how's it going everybody welcome back and today we're going to be taking a look at google one's
vpn or the vpn by google which essentially just comes with the cloud storage service uh google one
it is available in a few countries um which is why i don't have access to it even though i don't
even though i do have a subscription with google one uh the cloud storage service so it's only
available in the states as well as mexico canada uk france germany spain and italy now as a service
itself according to the reports i've been looking at uh it's not exactly the vpn or the traditional
vpn that you would expect such as for example expressvpn or nordvpn or cyberghost or any of the
uh popular vpns that well do much more than what google one can do or google one google one's vpn
can do so when it comes to let's say streaming and netflix and unblocking streaming services
it doesn't seem like this vpn can do that according to all the reports it's only available
on android so far it is coming soon according to google it is coming soon to ios mac and windows uh
as far as using this vpn it seems like it's really just useful for bypassing geo restrictions and
well not jurisdiction bypassing censorship excuse me uh if you're in a censorship heavy country such
as china so it helps you bypass the great firewall of china um i'm not exactly sure how that's
going to work and like what kind of obfuscation they're using but according to the reports it
does seem to be working there um you can also use it to shield your data from a public in public
wi-fi while using public wi-fi of course it's very dangerous to use uh your phone let's say using uh
public wi-fi because you could easily compromise your information especially if you're accessing
banking information so that's one reason you can use it um and perhaps just to hide your ip address
while browsing so uh i think this is the strongest i guess selling point of google one's vdn besides
that it uh yeah i don't think it can really do much so i'm gonna be getting into the privacy
aspect of google because i think when it comes to privacy and anonymity that is the most important
thing so of course we don't have too much information because not everyone has been able to
kind of test it out i haven't been able to test it out it's not available to me not yet at least
so hopefully it'll uh release worldwide very soon and we'll be able to actually test it but
so far uh as a standalone vpn i don't think it's really worth it but again in this video we're just
looking into the privacy aspect so let's take a look at the white paper here
very quickly now if you're interested in reading it yourself i'll link it in the description down
below it explains almost everything about google one and of course they uh kind of give you their
own promises of what they log and what they don't log you know they do say that they're not going to
log anything that is linked that order that can be linked or identifiable or anything that links back
to your ip address they do kind of show what they log and don't log here and you know it seems like
what they'll do log here is for the most part just diagnostics information for diagnostic purposes
but in terms of what they log and don't log uh if if anything can actually be linked to their
uh it's your ip address while using google one vpn uh you're just gonna have to take their word
for it and you know if you take a look around for example here on reddit you know you'll see that
are quite a few people are actually skeptical um with regards to google one vpn because google does
have a history in uh data collection and i guess you know not really exactly the best company to
release a vpn or a the company that can actually boast about security and anonymity so as this
user says here they can still log all network traffic if they want to although they promise
not to they can still link your network traffic to your ip address although they promise not to
so you should only use this vpn if you want to bypass censorship bypass geoblocks or hide your ip
from a website you are visiting and bypass geoblocks that does not include streaming
services by the way so if you're also looking to unblock netflix and whatnot maybe hbo max or hulu
that is not going to happen according to quite a few reports on the internet and in reviews so
let's take a look at the independent audit report here which examined google one's vpn and in the
security part here it says ncc groups assessment included in in-depth analysis of the product's use
of technology to provide a vpn system which is secure for its users and google the consulting
team provided a list of findings during the first phase of the engagement the bulk of which google
addressed promptly and here are the findings actually one of which is of high severity which is
actually not very common amongst vpns because in the independent audit reports in expressvpn surf
shark and and nordvpn for example uh not a single uh high severity uh finding was found and so yeah
to be uh to actually find this what i mean it's a new vpn so i get it uh and um it makes sense uh
since they're still kind of uh operating it in a handful of countries the fact that it's still not
widely available is so that they can fix all of these uh findings so yeah i can understand that
but keep do keep it in mind it's just worthy of making a note of that by the
conclusion of the assessment and remediation period ncc group found the product to have
a very robust security posture so it seems like it's actually you know quite a bit usable when
it comes to using it on public wi-fi and such so uh definitely in the security realm i think it
it's working quite well the consulting team determined that the uh use of modern operating
system libraries and strong openly standardized cryptographic protocols enabled google to provide
a vpn which benefits its users with immediate security enhancements for their network traffic
of course that's better than no vpn for more detailed analysis and conclusions with regards
to technical security see the system okay so with regards to privacy though this is where
it could get a little bit weird uh and we kind of have to simply just take their word for it
and again this is not a privacy policy audit report as seen with expressvpn and nordvpn this
is just an independent audit report to take a look to kind of examine the network itself
and find if there's any errors with uh the vpn coding or anything like that so
