After 10 years, Google Cloud Print will finally be out of beta... straight into ad giant's graveyard Google has announced plans to close down its Cloud Print service over the coming year. The Mountain View goliath today told punters that, effective January 1, 2021, they will no longer be able to use the service to remotely print documents. Netizens are advised to spend the next 12 months finding and setting up a different way …
Anyone who flies with Ryanair?
On my last flight, I got to the airport and past the first boarding pass check with my phone, but the battery died just before boarding. Always pays to have a backup and a sheet of paper doesn't make much impact on your hand luggage allowance.
I hate people who try and scan their phone, oh yes let me get my phone out of my pocket, oh wait my screen is locked, oh wait I have the setting to make the screen dim if its flipped over, oh the app crashed, GAH WHY DO I ALWAYS PICK THE DAMN QUEUE WITH PEOPLE USING THEIR STUPID MOBILE AS THE BOARDING CARD!
Always try and be one of the last on to.
"Always try and be one of the last on to."
I never use the phone for this because I hate it so much when other people do. But I always try to be the last one boarding anyway. In terms of wait times, it doesn't matter if you're at the front or end of the line -- the plane isn't leaving until boarding is completed anyway -- and it's so much nicer to spend that time sitting in the airport lobby rather than on the plane.
Yes, I never use my phone for this either. Even when people have their phone unlocked and the bar code on the screen, it often (in my experience) takes several tries to get it to scan, while the paper boarding passes generally scan on the first try. It's just obnoxious.
If I'm in an aisle seat I'll usually wait until the end of the line, or close to it. If I'm in a middle or window I'll board with my group in the hope of not having to make someone else get up to let me by. (I try to never have carry-on luggage that needs to go overhead, because I'll be damned if I'll let the airlines con me into fighting for overhead space. So I don't need to rush on for that.)
"Plus... Who the feck prints anything anymore????"
I get eye strain when reading long documents on LCD screens - I don't get this when reading on paper (or e-ink screens). Sometimes it's nice to print things as aide-memoirs - sometimes the environment they're going into isn't condusive to having electronic devices, and sometimes it's good just to have a folder of stuff to refer to (it's easier to leaf through paper than electronic files, I find). Also, whole branches of officialdom and related services want printed documents, rather than e-mails ...
try following a wiring schematic and circuit logic layout when diagnosing a vehicle with a battery drain in the field and you'll see why paper much better than a small screen.
especially when talking to someone (you know...using the phone as a phone....) elsewhere as they follow the diagrams with you. hard to talk on the phone and scroll through a 50 page file at the same time.
"Who the feck prints anything anymore?"
I have to print things once or twice a month. It's not worth the bother of having my own printer for this, though, so I just use a copy shop to do it.
Back when I did need a printer, I just ran my own print server, which I could access via my VPN from the internet. Google's print service never offered me anything that I didn't already have. But I confess that I'm abnormal.
Generally they seem to discontinue these services when they feel they've scooped enough data from them. They're just harvesting exercises.
Personally, I'm just as glad they're killing Google Cloud Print; it will be one fewer thing to go in and disable every time my phone updates.
I bought a home printer that has built-in Google cloud print support. It's getting "locked into" these free services that sucks.
But it seems like I'm the only one who ever used Google cloud print? Who doesn't love printing from their phone (where I check my email most often) without having to fire-up the old PC?
But just because Google is killing the service next year it doesn't mean work has stopped altogether. Before it's shut down, Google will roll out support for external CUPS print servers, including an authentication policy to configure connections to external CUPS print servers, as well as APIs for third parties to access print job metadata, submit print jobs, and add printer management capabilities.
Why spend resources on a dead project? It's not as if there aren't other Google projects that need a bit of help right now (*cough* Stadia *cough*).
Bit complex for Joe Public to set up, but with a networked printer and a half-decent router it shouldn't be impossible to enable port forwarding and connect directly to the printer over t'interwebs. I went one step further and have a LAN-LAN VPN between me and the parents, but it's the same principle I think?
M.
>Most WiFi enabled printers now have over the interweb printing...
Okay for the one off, now try and configure several printers distributed over several sites serving say 30 users...
Google Cloud print will be missed, but there are other on-the-go cloud print services.
Query: is the Google Cloud Print source code open source, as given the amount of third-party investment , there would seem to be an opportunity for someone to put up a fully compatible cloud hub and charge a subscription - whilst the revenues probably wont' be in the stratosphere, I'm sure they will be sufficient to keep a small business going.
Most WiFi enabled printers now have over the interweb printing, with HP you get an email address to send documents that it spits out at the relevant printer, Epson and Canon have something similar
And as soon as I first heard of that functionality, I was expecting someone to hack the HP server to harvest all those email addresses for spamming purposes (kind of like junk-faxes used to be).
Remote workers at small logistics companies for example have to print waybills etc remotely from their central system.
Windows Remote Desktop sucks for remote printing.
Google Cloud Print worked flawlessly, even with older non cloud ready printers. And for free.
Right now I'm at a loss as to what to migrate to.
I know GoToMyPC works, but it ain't free. And they keep putting their prices up.
[ As a complete noob on this kind of thing. Can a little server/laptop/solution be setup for email to print? Then just email the account, and it prints the document?
Yes, absolutely. A server can be set up to handle printing.
Most of the world is moving away from having on-site email servers.
