On August 20, 2014, OVPN received its first paying customer. That means we turn seven years old today! During the previous three years, I have not only compiled what we have accomplished during the past year, but I have also detailed what our plans for the coming year are. That tradition continues this year.
Exactly one year ago, we had 89 VPN servers in 17 countries. Today, OVPN has 94 VPN servers in 27 cities in 17 different countries. We have primarily increased the number of servers in Germany to handle the increased demand.
Last year, I identified several areas in which I wanted OVPN to focus on. While we accomplished a lot of them, we have not succeeded in all of them due to shifting our focus to increasing stability and internal development. The work we've done the past year means that in the future we can work more efficiently and launch improvements faster than before. With that being said, there are still a lot of things we managed to accomplish:
- Released six updates to the desktop client
- Released six updates to OVPN's Android app
- Deployed new servers in Zurich, Offenbach, Erfurt, Frankfurt & New York
- Launched Public IPv4 for WireGuard
- Almost finished with OVPN's iOS app
- Translated all apps & clients
What OVPN hopes to achieve by next year
Quite a lot, actually. In terms of functionality, we want to:
- Launch OVPN's iOS app using WireGuard
- Include WireGuard in the desktop client
- Add functionality to block ads and trackers via DNS instead of browser extensions
- A drastic improvement of Multihop where users can dynamically select which VPN servers the traffic should tunnel between
- Add support for Multihop in WireGuard
- Perform an external audit of our infrastructure
- Deploy VPN servers in Argentina, Italy, Poland and Ukraine
In addition to the mentioned goals, we aim to increase our number of users. OVPN has always been extremely product-oriented, but we have never focused on marketing. This has led to other VPN services that are better at marketing — but which unfortunately do not place the same focus on user security — growing much faster than OVPN. We see this as a major threat to users as they do not get the security they deserve and mistakenly think they get.
To increase awareness surrounding OVPN, security, and integrity, we have started sending out free stickers to people so that they can show that personal integrity is important. If you have not already requested stickers, you are very welcome to do so! Put a sticker on your phone, computer, or other object of importance to you.
Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank all our users. OVPN would not exist without you and we are extremely grateful, humble and proud that you support our mission and trust us with your integrity.