auditors are not so independent after all.

So yeah, this is just Google offering to be your ISP.

Maybe you trust Google more than your current situation, maybe not.

If I'm trying to watch YouTube from a hotel in Moscow, I trust Google more than the hotel.

@d4ng3r0u5 No geo bypassing, Google One VPN has no country select as far as I know.

@bittersweet Yeah, I trust Google more than pretty much any other ISP. I would rather not have to trust them either, but they're definitely much better than geographically restricted ISPs that have little competition and are inherently connected to my local government.

@homo-lorens

Yeah like I said, the situation differs per country/company/connection. In the Netherlands, we have some separation of infrastructure vs service, so there are significantly more ISPs to choose from. Things have significantly worsened since the state-originated KPN bought and dissolved the ancient rebel/geek DSL ISP XS4ALL.

But we do have a tradition of ISPs fighting for customer rights. Both cable company UPC/Ziggo and XS4ALL have been fighting many lawsuits to keep torrent sites accessible (most notably, TPB), and took a lot of actions in favor of net neutrality and against data retention laws.

But there are also plenty of ISPs, also here, whose actions I trust way less than Google's approach to privacy/security.

Google has one thing going for it: THEY might know everything, but they have been very careful to not let OTHERS know. Unlike... Facebook, for example.

@bittersweet
That one is easy: You stick to the VPN providers the carders and nazis use. They know their dev ops (and use multiple hops, but you don't have to if it is just for privacy and anti-geodiscrimination).

The hardest part is to find real carders and nazis. But they can be found on the web if you explicitly search for them...

@Oktokolo It's not like there is a protocol especially made for multiple hop VPN...

Although TOR takes the strengths AND weaknesses of VPN to the extreme: The exit node can see everything you do, but won't know who you are as long as your traffic doesn't identify you.

@bittersweet
There does not need to be a protocol for that - do one VPN tunnel through the other.
If you don't need UDP, you can even use the SSH protocol.