Google Requiring All 'G Suite Legacy Free Edition' Users To Start Paying for Workspace this Year (9to5google.com) 84
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2020, G Suite became Google Workspace as part of a mass reorganization of the company's apps for the "future of work." Various plans were migrated over, and Google is now finally getting rid of the G Suite legacy free edition. "Google Apps" for businesses and schools were introduced 16 years ago and was discontinued in 2012. However, the company made no significant changes to those free accounts in the past decade, until today. In an email to administrators this morning, Google said it "will now transition all remaining users to an upgraded Google Workspace paid subscription based on your usage." As such, Workspace's only free plans are for Nonprofits and Education (Fundamentals). After getting free Gmail, Drive, Docs, and other apps for the past several years, companies/people will need to start paying for those Google services and the ability to use your own custom domain (instead of just gmail.com).
It was a good 16 years (Score:2)
But bound to happen.
We've used it where I work since it was beta, with 100 accounts for free.
Relatively recently they stopped allowing you to buy space for specific users, so we were gonna need to start paying for it soon anyway.
It's a shame the $6/month plan comes with so little space though.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, I've been onboard since day one of the "Google Apps for Your Domain" beta. I've grown increasingly anxious about having all of my domain's email controlled and searched and monetized by one of the most evil companies on earth, so this is a good time to cut that cord.
Re: (Score:2)
The weird thing is: they did not kill the product in those 16 years as is their normal method.
Re: (Score:2)
Part of the revolt against Google is that it discontinued these free services but ramped up tracking and advertising. Ten years ago Google apps and other services were first class and the exchange was beneficial for all sides. Increasingly Google wants to dir
Re: (Score:2)
The Google apps for business have been add free (even the free ones) for the vast majority of their existence, and haven't been available for free for about a decade I reckon.
There's some decent value add to the business edition too, not the least of which is using your own domain.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That sucks on the play store purchases.
They should definitely let you roll them to a generic account.
I can see why they don't want to support the private domain account for free though.
The private domain accounts were ad supported for people that had them for free at one point, and they obviously decided it wasn't worth the effort to maintain 3 versions (the private domain ad supported was so not worth supporting that they gave it away ad free for a decade or so).
This seems like it was inevitable (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The money people were always involved. The point was to get you hooked so it would be inconvenient for you to migrate.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The point was to get you hooked so it would be inconvenient for you to migrate.
Unlikely. They used to offer this free to everyone but that was ten years ago. When they stopped offering it for free to everyone they continued the service for free to those of us who were already using it. It just doesn't make sense to suggest that those of us who were using it were so important to snare that they would keep providing it free just to us for TEN YEARS. If it had continued to be widely available and then switched quickly then that might make sense.
Re: (Score:3)
The point was to get you hooked so it would be inconvenient for you to migrate.
Unlikely. They used to offer this free to everyone but that was ten years ago. When they stopped offering it for free to everyone they continued the service for free to those of us who were already using it. It just doesn't make sense to suggest that those of us who were using it were so important to snare that they would keep providing it free just to us for TEN YEARS. If it had continued to be widely available and then switched quickly then that might make sense.
More than 10 years. 10 years ago is when they stopped offering it to new sign-ups. I think they launched it in 2005-2006. So yea, that would be one hell of a long game for not much in return.
Re: (Score:3)
If it is inconvenient to migrate, that also discourages me from ever trying a new service from them again.
Although, given that they shut everything down after awhile, there would be little chance of that anyways. Eventually everybody gets burned by them. They can't only make money off advertising, because everything else they burned everybody on.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Very Glad (Score:2)
Microsoft Office 365 is $5 / month / user . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft Office 365 is $5 / month / user . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
My office switched to Google this year and it has been a fucking nightmare. O365 is so much better that Google shouldn't be allowed to advertise Workspace as an Office replacement.
