No it’s not.
Please keep the discussion on topic. This isn’t a paranoid conspiracy topic.
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Yes it is. Their entire business model is based on that.
And it is very on topic. Please keep the white knighting to your self.
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Seems like a device for people who are also into alexas and sonoses and siris and all that stuff.
It’s easy to set up, you can use your phone and it looks neat.
I am not that kind of person and I don’t want nor need that, but so it is for most things, so keep us updated in regards to stability and maybe patches? I mean the “advanced” settings are more like basic settings to toggle for us weird Linux people… …but then again, it’s for the masses who just wanna have a neat nice looking thing that does its stuff.
Do not derail this thread with your usual brand of conspiracy. This is not up for debate.
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I’d like to see this compared to Ubiquiti’s Amplifi series. I feel like the target market is similar.
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Target market is identical, they’re both wifi mesh solutions. The Wirecutter likes Orbi the best of all the SOHO mesh systems. The Amplifi was so poor it didn’t even make their latest round of testing, sad to see from Ubiquiti as their prosumer stuff is great.
Note Google Wifi was a particularly poor performer in mesh mode with wifi backhaul.
Yeah, Ubiquiti (the company) is kind of a mess atm so I’m not surprised. I hope they get their shit together.
Says you (based on blind trust).
Fact is, you have a hardware device processing ALL of your traffic (rather than just your google traffic) supplied to you by a data mining company.
Having been involved in internet infrastructure administration since the 90s, in my experience, giving that level of trust to any company with that business model is likely a mistake.
Some people consider that too much trust. If you don’t - fine. But as per even level1’s own “de-google yourself” video (series?) i’d suggest that there are plenty here who do, perhaps including to some degree the site’s founders.
It is most certainly a relevant discussion point regarding this particular device; running one of these you most certainly put yourself in the position of potentially being much more comprehensively surveilled by Google than with any other brand of device.
Google has a history of doing data collection FIRST and worrying about the legality, impact, etc. later, so the concerns are not totally without merit.
If you’re a Google Chrome user, all Google needs to do (from a technical perspective) is use one of their own trusted CA certificates on this box to MITM all of your traffic to any destination. Are they doing this? Probably not. But the potential is there. And some may consider that too much trust in one company.
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First that article is irrelevant to this product we know Google collects data none of this shit is new, second, the only way they could of “Snooped” on you is if you had your Wi-Fi SSID security open so anyone could access it. Most people don’t but giving you the benefit of the doubt, a lot do.
Third, I made it clear in the beginning of this thread, but apparently a good portion of people here are incapable of reading, they just come in the thread and REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
If you are a “SECURITY CONCIOUS USER LOOK ELSE WHERE THIS IS NOT FOR YOU”…
In short, if you are paranoid, go somewhere else. This is not for you.
It doesn’t.
That is not for you to decide. @Kat more than understands the risk of using this device and they have decided that they are ok with taking that risk. Just because you dont like that google does something doesnt give you the ability to use that as a weapon against people who do like it.
It is not. This is a thread about googles new router. This is not a thread about google using this to get closer to your data. If you want to try inform people about googles data collection then feel free to make your own thread but DO NOT go into other peoples thread and tell them what they should and shouldnt do because your not ok with it. This ends here but feel free to PM me if you want to further discuss this.
Device looks pretty interesting. Could see this being something non-techy people would be able to manage themselves. Modern routers are still terrible at just letting people configure what they want without having to deal with all of the unnecessary stuff like knowing what IP it has and what all the settings mean.
I am interested how this device fares long term and if it gets any other competitors.
My main gripe with the device is that you have to assume the average person is too stupid to read a sticker on the side of a router to call any feature it has to be a “ux improvement”
Which has nothing to do with security.
My less tech savvy relatives either don’t have smart phones, or don’t know how to properly use them. For them, this is not a good design. power cycle vs. fuck with an app for fixes. Nothing about that is convenient.
Even the mobile-aware among them are probably going to find reading a sticker and power cycling less frustrating.
The design smacks of marketing department driven decisions rather than practical engineering and common sense. There’s no real added convenience, and it takes away from good basic design to achieve any differentiation.
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For a person who is less tech savvy, you have the option of letting the router setup a network for you, all you have to do is name the network and give it a password.
Then this is not for them and look elsewhere. I like the router, if you don’t like the router get something else.
through the app, right? that’s vs the experience of taking any well designed router out of the box, powering it on, reading the sticker, and that’s it.
that is a usability improvement in exactly zero universes.
There’s no reason this needs an app, for anyone. Especially one that you have to use to set it up.
A router should be a simple home appliance that does it’s job, without an app or any other dumb non-feature. This router is bad for the same reason a coffee maker or fridge with half baked companion apps or iot features is bad.
I think people getting caught up on the paranoia stuff are silly because this is just on its face a bad device. Google spying on your porn collection or whatever is the last issue this device has out of the box.
It does it’s job. You just don’t like the way it’s done. Which once again… Look elsewhere.
This is not the end all router for people.
It’d be pretty nice if I can do some basic work on a router remotely. I’m not even IT and I’ve had to do Wifi house calls for family.
(For reference: my parents thought flash drives were like single use CDs until just a couple years ago and my brother won’t change the default password on his router because he’s afraid it’ll break)
it does it’s job worse. – for the sake of contrived modernity. that’s the problem.
also, regarding the self updating firmware and online features, google has a track record of bricking devices under its purview at the end of their (very short) support cycles if they lose interest in the project or just don’t move enough units.
so there’s also that “”""“feature”""""
@w.meri as far as I can tell the app is lan-only and you definitely can’t ssh into it or similar
FTFY
Also that’s a hub that didn’t do well. Not a router. Also inb4 But google owns nest. Alphabet didn’t make that decision. Nest did.
It’s not.
Nest is a google/alphabet subsidiary. Are you responsible for your arm’s actions? If Nest defrauds someone or engages in bad business, that’s just as much an alphabet oversight as it is Nest’s, unless you believe in a world where the corpo-lords should have free reign to rule us by divine right
They’ve demonstrated that they’re fine bricking devices they don’t want to support any more, and this device puts them in a position to if they deem it unprofitable. That’s not a good look.
so many pressing security questions on this one.
granted if there’s a company that can keep an internet of shit device relatively secure, it’s probably google, but if a kid with basic tech savvy or an email phishing campaign can lead to someone fucking with my home router that’s not a desired outcome.
Just that one and nothing else.
Yeah just like on a desktop.
Though enough with the banter, I’m going to close this thread…
Apparently no one can’t NOT bring their paranoia in here.
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