Google’s VPN is (almost) free for everyone: what it is and how to activate it

Until now, there were only two ways to use Google’s VPN, namely to take advantage of the extra protection offered by a Virtual Private Network (what is that?) when surfing online, both from your smartphone and from your computer.

To get it, you had to have a Pixel 7 or 7 Pro or you had to activate the 9.99 euro per month plan of Google One, the cloud storage service offered by Big G in denominations of 100 or 200 GB or 2 TB.

The VPN from 2 euros per month

This is no longer the case, because the company has announced that for 22 countries around the world (including Italy) access to the VPN will be possible for all Google One subscribers, including those who have the Basic plan from 1.99 euros per month.

The VPN (here are all the details on how it works) it is available on Android, iOS, Windows and Mac devices and can also be shared “with up to 5 people if you share your Google One plan with them”, so as to “extend protection to your family group”.

How to activate Google VPN

At the time of writing, the Italian page dedicated to the service (which is this) it does not yet reflect this change, but it is probably only a matter of time: once updated, it will be sufficient to log in with your credentials, choose the desired plan, a payment method and proceed with the activation.

On the smartphone, which is perhaps the device on which a VPN is most useful, its activation goes from the Google One app (this is the one for android): from here you can turn it on or off, which can also be done more quickly from the notifications and quick settings menu. However, our advice is to always leave it running, possibly allowing individual apps to override it, if connection problems arise: we have however tried with the main ones dedicated to streaming and everything went smoothly.

The other news: what is the Dark Web Report

Another interesting feature introduced by Google is the Dark Web Report, which is intended to help “scan the Dark Web for your personal information, such as your name, home address, email address, phone number, and social security number.” ”, and “will notify you if they are found”.

As can be understood, the idea is to keep the Net monitored for any private data that could have been captured during some hacker attack: “When you activate the Dark Web Report, you provide and select the information you want keep under control in your monitoring profile – they explained again from Google – If corresponding information is found on the Dark Web, we will inform the user and provide indications on how to protect this information “.