Re: (Score:2)
Well I had the opposite experience. I'm used to Google since everyone has it for personal use. I'm having to use Office365 for a client but mostly in a browser. Regular system crashes. Autosave doesn't work. Start creating anything complex and half way through your work it will crash. The system is always trying to force people to sign up and get lock in, which is fine when you are in some nightmare throwback Microsoft hellzone, but not when you work with open source people and want to get the actual data.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like you should be using Open Office or Libre Office since you mentioned open source. Also you should be able to download the Office suite with you O365 subscription unless you're just full of shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like you should be using Open Office or Libre Office since you mentioned open source.
I mostly do for personal non-shared stuff, but most of the people I collaborate with use Google stuff for shared documents, which is most of what I work on.
Also you should be able to download the Office suite with you O365 subscription
I do not believe there's a proper office suite for Linux. Even if there was, with the exception of Microsoft's contributions to FOSS such as parts of the Linux Kernel, I haven't had a piece of Microsoft software on my personal computer for well over a decade.
unless you're just full of shit.
Is that how you normally talk to your customers?
Re: (Score:2)
Not necessarily. It depends on what options you include in your Office 365 subscription.
Re: (Score:2)
The question is which services are you trying to replicate?
Just email? Lots of low cost options...likely cheapest would be Namecheap hosting plan...just use the email.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Shhh, the $5/month plan doesn't include Word and Excel desktop apps, just the web version. For that, you will need the $8.25/month plan. But then, in this one, you don't get Teams. If you want both, that's the $12.50 plan now. Quite far from $5 we've gone.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I'd mention free plan on zoho mail, but I tried it and would rather pay Microsoft.
Re: (Score:2)
True! But IMO, anyone paying the 12.50/mo. vs. $8.25/mo to get Teams is probably better off with other solutions. Teams is a resource hog that can literally cause a company to upgrade a whole fleet of Windows laptops that were "good enough" to run Win 10 and all their Office apps previously.
Even on a brand new Core i7 CPU notebook here with 16GB of RAM and a fast 512GB SSD, I have issues like it stalling when someone sends you an image file. Double-click to view it and the first time, it works. Go back
Re: (Score:2)
Even so, an extra $2.25 for the full office suite over google's base pricing is quite good if you are using workspace for access to google docs and onedrive. I honestly find the Sheets experience in particular to be quite frustratingly limited, but then I also do a fair bit with PowerQuery so.. For many business users this is a good time to move to a O365.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. The problem I'm having with this is that the $5 plan *has* Teams, and the $8.25 doesn't.
First, that's 3.25, not 2.25 more :)
Second that's just a scam to get you to the 12.50 plan. Come on! You pay more money but they remove their collaboration product - however awful it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Shits has been a nightmare for us too, none of our spreadsheets work correctly in Shits.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If that's true, then why bother pushing people now? A few free G suite accounts cost Google nothing more than a few normal free Gmail accounts.
If anyone is thinking of hosting their own email, they might also check out MailRoute, which costs a couple of dollars per account, and takes all the hassle out of running your own public-facing smtp server. They act as your world-facing SMTP server and forward all the mail to your own server. They deal with things like black lists and and other modern SMTP issues.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I can think of plenty of small businesses with fewer than 10 employees who need access.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm leaning towards the personal Family plan, 6 users, $100/year. My Google Apps is just family members anyways.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm leaning toward that as well... but I have an issue. My parents are on my Google Apps account along with my wife and 4 kids. So a total of 8 accounts. That doesn't work with the Family plan. The business plan is quite a bit more expensive :(.
So it looks like I need to either leave a couple people out or change my thought process entirely.
What about my Google Play Stores Purchases? (Score:4, Insightful)
The inability to transfer Play Stores purchases to a plain @gmail account is really going to hurt, I feel they are being held hostage, pay up or else.
Re: What about my Google Play Stores Purchases? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
'May" means permission to do so. You, perhaps, are thinking of 'might', which only means the probability.
Re: (Score:2)
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can create a Google account with an external email.
But it will not be the same account as you had in G-Suite with the same address.
Currently, it is possible to have two google accounts with the same email address, one a free account, and one a G-Suite/workspace managed account.
They are separate - no Drive files or Play Store purchases shared.
Re: (Score:2)
The inability to transfer Play Stores purchases to a plain @gmail account is really going to hurt, I feel they are being held hostage, pay up or else.
