Google is notorious for starting projects to much fanfare and acceptance, only to unceremoniously end them once users are happy with them. Hangouts, Stadia, Grasshopper, Podcasts are just a few of the bodies laying in the graveyard. Now, Google One VPN is taking the long walk with the undertaker. Into a hole six feet under, to be buried alongside its brothers and sisters.
There’s really never been a great explanation as to why Google makes so many services, only to kill them off. Perhaps the services they are killing, aren’t collecting the amount of data that the Google monster requires. So they have to trim the fat to ensure the data collection continues to roll in. But I digress.
RIP Google One VPN
Floating belly up in 9 months, VPN by Google One was a virtual private network service that provided users with encrypted transit of their data and network activity and allowed them to mask their IP address. It will be about 4 years old.
Google will continue to offer VPN functionality through its Google Fi cellular service. Google says Pixel users will also still be able to access its VPN features via Pixel settings if they have a Pixel 7 or newer model.
The service was launched as part of the Google One Premium 2TB storage plan, which was priced at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. But Google did eventually provide access to the Google One VPN to all tiers.
According to MacRumors, the company told 9to5Google that it is killing the service because “people simply weren’t using it.” Existing users will be directed to third-party VPN alternatives instead.
So chalk up another kill for Google. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google Search in the graveyard next. Given the amount of hype they are putting behind Gemini AI, the company could be moving to rebrand search into Gemini and eventually sunsetting Google Search for good.
Given that search engines like DuckDuckGo and Bing are catching up to Google Search, the time for a rebranding and reinvention could be bouncing around in the heads of Google’s top brass. This is all my speculation, of course, but I do think something like this could be coming soon. Only time will tell, but given how fast AI and tech in general is progressing, I don’t think we will have to wait very long to find out.
DuckDuckGo is now offering a VPN combined with its search engine, find out more here.
