Proton Technologies AG, the Swiss company that develops the ProtonMail and ProtonVPN services, has announced that the ProtonVPN apps are now open source and audited. As a paying user of ProtonMail, I have free access to the ProtonVPN service, so that announcement is good news for me. It shows that the company is making the right decisions and moving in the right direction.
According to the announcement. Proton Technologies AG is the:
…first VPN provider to open source apps on all platforms (Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS) and undergo an independent security audit. Transparency, ethics, and security are at the core of the Internet we want to build and the reason why we built ProtonVPN in the first place.
We launched ProtonVPN in 2017 to provide ProtonMail users with a trustworthy VPN service, which was increasingly necessary given the rise of Internet censorship. VPN in particular was an area in dire need of improvement. Studies have found that over one-third of Android VPNs actually contain malware, many VPNs suffered from major security lapses, and many free VPN services that claimed to protect privacy are secretly selling user data to third parties. In general, there is also a lack of transparency and accountability regarding who operates VPN services, their security qualifications, and whether they fully conform to privacy laws like the GDPR.
You may read the complete announcement here.