This is the real crap part. When this launched it wasn't as business focused as it is now, and was a easy way to sign up and use gmail with your own domain name for a lot of people, and I imagine there are a lot of folks that used it as such. And yea, if they bought stuff from Google they are stuck as it stands. Hopefully some public attention will force Google to find a way to allow those users to migrate their accounts over to a personal account.
I've had one of these since it launched but never really u
Old google, new google (Score:3)
New google: suddenly starts charging even for their most boring offerings
(Please please please I hope nobody at google notices desktop google earth and takes it away from me...)
Okay, looking for a new email host (Score:3)
Any recommendations? I've been using Google all this time, but it sounds like it's time to migrate. I've never really liked them anyway.
I'm willing to pay, I'm just not willing to pay THEM.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Okay, looking for a new email host (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's more private only if you are only emailing other people on your server.
I tried this and realized everyone I knew had a gmail account. That meant google still got a copy of all my emails.
Re: (Score:2)
Inbound email, self host. dovecot + postfix + spamassasin + whatever (feel free to suggest more modern packages if they exist). It's a one time pain to set up, and way cheaper and private.
You didn't mention your backup strategy at all...which requires more hardware/resources and time, and is a commitment unto itself to do correctly.
Then it goes down. If its just _you_ then sure maybe its fine. But if even one other person actually needs it working... even your own wife, its just a huge PITA when there is an outage for any reason. It always happens when you aren't home, usually out of town, and its always something that's a hassle to fix like a motherboard or disk failure. Meanwhile this is t
Re: (Score:2)
It's never that easy. You will need to keep that system updated for security, assuming you already know how to properly configure it and don't have to learn. Then you need to create a backup system and periodically test it.
That's why most people and small businesses prefer to just outsource it. To the OP, there is regular Gmail which is a low effort and free option. Use Thunderbird to migrate if needed. Otherwise Proton Mail offers a paid version which is basic but secure.
Re: (Score:2)
I ran my own email server for years and I'm not really interested in that amount of work anymore. I don't think it's a bad solution, I just don't have the motivation for that initial setup. And in any case, I'd still need to have an actual server out there somewhere on Linode or something because my residential internet *definitely* blocks normal mail ports and running servers.
Re: Okay, looking for a new email host (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The reviews make it sound like Nextcloud is extremely terrible There’s not a single positive one
https://apps.nextcloud.com/app... [nextcloud.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Try Cloudiance. Used to be zMailCloud, before that was 01.
Switched to 01.com years ago after I decided to stop hosting my own server. Liked the very short domain name, but the service has been great.
It's a hosted Zimbra solution.
They support a catch all account and ActiveSync.
Re: (Score:2)
It really depends on how radical you want to get. If your only reason to not run your own email server is the lack of free time and/or desire to administer it, then maybe consider Helm ( https://thehelm.com [thehelm.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
I just use my ISPs email account, it's worked for roughly 30 years so far, at $25/year currently (Ozbucks, so maybe 3 cents American?)
I have an Android phone so am obliged to have a Google account, with a Gmail address, that only I and Google know as I've never sent an email from it, nor will I - having utterly zero use for it.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
iCLoud+ might turn out to be worth the $2.99/mo (Score:3)
Well, I have a few of these legacy accounts...I barely use any of them. But it looks like I'll be migrating the couple that I do use to "custom domains with iCloud Mail." Since I'm already paying $2.99/mo for iCloud, may as well use it...
Re: (Score:2)
I got a Synology NAS which has a web based "office" module, with word processing, spreedsheet, etc.
And best part all the data is stored in my NAS. And since I can access it remotely, it works great for alot of use cases.
Oh, no monthly fees either.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. I have a Synology NAS too and I certain considered using their mail server option for this lightly used email addresses.
I just don't think I want to deal with the potential hassle of a mail server.
Re: (Score:2)
I have not used it for emails either. Maybe one day when I got more free time I will experiment on that as well with a spare domain.
