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Comment by nolist_policy | Hacker News Reader

Apparently they had all kind of problems with the Windows client. DNS hijacking, route injection, etc.

IMHO understandable that they didn't want to deal with the Windows mess.

I pay for Google One and the VPN was a bad joke from day one even on Android. It was absolutely unreliable, the connection was unavailable or cut randomly. The DNS used were random choice between those of Google and the ISP. This service was unusable even on the wifi in my flat.

It was a disaster when travelling, it was very hard to get it to work with hotel wifi or if there was a captive portal. There are different country lists for "You have access to the VPN service" and "You have access to the VPN service when travelling".

The service does not work in China. The service simply does not work in the majority of cases where it might be needed.

Google has made no effort to improve this service in several years, for their paying customers, on their mobile OS.

Every other VPN on the planet seems to have no such issue. This is very odd.

Cost-benefit analysis probably showed that it's not worth it for them.

I'm not convinced the other offerings are actually secure.

For example[1]:

> However, if he controls the responsible DHCP server, he can simply command end devices to send their data past the VPN. To do this, it sends the DHCP option 121 with a corresponding route –, for example, to redirect all DNS queries. The VPN's own encryption is omitted, but the VPN connection is maintained so that the user is unaware of the attack.

> Leviathan Security has reproduced the problem with Windows, Linux, iOS and MacOS – but the attack does not work with Android because Android ignores the DHCP option 121.

[1] https://www.heise.de/en/news/Tunnelvision-Attackers-can-bypa...

Just having it as an Android feature would be pretty good. Millions of phones, all paying $5/month for these features.

Except Android users are not known for paying for things (for SW I mean).

this was fixed some 8-10 years ago when most apps trying to make money shifted to subscription services. You can't pirate an APK if it's just a thin client.

There's definitely free/OS ways to run a VPN, but it definitely a clunky process with limited locations available.

Switch to subscriptions was caused by many different factors, like non-existent way to sell upgrades to new versions through app stores or forced BS activities by appstores with crazy deadlines. And yes, more regular, even though lower, cashflow too.

That's an invalid argument to make against a service that's only available for people who are already paying for Google one.

Yes - I didn't mean all Android users would have it. I mean making it available means they basically have an iCloud competitor they can release on all Play-enabled phones, which millions of people would likely pay for.

That already exists, it's called Google One. It's installed on a billion devices and it's pretty comparable to iCloud: more storage, email, and a bunch of other things most people don't care about, all included in one subscription. If anything, this is a story about how there's one less feature most people don't care about.

Of course, Apple only offers like a couple of subscriptions while Google has dozens of them, only some of which are united into that one subscription to rule them all.

Well, there are very few apps worth paying for. Out of these that are worth paying for, large percentage are a very niche.

I'd phrase it as the bulk of apps worth paying for are subscriptions from mega-services like Netflix. Those app payments may happen outside of mobile.

Pixel VPN is available for all Pixel phones 7 and newer. I might even get a spare phone to use as a home VPN proxy.

Pity about not being allowed to use 3rd party repair parts with Pixels though. :(

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40566186

Seems like an extremely rare circumstance that a person would get a 3rd party repair and then a Google repair on the same phone.

To my mind, the rarity isn't really relevant.

Google purposely choosing to very specifically screw over its users like that should be enough for a lot of people (once they know) to avoid buying a Pixel. :)

"Google has assured us that it will not keep phones sent in for repair and that it is changing the wording of its ToS agreement to reflect this better."

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-keeps-phones-with-no...

Cool. Hopefully they do actually change things and not do that any more.

I guess time will tell. :)

> I might even get a spare phone to use as a home VPN proxy.

Most likely VPN will not applies on tethering.

And if you unlock your phone Google wont allow you to use VPN.

So it's not sounds like a good plan.

A billion-dollar company cannot solve VPN on Windows? Please... The number and diversity of VPN offerings on Windows (including OSS ones) is a clear indication that that's not the issue.

Of course they can solve it if they wanted to. But those people were probably migrated to a more profitable team or laid off. We're in "number go up" mode now, not "market capure" mode.

i believe initially the vpn had something to do with google fi either integrated or a feature or something. so the vpn could be a leftover after they decided to go a different route, just a guess

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