The Google One VPN service is heading to the Google graveyard

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A screenshot showing the VPN by Google One service app on a smartphone.
The service will be shut down on an unspecified date later this year. | Image: Google
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Google is shutting down its VPN by Google One service, according to a vague customer email seen by Android Authority, less than four years after it was rolled out in October 2020. The email doesn’t specify when this will happen, only that the VPN service will be discontinued “later this year.”

Subscription prices for Google One’s VPN start at $1.99, with availability on Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. The company told 9to5Google that it is killing the service because “people simply weren’t using it.” Perhaps its customers were simply spoilt for choice, given this is actually one of three VPN services provided by Google alongside the VPN offerings still available via Google Fi, and Pixel devices from the Pixel 7 on up.

VPN by Google One is the latest offering to get tossed into the infamous “Google Graveyard” just weeks after the Google One cloud storage service announced it had hit a 100 million subscriber milestone. Google mentioned in its shutdown email that the VPN was being phased out to “focus on providing the most in-demand features and benefits,” which may relate to all the Gemini AI stuff that the company is shoving into Google One.