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[snippsat]

secondly I read that this will return the output of the command in bytes but what if I want to get the string of the output and not the bytes?

Use decode() to go from bytes to string in Python 3.
Also run() has made it simpler to catch output as it has a parameter capture_output=True.

import subprocess

out = subprocess.run(['ping', 'google.com'], capture_output=True)
print(out.stdout.decode()) #Same as decode('utf-8')

Output:
Pinging google.com [216.58.211.142] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.58.211.142: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=54
Reply from 216.58.211.142: bytes=32 time=70ms TTL=54
Reply from 216.58.211.142: bytes=32 time=77ms TTL=54
Reply from 216.58.211.142: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=54

Ping statistics for 216.58.211.142:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 47ms, Maximum = 77ms, Average = 64ms