Google has confirmed that it is making its VPN service available to all subscribers of the Google One offering, not just those who pay for the upgraded Premium 2TB plan.
Previously limited to those paying for that Premium 2TB Google One plan, the Google VPN is now a great addition to all tiers. Google announced the change via a blog post, saying that it is expanding the feature to everyone who pays for the Basic plan or higher across 22 different countries.
The new VPN offering will be available to everyone whether they use Android, iOS, Windows, or Mac devices and Google notes that the VPN can be shared with up to five others who are on the same Google One plan.
"VPN by Google One adds more protection to your internet activity no matter what apps or browsers you use, shielding it from hackers or network operators by masking your IP address," Google's blog post says. "Without a VPN, the sites and apps you visit could use your IP address to track your activity or determine your location."
Google also says that a new dark web reporting service is also being added, although only for those in the United States. The feature is designed to help people become aware if their information is being made available on the dark web.
"Google One’s dark web report helps you scan the dark web for your personal info — like your name, address, email, phone number, and Social Security number — and will notify you if it’s found," Google says. "When you enable dark web report, you provide and select the information you’d like to keep an eye on within your monitoring profile. And if any matching info is found on the dark web, we'll notify you and provide guidance on how you might protect that information."
This news means that Google One's VPN and dark web monitoring are both available to anyone on the Basic Google One Plan, priced at £1.59/$1.99 per month or £15.99/$19.99 per year. That also gets you 100GB of expanded Google Drive storage, too. Google says that it's rolling out the expanded VPN service over the next few weeks so don't panic if you don't see it just yet.