NordVPN Embraces Open Source By Releasing Its Linux GUI On GitHub

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: NordVPN has open sourced its Linux GUI on GitHub, giving the community full access to the code behind its graphical client. The move follows a 70 percent surge in daily active Linux users since the GUI's debut earlier this year, showing clear demand for a user friendly VPN experience on the platform. Alongside the previously open sourced command line tool, the GUI codebase is now available for anyone to audit, modify, and contribute to. While NordVPN's core backend infrastructure remains proprietary, the company says the open source release reflects its commitment to transparency and collaboration with the Linux community. The GUI can also now be installed with a single command using Snap, simplifying setup and ensuring automatic updates across distributions.

Gross.

[Gravis Zero]

So I took a look at it and it's all Go and Python. I would recommend people use PIA [privateint...access.com] which has a C++/Qt client [github.com] and doesn't need a 2GB snap package to run because they have actually OS packages.

Re:

[brunes69]

Er... it is a GUI. And totally optional. NordVPN supports OpenVPN protocol (as well as IPSec, SOCKS5, and a bunch of others).

The GUI client is to make things easy and to support NordLynx. If you don't want it then don't use it. Complaining about a non-issue is ridiculous.

Re: Gross.

[Bodrius]

I'll take the "embrace open source" more seriously when they release Surfshark (which they also own) so someone can fix their memory leaks and random "lets show an eternal floating toolbar window... sometimes" bugs.

Re:

[Espectr0]

well, the source is out there, so if the community really cares, they can rewrite it to be a native client with distro based dependencies so a snap is not needed

sometimes a snap makes sense because then it can be reused on more distros

Normal repository?

[Uldis Segliņš]

Github shmithub. Everything now there where one big company can just shut it off one day. And then snaps, an abomination of software packaging. How about good old traditional Linux repositories?

Re:

[dmorelli]

It was never a good idea to keep one's work in Github once Microsoft owned/controlled it. Move your source code elsewhere. I've been steadily moving stuff to Codeberg [codeberg.org] which is run by a German non-profit, based on Forgejo and has a useful migration tool for snarfing repos out of Github.

Meh

[kwelch007]

Not interested in the GUI source. Show me the network and encryptions stacks. That might be worth looking at from a transparency perspective.

Why shouldn't they

[allo]

They make money with the service and other services already have their own GUIs. They have nothing to lose and maybe someone fixes a bug for free. It also looks like transparency, even when the real privacy question is what happens on their servers.

NetworkManager plugin?

[gurubert]

Why is that not a NetworkManager VPN plugin?