NordVPN adds the WireGuard protocol as an option

I am a NordVPN user because using a VPN is necessary these days, but I am not sure that I want to use the WireGuard protocol. The reason is because of the privacy and anonymity issue. Even if NordVPN says that they have solved that problem with their WireGuard implementation into NordVPN. I am quite happy with the OpenVPN and IPsec protocols as is. Fortunately that is still a choice you can make.

Modern, extremely fast, and insanely lean in its architecture, WireGuard uses state-of-the-art cryptography and is backed by thorough academic research. With this combo, it outshines the current leading protocols – OpenVPN and IPSec. WireGuard consists of only 4000 lines of code, making it easy to deploy, audit, and find bugs. To compare: OpenVPN runs on 400,000 lines of code, meaning that WireGuard would make up only 1% of the massive OpenVPN’s architecture.

However, it’s not all as great as it sounds. There’s been a lot of buzz about WireGuard lately. The protocol is still under heavy development, and it’s far from perfection. Yes, WireGuard can promise better connection speeds already, but its capabilities to keep users anonymous fall behind.

It’s very easy to implement NordVPN’s NordLynx technology that uses WireGuard instead of OpenVPN or IPsec if you want though. It only works on Linux for now:

  1. Update your app to the latest version.
  2. Install WireGuard. Tutorials for different distributions are available in their Help Center.
  3. Open the terminal and enter ‘nordvpn set technology NordLynx’.
  4. Enter ‘nordvpn c’ to connect to VPN.

That’s quite easy to do on Linux. I don’t think I will try it on my Linux server though.

Via Meet NordLynx – the new solution for a fast and secure VPN connection | NordVPN

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