Google One VPN Review – A VPN from a Tech Giant

Google One VPN is a relatively young VPN company, having only entered the sector in October 2020. As part of the Google One cloud storage premium plans, the VPN’s capabilities are limited. To have access to the VPN, you must purchase at least 2 terabytes (TB) of Google One cloud storage, which costs $99 per year or $9.99 per month. It is not available for purchase separately.

This young VPN has potential if Google increases its capabilities. Is this VPN, however, really worth the money, given its existing limits and Google’s history of privacy issues? In our Google One VPN review, we’ll examine if this new VPN from the world’s arguably most powerful tech firm is worth utilising.

Specifications of Google One VPN

Price From $9.99 a month
Operating systems: iOS, Android
Simultaneous connections: 6
Protocols: Google Proprietary
Payment methods: Paypal, Credit card

Google One VPN Speeds – How Fast Is It?

We test every VPN for speed, primarily to see how much your connection speed would go down while using the VPN.

Before we get into the actual speed review we’d like to offer our overall impressions of the Google One VPN in terms of performance.

Here are some of the key findings:

While browsing the internet and watching 1080p YouTube videos, we did not detect any significant delay.
While the Google One VPN is fast enough for ordinary use, speed tests reveal that it drastically slows down your connection.

Speeds in Everyday Use

We noticed a slight slowdown in browser performance when using Google One VPN for everyday browsing. This did not, however, have a significant impact on web browsing, emailing, or even watching 1080p YouTube videos. We enjoyed uninterruptible internet access while going about our daily business, with no difficulties like poor speeds or failed connections.

Overall, the Google One VPN performed admirably in terms of speed. However, we were unable to do traditional streaming, torrenting, and gaming tests due to a paucity of server locations and the VPN’s inability to get around streamers’ proxy detection systems, so it loses points there.

Is the VPN provided by Google One secure and private?

Google’s headquarters are in the United States, which can pose some privacy concerns for users. This is due to the US government’s broad monitoring powers, regardless of how reliable the VPN firm or its product is. When it comes to online security, jurisdiction is one of the most crucial variables to consider, and it’s preferable to sign up for a more secure VPN headquartered in a nation without required data retention rules, such as ExpressVPN or NordVPN.

Before starting our review of Google One VPN, we were concerned about the company’s security reputation. Would their VPN truly offer customers much security, given Google’s well-known tracking and marketing policies? No, that is not the case. After closely reviewing the VPN’s capabilities and documentation, we concluded that the strategy is just as suspect as Google’s. Here’s a rundown of what we discovered:

Google keeps its encryption a closely guarded secret, stating only that it utilizes a proprietary VPN protocol to secure its customers’ internet data.
According to Google’s white paper, it records aggregate datasets but is not crucial in identifying information like IP addresses or network activity.
There is a kill switch option.

Because Google One does not accept anonymous bitcoin payments, payments for the VPN are traceable.

To use the VPN, you’ll need a Google One cloud storage service subscription. This means that to use the VPN, Google will need access to even more of your data.

Protocols

Google One VPN only employs its proprietary protocol as a VPN protocol. At this moment, Google has remained tight-lipped about the specifics. Although the industry-standard OpenVPN protocol is not supported, the company has stated that it will support IPsec shortly and others in the long run. Google also claims that its internal protocol is built using open-source code that will be independently reviewed by third parties at some point in the future, although Google did not indicate when that will happen.

Logging and Privacy

Google claims that they will never track, log, or sell your surfing behavior through the VPN connection, however, they do log some user data for diagnostic and quality purposes. This is a standard technique among several of the best VPNs, including ExpressVPN, and it does not always mean that it jeopardizes your privacy. It’s vital to highlight that because user IDs might encrypt, Google is unable to identify individual users. Even if there is a record of the following information, there is still some level of privacy.

Information on how many times Google One VPN has been used in the previous 28 days.

Due to the limiting of simultaneous sessions, the number of recent access attempts has increased. Aggregate data for “performance monitoring and debugging purposes” – the following individual user data will not separate from aggregate datasets:

aggregate throughput
VPN tunnel uptime
total bandwidth rate
packet loss rate
and some other kinds of data not specified

The following categories of data are not logged by the VPN, according to Google’s official VPN whitepaper:

Network traffic, including DNS
IP addresses of the devices connecting to the VPN
Bandwidth utilized by an individual user
Connection timestamps by user
Duration of usage
The total amount of data consumed
Server error logs without request or response data

VPN by Google One kill switch

The kill switch option is one of the security features offered by the Google One VPN, which is comparable to other top VPNs such as NordVPN. When a VPN server connection is briefly lost, the user’s data is protected via a kill switch. Your internet connection might stop until the VPN connection reestablishes, rather than remain in connection to the internet with your data.

This is one of the easiest features we’ve seen to activate. Follow these instructions to add an extra layer of protection:

Go to the Options Menu.
If the VPN disconnects, turn on the switch next to the caption Block internet.

If you’re worried about your ISP finding out if you lose your VPN connection, you must activate the kill switch.

To Wrap Up

The Google OneVPN is currently in its early stages and is only available as an add-on to a larger offering. It’ll almost certainly be used primarily by business owners who require several terabytes of Google storage space and, coincidentally, enjoy the complimentary VPN. However, because it is so lacking in capabilities, even Google One users may not find it useful. The precise number of Google’s VPN servers is unknown, however even while streaming HD video, the GoogleOneVPN provides a fast connection with no discernible latency. While its availability and functionality are currently limited, the GoogleOneVPN service is still evolving and shows a lot of promise as a viable alternative to other US-based VPNs.