Google Wi-Fi

 Google, the online search leader, confirmed on Tuesday it has begun a limited test of a free wireless Internet service, called Google WiFi.

FREE Wi-Fi is going to change everything....


....and MSN is in talks with Dial-up AOL LOL...

How is this different or more revolutionary than the free Wi-Fi that is already available at many places like airports, hotels, McDonalds restaurants, and sometimes even entire cities thanks to projects like Wireless Leiden?

Dude its google it is like sooo different, you just don't understand.

OT but I freaking hate airports that charge for wifi.

Google isn't going to offer free WiFi coverage throughout the world, you know. Nor are they going to replace the world's ISPs. (Open Source ISP! Revolutionize the industry!).

Many airports and cafes have free WiFi coverage. In Jerusalem, a large commercial block has full WiFi coverage with municipal funding, and the radius is spreading. Wireless coverage will eventually be as ubiquitous as cellphone coverage today.

At the moment, this is just a "... community outreach program to offer free wireless access in areas near our headquarters", specifically in a pizza-parlor and a gym near their HQ where Google employees probably hang out.

Sven Groot wrote:

How is this different or more revolutionary than the free Wi-Fi that is already available at many places like airports, hotels, McDonalds restaurants, and sometimes even entire cities thanks to projects like Wireless Leiden?

You're going to get a Google START Page.


Google VoIP could kill the Telephone companies.

The speculation in the article is that they intend to go further - to provide free WiFi to the masses, everywhere.
 
Its just speculation but intresting. It makes you think - if they were to do this, what would they be getting out of it? dont forget that nothing Google ever do is really "free" - you pay in watching adverts, or in them farming your data. What would they gain in giving WiFi?

Tensor wrote:

Its just speculation but intresting. It makes you think - if they were to do this, what would they be getting out of it? dont forget that nothing Google ever do is really "free" - you pay in watching adverts, or in them farming your data. What would they gain in giving WiFi?

A few years ago there was a free ISP here in Israel, Surfree, that had totally free dialup provided you used their dialling software, which pushed some ads constantly onscreen and even customized them based on the sites you browsed. I'm sure there are/were similar schemes in other places. They eventually went belly-up, probably because the proliferation of cracks for their software made them totally unprofitable - but maybe Google have something similar planned.

First, they knew what you were searching for.
Then, they had access to your mail.
Soon, they will see every byte you send or receive.

It's 11:00pm - Do you know where YOUR data is?

Yeah. Tesco have it.

(For context, Tesco is a huge UK supermarket chain. £1 in £8 spent in the UK is spent at Tesco).

Adsence will pay the bills.

MSN wants to spend all that money to get all those dial-up AOL users, but who will spend $21.99 a month when Wi-Fi is FREE?

Sven Groot wrote:

How is this different or more revolutionary than the free Wi-Fi that is already available at many places like airports, hotels, McDonalds restaurants, and sometimes even entire cities thanks to projects like Wireless Leiden?

Google's also going to provide a secure access client.  Most of the free AND pay wifi I know is completely unencrypted (no WEP/WPA).  So your POP3 passwords, FTP passwords, HTTP username & password combos etc. are just flying around the ether for anyone to sniff.

Oh and the couple of times I used WiFi at McDonald's it was run by Wayport and cost money.  The last hotel I tried was free, but I have to say my mouth dropped open when I realized it was.

Another thing is that most people aren't conveniently near an airport or a hotel to take advantage of their hotspots.  Google probably has some Evil Master Plan to blanket the Earth with free WiFi.  I'm still not sure how they're gonna pull that off though.  We know they have the dark fiber (and Vint Cerf) to do the backbone, but there's a lot of stuff between an OC-48 backbone in a POP and hundreds or thousands of access points in a metropolitan area.

Seems like the smart way would be to do this with WiMax or some other technology that only needed a few antennae.  Curiouser and curiouser...

I’ve set-up a special User Account on my laptop that I use in public Wi-Fi areas as I don’t want anyone copying my cookies!  


Google Secure Access has been spotted in London!

eagle wrote:

Google Secure Access has been spotted in London!

Yeesh.  I thought I was joking when I said "blanket the Earth."

Maybe I should be thinking bigger.  After all Vint Cerf (now at Google) has plans to bring TCP/IP to other planets.  LOL

eagle wrote:

Google Secure Access has been spotted in London!

*Sells shares in telecoms companies*

eagle wrote:

Google VoIP could kill the Telephone companies.

So could Yahoo's voice chat, MSN's voice chat, Skype and the hundred other VOIP solutions.

Do you see the need to mention the greater risk rather than mentioning just one service...

No - there is a clear diference. For any of those things you need an internet conenction, whcih ties you to existing telecoms. If on the other hand there is ubiquitous and free wifi - well then who needs to plug in to a phone socket anymore?

Google Secure Access is just a VPN client. In fact its just a way of automatically configing the Windows built in VPN client.

I don't understand how it can be "spotted in London", anyone can download it, install it on any windows machine and use it from any kind of internet connection anywhere already.

There is nothing location specific about creating a VPN connection through vpn.google.com.

Why strike such an authoritative tone when you have no first hand information?





download Google Secure Access

Exactly, I've already downloaded it, and connected just fine from my own internet connection.
It works just like any other VPN. It routes all your traffic through Google's servers.

How can you find it remarkable that it was "spotted in London" as though it were part of some worlwide roll out of a location specific service?

Its like saying Google Talk was "spotted in London". Sure London and anywhere else where someone happened to install it on their Windows machine.