Google has revealed its Cloud Print service, which has in fact never made it out of beta, will be phased out by the end of next year.
The service, which was designed to make it easier to print documents via the Chrome browser, will cease to operate on December 31 2020.
The idea behind Cloud Print was to take the stress out of printing documents regardless of whether you were using a wired or wireless printer. All you needed to do was upload the document to a Cloud Print folder within the Chrome browser and you could print, even if you were using an old printer.
A number of printer manufacturers had adopted the standard and it had become especially useful to Chrome OS users, but now it’s on the way out.
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In a newly-published support document, the company advised Cloud Print users to begin seeking an alternate solution, regardless of the operating system in use.
The firm wrote: “Cloud Print, Google’s cloud-based printing solution that has been in beta since 2010, will no longer be supported as of December 31, 2020. Beginning January 1, 2021, devices across all operating systems will no longer be able to print using Google Cloud Print. We recommend that over the next year, you identify an alternative solution and execute a migration strategy.”
Thankfully, Google has said it will add new features to the Chrome OS – on which Chromebooks laptops and some tablets operate – to replace the need for Cloud Print before it becomes obsolete.
Those new features will include:
- Support for external CUPS print servers, including authentication
- Policy to configure connections to external CUPS print servers
- APIs for third-parties to access print job metadata, submit print jobs and printer management capabilities
Will you miss Google Cloud Print if a suitable alternative doesn’t arrive next year? Drop us a line with your thoughts @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.