I’m new to Fi and have been using my Moto G Power I purchased with my new service. I was promoted to use Google’s VPN service when setting up the device. I noticed in the Fi app it mentions usage of their VPN will increase data usage by roughly 10%, a standard I know when using any VPN service.
My question is, is it worth it? I haven’t had much luck getting any information about their VPN from support. Hoping you all can shed some light and insight on the benefits. I use a VPN on my PC, but never have on my mobile. Is it worth the increased data usage?
I think lots of people are missing the point here. The Google VPN isn’t meant to keep all your data private and secure from GOOGLE. Kind-of a lost cause if you are using a Pixel phone.
Their VPN is an excellent protection while traveling against the kind of man-in-the-middle attacks you might see while traveling. By connecting to a VPN, you are protected from improperly secured wifi, or spoofed wifi hotspots to a larger degree than if you weren’t using this service. In addition, in many countries the Google FI VPN will help you to bypass censorship & government snooping.
If you are worried about GOOGLE snooping, then yes, I’d advise using a different VPN provider… and quite possibly chucking your Googleified phone.
I just wish I had the ability to disable it on specific networks. I don’t want to use the VPN while at home or when travelling with my hotspot. I just want it for guest networks in a waiting room or grocery store network
I use the Fi VPN as well as using Private DNS (set to dns.adguard.com). Sometimes when connecting to a business WiFi I might have to disable one or both in order to connect. I make a subjective decision on whether or not it is worth it to disable those just for the sake of “free wifi”, though. Most of the time I decide, “No”.
If your worries are Google, then I would suggest Graphene OS, Tor, and VPN.
If it automatically connects great. It also doesn’t hurt to ask if the place you’re at provides free Wi-Fi which most paid VPN services would auto connect while you’re on an untrusted network.
I did use it for a while but realized that their servers seem few and far between, especially if you travel overseas which is the main reason I like fi. Fi kept connecting me through the US while overseas. The result was huge latencies and slow data. I went back to using Private Internet Access ( my provider at home) and it correctly selected servers in every country we traveled to. In addition, they kept our data secure from Google too.
I disabled it. It makes poor quality guest networks entirely unuseable and I have network-wide adblocking at home. I can VPN into my house when on guest networks.
My only issue is that it caches offline pages in Chrome. So when I open a tab that was already on a news page, instead of reloading the page,bit loads the offline cache.
I never want this. I’m on WiFi 95% of the time, and when I’m not I want new news, not the old stuff.
The same happens in Facebook (I use Chrome, not the app). It doesn’t load a new wall when I refresh, it loads the same page offline.
I think that part of the purpose of the Google VPN is that it gives you a seamless connection when swapping to/from wifi and mobile data. For instance, if I’m watching Netflix, it’s streaming to my home wifi’s IP address. If I then go for a walk while still watching, I’ll switch to a completely different network and lose the connection. If however, I’m on a VPN, the connection to Netflix will remain the same, only the VPN sees that my method of connection has changed.
That, at least, is what I remember reading was a big part of the purpose. I don’t know whether it works in practice.
I’m more comfortable using the Fi VPN while at work so that my employer has no way to snoop on absolute everything that my phone does. Otherwise, I’d probably not connect to the WiFi at work with my phone.
For the most part, Google VPN pretty good. Here are a few exception workflows that it did not perform well.
Google VPN functionality seems to need cell tower connection. My work office has poor reception to wireless signal for cellphone. As such, have many difficulties with VPN connection at this location.
One workaround is to go to window with good cell phone, re-establish VPN connection, then usually good for a while longer (couple days) until VPN becomes disconnected again.
Another thing I noticed is that it did not change my location very well. Physical location should not get local MLB baseball games on MLB app, this is normal functionality. With VPN enabled, would expect to bypass this by spoofing location…but, never works.
There’s not a lot of resources on the details of Google VPN, so hard to pinpoint issue or make workaround.
Why do you never get the real
Answer? Almost like when you ask a politician a question and they just beat around it. Fuckij everytime with a Reddit google search
My concerns with using a Google vpn but mind you I use to Gmail etc so there’s not much point in thinking they don’t have my info already is what they do with the logs and data they collect about my browsing but again if you’re already a googler they already have all that anyways.