VPN services may soon be even faster, thanks to a promising protocol called WireGuard, which is now being integrated into the mainstream Linux kernel.

Linux is not widely used on the desktop. But it is Linux that powers Android and Chrome OS, and runs most servers on the web, including almost all of Google's servers and many excellent VPN services.

And WireGuard is smaller, simpler, and faster than OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPsec, the common VPN protocols used by commercial VPN services like ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Private Internet Access. However, only a few services offer WireGuard as an option, including Mullvad, IVPN, NordVPN, and StrongVPN.

That is because of the slow adoption of WireGuard among end users and service providers. Currently, WireGuard is most accessible to Linux desktop users because it can be added as an option to most major Linux distributions. And it is the only way to use it with Mullvad or NordVPN.

IVPN also offers WireGuard for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS clients, but warns that WireGuard is "experimental" and should only be used for "testing purposes."

Max Eddy of PC Magazine tried NordVPN's WireGuard implementation using a laptop running Ubuntu Linux.

"At least in my tests, using WireGuard had no significant negative impact on speed, unlike most VPN services," Eddy wrote. It's as if the VPN doesn't exist."

Late last month, Linus Torvalds, the creator and head of Linux, announced that WireGuard will be incorporated into Linux kernel 5.6. When that happens, major consumer VPN service providers should be rolling out WireGuard within weeks.

WireGuard is developed and maintained by a coder named Jason Donenfeld and consists of about 4000 lines of code, in contrast to OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPsec, which use well over 100,000 lines of code each. This makes WireGuard easier for experts to review the code for errors.

WireGuard also sticks to strong but simple methods for exchanging keys, sending data, and verifying data; OpenVPN offers many options along those lines, though some may be weaker than others. (Neither OpenVPN nor IKEv2/IPsec are known to have serious flaws.)

"Can I just once again express my love for this and hope it gets merged soon?" Torvalds said of WireGuard in 2018. "The code may not be perfect, but from a cursory glance, it's a work of art compared to the horrors of OpenVPN and IPSec."