Google expands its best privacy features to more users on Android and iOS

Keep your photos safe and your internet browsing safer.

What you need to know

• Google announced that it’s expanding privacy features for more users.
• Google Photos’ Locked Folder is arriving soon on more Android devices and on iOS in 2022.
• Google One VPN will be available in 10 additional countries.

Google is celebrating Cybersecurity Awareness Month by highlighting its efforts to protect user privacy. The company already announced that it’s bringing end-to-end encrypted to Google Fi calls for Android phones on the network. With today’s announcement, more users will soon have a chance to take advantage of Google’s best privacy features.

For starters, Google One is expanding its VPN services to more countries. It’s currently available in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and the UK.

Google says the feature will expand to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, allowing more people to protect their browsing activity. Of course, this only applies to customers with the 2TB plan or higher, but Google One VPN is a handy perk to Google’s cloud storage subscription.

Additionally, the new Locked Folder feature previously exclusive to Google Photos on Pixel devices will soon be available on more of the best Android phones. Google made the announcement earlier this month when it highlighted many of the Pixel features rolling out to more devices, however, it seems Locked Folder’s expanded availability is imminent.

With Locked Folder, users will be able to password-protect their most sensitive images, so they don’t show up accidentally while scrolling through their gallery.

Locked Folder will also arrive on iPhones as well, but those users will have to wait until early 2022.

Google highlights features like the Security Hub found on its own devices like the new Pixel 6, HTTPS-First Mode on Chrome for a secure connection, and URL checks in Google Messages for safer browsing.

Private by design

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