not exactly for the privacy so this is with what the auditors though they just took a look at the
white paper sheet they you know kind of thoroughly went through it and uh i guess
they questioned google uh they they made a few they asked them a few questions and that was it
so a substantial amount of engagement time was allocated to the analysis of google's
ability to fulfill the privacy claims outlined in the products white paper so
i'm guessing they just questioned them regarding the uh privacy claims they didn't actually
do a no log policy uh independent audit report because these do exist the consulting
team considering the system's capacity to deliver on those claims from a technical
design from a technical design and procedural perspective ultimately ncc group determined
that while these supplemental cryptographic privacy protections did not categor categorically
eliminate the opportunity for google to violate its privacy claims so this is very important
but they're still giving them the benefit of the doubt you can you can you can tell here so while
the cryptographic privacy protocols did not categorically eliminate the opportunity for
google want to violate his privacy claims they did provide a framework within which the application
can provide authentication and authorization for users without sending identifying information to
the vpn nodes ncc group did not observe claims circumvention to be part of the project strategy
or implementation during the assessment so this is what i'm talking about here they did not do
a no log policy report here so furthermore google demonstrated business processes which would impede
malicious employees or individual business okay so they're basically just saying that
it's good enough to use on public wi-fi and bypass let's say geo-restrictions and
censorship firewalls but it is we have not audited it in terms of privacy we don't know what google
is logging and all we can say is that you you just you should just take google's word for it
so with regards to privacy we don't have evidence besides taking google's word for it and
you know even though it's open sourced i'm not sure what what exactly we can get out of this uh
source code here so uh we're just gonna have to wait and see and i'm pretty sure this isn't the
entire i mean this is only an android so i'm not exactly sure what we can get out of this
uh so we're just gonna have to wait until people actually do a whole bunch of tests
and we do have another uh article here so cyber security experts however think the service
leaves much to be desired uh joseph carson chief security scientist and advisory ciso at psychotic
a washington dc based provider of privileged access management solutions say says a vpn
by one of the largest data collection companies in the world in the world is a scary thought this
initially makes me think that it is not exactly a vpn product which is meant to be a virtual private
network network which typically means that no one can see your data requests this might
be more of a no one else but us will get your data when products advertise themselves as a vpn
it must be absolutely clear about who it protects against all and also whom it is giving access to
your entire data connection communications history to communications history too i hope that this is
a truly security mode security i hope that this is truly a security motive to make people safe
from cyber crime and not want to try to get more data under the disguise of security solutions
so dirk schrader here also of a global vice president at new net technologies a naples florida
based provider of i.t security and compliance software explains the google vpn service is
nothing more than a bloated security feature it encrypts the last mile however that doesn't solve
the issue that these apps that are using weak encryption or no encryption at all
it simply moves the point from where the data it simply moves the point where the data will
be unprotected to a different place the tunnel end of google's side this vpn feature might make
it more difficult to conduct wi-fi attacks but not much more when google states that the vpn
will hide the user's location to prevent third party to prevent when google states that the vpn
will hide the user's location to prevent third parties from tracking them what is the use of
this protection if google sells the collected data to the exact same third party google
should use its powers and knowledge to help these app developers apply stronger encryption instead
of deviating from the real problem so yeah it is indeed a vpn that leaves much to be desired
and you know as a standalone vpn i really don't think that google vpn uh holds up to
especially to other vpns now if you're looking for the storage service then yeah it's i guess
having the vpn if you're within the uh available countries that's a plus you know but uh in terms
of a v of a standalone vpn yeah not worth it at all uh especially if you don't even need
the cloud service for example why would you go for that kind of service if you don't need the vpn so
not really holding up so far though though if you are looking for a proper vpn uh you can definitely
go for some of these services that i would recommend here these are some of the best vpns
you can find on the market you know when it comes to unblocking streaming services when it comes to
security anonymity obfuscation the variety and a number of servers in the variety of regions
you have available to you protocol selection security features such as the kill switch
and split tunneling they have it all so if you're looking for a good vpn definitely
take a look at these i don't want to make this video too long it's already long enough so
go ahead and check out the reviews below that'll give you more of an in-depth look into
the privacy policy speed streaming and taunting capabilities as well as security and features
so be sure to check those out if you guys are interested and if you just want to go straight to
pricing and discounts links to price special deals and discounts and updated pricing you'll also find
that in description down below and with regards to google one vpn definitely do not rush and get
that because of its you know because because of the vpn service because as a vpn service
it doesn't have much to offer and you can definitely get uh quite a bit more for that
price unless you're specifically looking for cloud storage which is fair enough so besides
that thank you guys very much for watching i'll see you guys in the next one have a wonderful day