ProtonVPN, one of the best VPN providers, is open sourcing all of its client software, parent company Proton Technologies announced earlier this month

The code repositories for ProtonVPN's Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS client apps and Linux command-line tool are now available on GitHub for download and tinkering

However, this does not mean that ProtonVPN is now completely free: you still need to pay to use more than the most basic services (ProtonVPN's free unlimited data option is on our list of best free VPN services)

Instead, open source means that software experts and independent developers can look at the source code of the software and examine it for security and privacy flaws They can also suggest improvements, make improvements themselves, and release updated versions for free

This is important because the consumer VPN industry has a transparency problem Many of the best VPN services in the industry are reluctant to talk about who owns them, where they are located, and under what country's legal jurisdiction A VPN provider registered in a Caribbean tax haven may actually be operating in Eastern Europe or China

This is because the VPN provider can see all your unencrypted traffic and know exactly what you are looking at online, even if you shield that information from other organizations who owns or runs the VPN provider, Or who is looking at your data if you don't know which country's intelligence or law enforcement agencies have legal access to their servers

"By making the client code 100% open source, ProtonVPN allows security experts around the world to inspect its encryption implementation and how it handles user data, giving users confidence that the company adheres to a strict privacy policy," the company stated in a press release

Making the client software open source will not solve all of these problems, but it will at least make it harder to hide privacy violations on the client side, as well as the privacy audits that many VPN services, including ProtonVPN, have conducted The same is true for the privacy audits that many VPN services, including ProtonVPN, have conducted

Switzerland-based ProtonVPN is not the first commercial consumer VPN service provider to open source its client software US-based Private Internet Access (PIA) began doing so in mid-2018; PIA's various clients are Android and iOS apps, Windows and macOS/Linux GUI and command-line desktop clients, Firefox and Chrome/Chromium browser extensions, and various tools, all on GitHub

In fact, neither ProtonVPN nor Private Internet Access require running client software to access the VPN server Both services provide instructions on their websites on how to access the VPN server using a third-party open source client such as OpenVPN