As of January 1, 2021, Google Cloud Print is no longer available. Cloud Print was a service that allowed users to connect a printer with native support for cloud print services to their Google account and start printing anything immediately.
The service was first introduced in April 2010 and reached its beta stage in January 2011. However, in November 2019, the tech giant announced the end of support for Google Cloud Print, which was eventually shut down on December 31, 2020.
The Internet Protocol
Google Cloud allowed sending print jobs via the web interface without requiring the installation of drivers for a specific printer. The service could also be used to print documents remotely using mobile devices through Gmail and Google Docs apps. It was intended to simplify the process of printing documents from a wide variety of devices connected to the Web, but not all printers with network interfaces were compatible with Google Cloud Print.
When explaining the reason for shutting down the service, Google mentioned some improvements in native Chrome OS printings and a marketplace of other print solutions providers. Google explained that earlier, Cloud Print was necessary to support the printing function to devices running Chrome OS. Later, Google improved its printing functions and decided to drop support for the virtual printer.
