Private Internet Access releases software as open source

Private Internet Access, a company best known for its VPN Service of the same name, announced today that it started the process of releasing all of its software as open source.

The company plans to release all of its client-side programs, extensions and libraries as open source over the course of the next six month period.

Today marks the start of an exciting shift over here at Private Internet Access. As long-time supporters of the Free and Open Source Software community, we have started the process of open sourcing our software, and over the next six months we will be releasing the source code for all our client-side applications, as well as libraries and extensions.

The Private Internet Access extension for the Chrome web browser is the first software product that is released as open source on the company's GitHub project page.

Interested users can check out the Chrome extensions on its GitHub page directly. Private Internet Access offers build instructions on the startpage of the repository, and anyone may browse the code or download it to the local system.

Private Internet Access maintains clients for the desktop operating systems Windows, GNU/Linux and Mac OS, as well as Android and iOS. The clients will all be released as open source in the coming months.

The release of the source code for its client products marks a shift towards openness. Privacy-conscious customers may trust products more if they are available as source code.

Private Internet Access hopes that the release will increase community involvement.

We believe that the shift to open source is the right move for a privacy-focused business, and recognise that code transparency is key. We appreciate that our code may not be perfect, and we hope that the wider FOSS community will get involved, provide feedback, feature requests, bug fixes and generally help provide a greater service to the wider privacy movement

Closing Words

The source code release should give Private Internet Access another boost when it comes to user trust and confidence in the services the company offers.

While some critics may argue that the company should release the source of its backend infrastructure as well for full transparency, it is certainly an important first step in the right direction.