We’ve known for some time that Google is going to shut its social network called Google +. The decision was taken after a series of data leaks that exposed users details to developers.
The closure of Google+ will have some considerable implications that might affect people, even if they don’t realise they made use of the services.
Least upsetting will be the loss of any +1s you gave. These were Google’s attempt at likes and most sites have probably long since removed the button for this.
Any comments you made using Google+ on websites will also be deleted. Website owners will be offered the chance to migrate them to a different comment system but it’s likely many will simply not bother.
Apps, sites and services that use Google+ as their sign in system will stop working as early as next week. If you sign in to a service with a button that says "Google+ sign in" then you may notice it no longer works.
Google has, rather confusingly, another nearly identical sign in system that just uses a Google account. This won’t be affected and will continue to work as normal.
Google+, while never as popular as Facebook or Twitter , did have its own charms. You could place contacts in to circles which enables you to share things with targeted groups. While Facebook does allow this, it’s nowhere near as easy.
In these days where Facebook does what it wants and almost universally gets away with it, Google+ might have been a good alternative. But sadly the network never really took off and with Google’s impatience over services its days were always numbered.
If you’re a Google+ user your data will be totally deleted on April 2. It’s worth checking to see if there is anything stored there you might want.
The easiest way to do this is to use Google’s excellent data download service. Head to takeout.google.com and you’ll be asked to sign in.
Once you’re in you’ll be presented with a list of the data that you’ve given Google over the years. There are four items for Google+ if you’ve ever used it.
You can select them and build an archive. When it’s ready Google will email you a download link.
Of course downloading this information is great but it’s not a complete picture of what you might have used Google+ for. For anyone who used it a lot there will be things lost that aren’t replaceable.
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