NordVPN is a popular Virtual Private Network (VPN) service provider that offers online security, privacy, and unrestricted access to the internet. Founded in 2012 and based in Panama, NordVPN offers a wide range of features, including:
- Military-grade encryption (AES 256-bit) to protect your internet traffic
- A large network of over 5000 servers in over 60 countries
- The CyberSec feature blocks malicious websites, malware, and ads
Aside from this, some of its other characteristics, such as providing dedicated IP addresses, double VPN, and installing its VPN directly onto the Wi-Fi router, make it a popular and preferred choice among users looking for a secure online experience.
That’s why the announcement a few days ago to open and make public the source code of the NordVPN client application piqued the open-source community’s interest. So, let’s find out what it’s all about.
NordVPN Client, Libtelio, and Libdrop Are Now Open-Source Products
First, let’s clarify which parts of NordVPN are now open source. We are talking about:
- NordVPN Linux client: The entire NordVPN client application for Linux is now open source.
- Libtelio: Client-side library for creating encrypted networks (called Meshnet) on the user’s nodes.
- Libdrop: Library for sending/receiving files over Meshnet. It is a peer-to-peer network between computers or mobile devices (nodes) linked together, secured by an encrypted VPN tunnel.
We’re making these products open source as a sign of our commitment to transparency and accountability. We want the input and scrutiny of the coding community and to show you that we have confidence in our own software.
This step also underlines our strong belief in collaborative progress. The app development and cybersecurity community is full of talented coders and pentesters who can bring their own unique perspectives to our applications.
Relying on the advantages that open source brings, such as increased collaboration, greater flexibility, faster innovation, increased security, and better transparency, NordVPN welcomes developers with the required expertise and skills to contribute to and make changes to the existing codebase, thus contributing to the future improvement of this VPN solution.
So, last week can be called a good one for Open Source movement, as just a few days ago, DreamWorks released its MoonRay animation software as open-source, and now NordVPN is following suit.
However, we must stress that this is only about opening NordVPN’s Linux client app code to avoid confusion. Of course, the service itself remains paid. However, we can’t help but mention that the company recently just made its Meshnet feature entirely free for everyone.
Visit the official announcement to learn more about this in detail. The publically available source code can be found on the company’s GitHub page.