And many if not most email-enabled printers can't handle the authentication now required for 'secure' email using gmail, so that's also not going to work for a lot of the users.
If you don't want to use HP Cloud Print or something or the printer is too old:
VNC viewer, maybe? It's been around for EVAR. And it's still supported, last i checked.
I use VNC servers on headless Linux boxen sometimes. Tiger VNC is probably the easiest to set up.
You should probably NOT expose VNC's port to the outside world as-is, though. Instead you should use a VPN or ssh tunnel to access it from teh intarwebs.
(but yeah that's not as convenient as using some monolithic 'google print' thing or remote PC service)
/me points out that, with a little configguring, you can easily set up an Xorg desktop to do these things. you can even run X11 applications remotely though performance across 'teh intarwebs' is a bit pathetic sometimes. Still POSSIBLE though, as I've done this before, mostly for the lulz. Through ssh tunnels, of course.
Windows Remote Desktop sucks for remote printing
Why would anyone use RDP for printing?
I mean, SMB sucks too - axiomatically - but it does remote printing, and has since, what, the late 1980s?1 And it's built into every version of Windows.
If you're going to do Windows-to-Windows remote printing, SMB printer sharing is by far the simplest solution.
You can also do it with non-Windows clients and servers using Samba. Of course, if you have a pure-UNIXy environment, lpd or CUPS would probably make more sense.
(Ah, lpd. I remember when that was the new kid. Hell, it wasn't even standardized until RFC 1179 in 1990!)
1That would be LAN Manager 1.x. IBM actually introduced SMB in '83, but I don't remember if it supported printer sharing for those first few years. And it turns out the oldest version of the SMB spec I have to hand is relatively recent; it's revision 6.0, from 1996.
AnyDesk has remote printing options, although I'm not sure how useful that would be.
I'm currently using a paid addon for Microsoft Outlook which auto-prints emails sent to a specific address for our community radio station. That email address isn't publicised anywhere. We have the HP E-print option too, but it doesn't handle image attachments nicely compared to the outlook one, and I often email Facebook screenshots to it. (Community announcements etc.)
Tested beginning of this year Google Cloud Print to be able to print from Android tablets running our hospital management system. Installed the server part, the printer drivers, everything by the book. Didn't work well. Issues with not showing the proper paper sizes, general unreliability of the service, and all that jazz. Reported it as an issue on their github page, but their developers were silent.Others reported the same issues, or even worse. It quickly became obvious we were milking a dead cow. At least it's official now.
/Pedro
AFAIK since version 8 Android can print without drivers to Mopria certified printers:
https://mopria.org/print-from-android
WiFi Direct is supported only from 9 onward.
You may need to enable it from Connections under Options, there should be a sub-menu advanced (or others) network settings, and inside it a print sub menu.
Mopria is a business alliance among major scanner/printer vendors to develop a standard to scan/print without installing specific drivers. It's something alike a non-Apple controlled version of AirPrint, I guess.
It is true, that unlike Cloud Print, you can print only on supported printers.
> If you are on the same LAN as the printer, it will show up, and you can print to it.
Unless you bought an ethernet switch that has a slightly wrong set of address ranges for multicast built in, so the mDNS broadcasts disappear. Took me ridiculously long to debug that. No firmware update for the switch - they did fix it, but the hardware had changed internally (same model number!) and the fixed firmware wouldn’t run on my device.
Credit where credit's due: Airprint nails LAN mobile printing. Quick, simple... and nowhere near common knowledge. I've blown several people's minds by showing them they had an airprint capable printer, and throwing a document out from their iPad.
Android printing is better nowerdays, but still requires plugin apps and a lot more faff.
Universal standard would be nice, but I won't hold my breath.
You can install an app like PrinterShare instead.
It's just GCP that's going, Android print services are still staying (hopefully).
It seems that they just made some improvements and it's working great. Time to end it.
I've been using it at home to put an old "classic" printer online, I can print to it from anywhere, and the assorted family machines of tablets and laptops just work. I use it to send myself reminders so when I get home there are receipts and notices waiting on the printer. Dammit.
"The service was particularly useful for offices, small businesses, and schools, as it provided an easy way to print without faffing around too much with configurations and setup."
Oh really ? I never found any valid use case for Cloud printing ... Whenever I need to print something, I am near the printer ...
In the US, at least, where many school districts L-O-V-E cheap-as-dirt Chromebooks, kids need to print their homework, eh?
I know at our school, they discourage printing, and want to see student work online.
Hence the *new* (and probably more believable) excuse, "The internet ate my homework".
"We've decided not enough of you use our service so we're canning it. Fuck you that do." At least with my copy of A-Train from the 90s (loved, loved, loved that game) I can still run it in DosBox as it doesn't require any bullshit cloud services or server.
Its why Google Stadia is such a shit idea. Once the service becomes old hat, you'll loose all those games. At least I can still hook my old Mega Drive up and play those old 90s classics and the Mega CD
The trouble with Google abandoning their [ once gloriously hailed ] projects every now and then * is that they may have prevented better things that would have lasted.
I'm not in the least suggesting Google is as vile as Microsoft sought to be, but it reeks of the old concept of 'Vaporware', which meant wherever there was competition or a new idea, especially by small entities, Microsoft would announce their own version to kill the buzz and then not bring it to permanent fruition.
In article but deserves to be repeated:
https://killedbygoogle.com/
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