Private Internet Access, on the other hand, does not release up-to-date source code for its software clients:
- PIA Android client: latest source release v3.14.0 (Mar 18, 2022) vs. latest Google Play release v3.18.0 (Feb 22, 2023)[3]
- PIA iOS client: latest source release v3.14.0 (Mar 18, 2022) vs. latest App Store release v3.20.0 (Mar 1, 2023)[4]
- PIA desktop client: latest source release v3.3.0 (Feb 23, 2022) / v3.4.1-beta1 (Aug 18, 2022) vs. latest downloadable release v3.3.1 (unknown)[5]
- PIA browser extension: latest source release v3.1.0 (May 31, 2021) vs. latest Chrome Web Store release v3.2.0 (March 8, 2022)[6]
It's not clear to me how much of a say you still have in PIA's operations, but if you have any influence, I kindly ask you to direct them to release the source code of PIA's clients on time, every time a new client version is released. Open sourcing PIA's clients was something you promised PIA would do to reassure customers after PIA was acquired by the former adware/malware distributor Kape Technologies.[7]
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[1] Mullvad's audits: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/tag/audits/
[2] Mullvad's GitHub repos: https://github.com/mullvad
[3] PIA Android client - GitHub: https://github.com/pia-foss/android/tags / Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.privateint...
[4] PIA iOS client - GitHub: https://github.com/pia-foss/vpn-ios/tags / App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vpn-by-private-internet-access...
[5] PIA desktop client - GitHub: https://github.com/pia-foss/desktop/releases / PIA website: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/download/linux-vpn
[6] PIA Chrome extension - GitHub: https://github.com/pia-foss/extension-chrome/releases / Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/private-internet-a...
[7] Our conversation in 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613267 (I appreciated your response at the time)