Re: (Score:2)
Please post your experience. I decided to test iCloud+ custom domain email yesterday with a domain that didn't already have email service and Apple's web UI would not let me assign email addresses for any other family members. It appeared that the only way anyone other than me (the Family "Organizer") could use the custom domain would be to have already set up a working email address for that domain with some other mail provider -- either you provide each family member's currently working email with the cus
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't really have any issue setting it up. It was pretty straight forward, following their directions.
You do need to have an iCloud email account already set up. But, once you have that, you can then create the addition 3 email addresses per user on the custom domain. Also, note that as Family Organizer, you have to choose if the custom domain is available to you or everyone when you first do this. I'm not sure if you can change that later.
The only issue I see if you are using non-apple email to send fro
The kick I needed to get off google (Score:2)
I figured (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Same, I need to whittle-down my accounts to just a single one but $6/mo isn't a bad price for the convenience, plus stuff I've been missing from the improved Workspace offerings like better SMTP relay and OAUTH offerings.
Exacly as per Tom Lehrer (Score:1)
Comes a fellow ev'ryone knows
It's the old dope peddler
Spreading joy wherever he goes
Ev'ry evening you will find him
Around our neighborhood
It's the old dope peddler
Doing well by doing good
He gives the kids free samples
Because he knows full well
That today's young innocent faces
Will be tomorrow's clientele
Here's a cure for all your troubles
Here's an end to all distress
It's the old dope peddler
With his powdered ha-happiness
Fuck, now I will have to move my wife's business (Score:2)
I guess this will kick me in the arse to move to O365 for her stuff.
She gets like 30 emails a year, but they are important, and at this point I am looking to get Google out of my life as much as possible (I know it is a losing proposition) so off to a different provider.
You are now the customer not the product (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Does this include admin@ account too? or is the admin@host account a free one.
Re: (Score:2)
It is almost always better to be a customer than to be the product.
I'd say that if you're paying $6/month you haven't turned from a product into a customer, you just transition from an expensive to a discounted product, as any issue you may have will still be dealt with by dumb AI systems that won't have any qualms about suspending you from your account. After all, it's cheaper for Google to lose your $6 than to pay someone to spend an hour solving your issue.
Now, if we're talking about spending hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars per month for Google serv
Oh wow. (Score:2)
The original accounts were actually worth money, on ebay if you had a grandathered plan.
I set up a small business with a 50 plan years and years ago (they're off it now)
Heck of a move though, some people are going to be pissed.
Honestly, Office 365 is vastly superior though, by leaps and bounds.
Microsoft 365 isn't an option anymore (Score:4, Informative)
So, I figured that I'd just move my personal domain from Google Apps over to my outlook.com address since I already have a Microsoft 365 Family subscription.
But no, apparently they only support personal domains if you buy it from GoDaddy and no one else. How can a company the size of Microsoft not be able to figure this out, especially when they could do it before with Hotmail. We just need MX records.
Re: (Score:2)
How can a company the size of Microsoft not be able to figure this out
By getting a fat check from GoDaddy ? It's not a technical problem dude, of course this is trivial.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a way to do it, it just requires a 13 page powershell document to execute. The catch is, this is a cloud platform and users can't execute powershell on Microsoft's own services.
Haven't got the e-mail yet (Score:2)
I haven't got any e-mails yet. Nice to learn of this before May 1, Google. Thank you.
In some ways I understand this move, in other ways I don't. I mean having gmail accounts with some free storage certainly doesn't cost Google any less than these G Suite Legacy accounts.
Time to start listening to the Self Hosted podcast I guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Right? How is this really different than a @gmail.com account w/free G Drive storage? Main difference is the vanity domain... and a number of apps they never got working with G Suite.
Re: Haven't got the e-mail yet (Score:2)
Same, I use it for a handful of domains, but i only use gmail, not anything else from the suite.
I'll migrate. I may be able to go back to my isp's free email plan, but it will be a pain.
For my own email, i use pop3 so i should be able to easily migrate, with the only downside of not being able to access old emails through the webinterface when i sometimes need too and aren't home (not often, that's fine).
But for the others, my family uses imap ("because i need emails on my phone" no you don't, but whatever)