Surfshark, one of the best VPN providers on the planet, became the latest in a long line of virtual private network providers to adopt the quick and concise WireGuard protocol

Available on all major platforms (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Linux), the WireGuard deployment promises faster connections, easier auditing, and improved user privacy and security [While innovative technologies sometimes take time to gain acceptance in the information security community, WireGuard has been gaining traction for some time now, thanks to early adoption by top-tier VPN providers such as NordVPN and Mullvad, WireGuard is becoming a respected and trusted protocol

OpenVPN, which has established itself as the industry standard protocol, is highly reliable and is used by virtually every VPN provider on the market

However, with approximately 400,000 lines of code, OpenVPN can be bloated and cumbersome to work with It is also more difficult to find and fix vulnerabilities [WireGuard, however, consists of only 4,000 lines of code Therefore, it is easy to manage Because it was rewritten from the ground up within the past three years, it is thoroughly modern and has no legacy loopholes or lax workarounds

As a result, WireGuard is easier to handle and allows for faster applications and connections for end users It is not without its drawbacks, however, and many VPN providers are now finally considering WireGuard fit for purpose

WireGuard's main vulnerability is the fact that although it practices complete forward secrecy and handshakes to minimize packet loss, it assigns the same static IP address to users each time they connect

Overall, this protocol outperforms rival OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPsec protocols in other respects, but this privacy issue is a key obstacle to WireGuard adoption

Surfshark, however, addresses this issue by implementing a dual network address translation (NAT) system This effectively eliminates this vulnerability because each connection assigns a different IP address to the user, thus, in Surfshark's words, "eliminating the incentive to store identifiable data on the server"

And when combined with Surfshark's all-RAM server network (meaning that no information is permanently stored on these servers), it is an effective way to provide privacy and untraceability to VPN users

In practice, Surfshark's adoption of WireGuard means that this inexpensive VPN provides users with exceptional speed, fast connection times, and additional security

Also, most of the top-rated services either adopt WireGuard (Mozilla VPN is the only protocol they use) or use their own, such as ExpressVPN's LightWay and Hotspot Shield's Catapult Hydra protocols, so WireGuard was adopted at just the right time