Google Offers Secure WiFi VPN
from the just-like-that dept
For years and years we've been wondering why the market for WiFi VPNs was so small. By now, most people should know that WiFi isn't the most secure connection, but that a VPN can encrypt and protect most of your data. In fact, for a while, it seemed like the only player in the space was HotSpotVPN -- who offered a service for $9/month. I use it (and am using it right now, in fact), but it's always seemed like a space that could use some more entrants. A few months ago, JiWire got into the act as well, but it still seemed pretty small time. Now, apparently, that market is going to be shaken up. Someone who prefers to remain anonymous just pointed out that Google is now offering what appears to be their own wireless VPN offering. However, unlike these other offerings, Google's VPN offering is going to be free. Of course, how long will it be until the conspiracy theorists start screaming about this one? I'm willing to bet that Google is being "non-evil" about this, but someone is going to complain that this means Google can see where your surfing, since your connection will run through their VPN system. Either way, assuming it works, it's great to have a free VPN solution out there that can encrypt data while surfing WiFi.
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No Subject Given by Robby on Sep 19th, 2005 @ 10:35pm
Google has something huge in the works. If you look at the download page it says, "Your wifi is almost ready to use". What wifi? The one that Google is providing for the beta testers?
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VPNing by Trevor Higgins on Sep 19th, 2005 @ 11:47pm
I strongly urge anyone who is PAYING for a vpn of any sort to check out openvpn at http://openvpn.net/. It is easy to configure, even with pubic key encryption, and is even easier to setup than IPSec, which uses a rather obtuse key management system.
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Re: VPNing by Mike on Sep 20th, 2005 @ 12:08am
You miss the point of a service like HotSpotVPN... you don't have to run the hardware yourself. OpenVPN may be a cinch to set it up, but you have to set it up and manage the machine. The point of HotSpotVPN is that many small businesses and individual users don't have a spare machine available or they can't manage such a machine even if they did.
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Umm. Not quite.. by art V on Sep 20th, 2005 @ 12:52am
Did you even bother to look at the rest of the site? http://wifi.google.com/faq.html Google has been testing WiFi in certain hotspots for a good while now... This is just the secure component to that...
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Re: No Subject Given by Mousky on Sep 20th, 2005 @ 3:59am
http://wifi.google.com/faq.html
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Privacy Concerns? by Chris on Sep 20th, 2005 @ 5:49am
From their Privacy Statement, not really surprising:
"Google may log some information from your web page requests as may the websites that you visit. We do this to understand how Google Secure Access is being used and to improve our services. Google Secure Access does not log cookies and strips potentially sensitive query data from the end of requests to help better protect your privacy."
"Google will not sell or provide personally identifiable information to any third parties except under the limited circumstances described in the Google Privacy Policy."
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Another free alternative: iPig by Sandra on Sep 23rd, 2005 @ 5:21am
iPig (http://www.iopus.com/ipig) does the same as Google Wifi does, but offers an OPTIONAL server component as well, so you can set up your own VPN server.
And unlike OpenVPN is is _really_ easy to use. Works like charm for our users.
Very important for me: It has the option to block your traffic if you are not connected to VPN - so you do not check your email by mistake without using the iPig VPN.
Sandra
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