Google Plus

Very few will probably mourn the loss of Google+. Some might be even more surprised to hear it was still in operation after all these years. Google, however, probably couldn’t be rid of it fast enough because of how it has become an albatross around its neck. It has already pushed the shutdown of the service a month in advance but even before that, it will be shutting down the APIs that apps may still be using, surprisingly. In fact, those apps and API may start failing in January, which could make Google+’s death even more inglorious than it already is.

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Ailing social network Google+ will be shuttered four months earlier than initially intended, after Google found another security bug the affected more than 52 million users. The search giant had initially announced it would close down Google+ in August of next year, a deadline that itself had been established because the social network was the inadvertent cause of a security lapse.

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Google may have signed the death warrant for Google+ but some of its most devoted users are calling for a reprieve, with a Change.org petition demanding the oft-mocked social network be allowed to live on. The search giant announced that the writing was on the wall for Google+ earlier this month, conceding that the site it hoped to eventually overshadow Facebook and Twitter simply hadn't lived up to expectations.

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Google+ may have been the butt of a million social network jokes, but before you cheer too loudly for its demise you should also give it the credit it deserves for launching one of Google's best products. The writing is on the wall for Google+, its creator confirmed today, beginning a ten month long sunsetting process that will end in August 2019.

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Today Google announced they'd close Google+ for consumers - that means you, reader. This closure is due to several factors, the most important of these being the huge privacy bug uncovered this week by the Wall Street Journal. Other reasons aren't nearly as important - but they're there nonetheless. Besides the bug, Google+ never really got off the ground.

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Google is shutting down Google+ for consumers, axing the little-loved social network in the aftermath of a huge privacy flaw it failed to reveal until months later. Launched in 2011 to great fanfare, Google+ was to be not only a social networking site to compete with Facebook, but a mechanism to authenticate identity online.

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Google has issued an update on state-sponsored activity, revealing that it has deleted 58 accounts and channels across YouTube, Google Plus and Blogger that it had linked with Iran. The disclosure comes days after Facebook made a similar announcement in which it revealed that hundreds of accounts linked to Iran and Russia had been purged. As with Facebook, cybersecurity group FireEye helped Google surface some of the accounts.

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Google is known, nay, notorious, for starting dozens of projects and then killing them off when they no longer become feasible or practical business-wise. That has happened to both small and big projects alike, even revolutionary ones like Google Glass, Project Ara, and more. And yet there is one product that, despite being a ghost town and shadow of its former self, remains alive and has even gotten a new feature. Yes, that is Google+, which, starting today, will start surfacing interesting Topics to try and get you hooked on the social network.

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Reports of Google+’s death are largely exaggerated, despite how some might want it to be. At least, that is definitely the vibe that Google is giving off by announcing a somewhat major refresh to its social network turned community platform. The new Google+ will make smarter use of space by hiding “low-quality” comments and taking advantage of huge, hi-res photos. Google is also bringing back Events functionality to the platform but is also on the verge of saying farewell to a classic look.

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Google’s messaging platform strategy has never really been stable. Over the years it has switched from one system and app to the next, practically promising “this” would be it. Substitute “this” with Voice, Messages, Hangouts, and now Allo and Duo, and you pretty much get the picture. Unfortunately for those who actually invested in, for example, Hangouts, they might soon find their investments rendered useless as Google shuts down Hangouts’ API that third-party app developers once used to hook into the service.

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The founder of controversial messageboard 4chan, a place often described as part of the internet's dark underbelly, might not be the obvious candidate to join "Do No Evil" Google. Still, that's just what's happened, with Chris Poole - aka moot - announcing this week that he's climbing into bed with the search giant.

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Remember Picasa? Google finally has too, but it's decided to call time on the photo software. Picasa is getting the axe, the company has confirmed today, in favor of the newer Google Photos service that was itself spun out from Google+.

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