Along with the rise of VPN popularity came a new concept that promises speed and security, WireGuard. It might be tempting to jump onboard this advanced technology, especially if it’s got to do with your online privacy and security at a time when online privacy breaches are capable of ruining lives.

But before you make the switch from team mainstream VPN to team open-source WireGuard, you need to understand what is WireGuard VPN and how it could affect your privacy and security.

What Is a VPN and How Does it Work?

VPN stands for virtual private network, creating a secure network that you can browse the internet through. Most VPNs are commonly known for their ability to change your online location, allowing you to bypass geographical content restrictions and local censorship. But their main purpose is to ensure privacy and security.

When you connect to the internet without a VPN, you rely on your internet service provider, or ISP, to route you to the website you asked to access. This could be anything from Google servers to social media and online games servers. But because your ISP is the medium between you and the internet, they can control which websites you can access and even monitor everything you’re doing online—yes, even if you’re using incognito mode.

A VPN works by securely tunneling your data, routing your internet traffic towards the website you want to visit, all while maintaining your privacy from both your ISP and any online spies. With a VPN, your ISP can see that you’re connected to the internet, but they can’t know what you’re doing.

As for location spoofing, servers use your IP address, a unique numerical label assigned to every device connected to the internet, to pinpoint your general location. When a VPN tunnels your data, it switches it to one of its servers that could be local or on the other side of the world, effectively changing your IP address and location.

What Is WireGuard VPN and What Makes it Different?

WireGuard is a free and open-source VPN protocol that’s faster and more simplistic than its commercially available counterparts. And while speed in traditional VPNs often comes at the price of security, WireGuard creator managed to achieve high internet speeds while remaining security-oriented.

Security researcher, Jason Donenfeld started working on WireGuard back in 2016 in an attempt to create an efficient and stealthy VPN for performing penetration testing. WireGuard started as a Linux kernel, but it's currently available on macOS, Windows, Android, iOS, and BSD.

WireGuard stands out in comparison to other VPN protocols and apps when it comes to its weight and cryptography. For one, WireGuard has around 4,000 lines of code compared to other apps with over 60,000 lines.

Having less code means the software is much simpler to use and allows for efficient and accurate debugging and implementing updates and changes. Something that would require more time and effort for larger apps.

But for most users who don't contribute to WireGuard, encryption and security are what matter the most. WireGuard employs default cryptographic primitives that ensure utmost security instead of letting inexperienced users misconfigure their own.

It uses a combination of Poly1305 for message authentication and ChaCha20 for symmetric encryption—a type of encryption where one key is used to encrypt and decrypt data sets, along with HKDF as a key derivation function and Blake2s that's often used for mining.

How to Use WireGuard VPN

The important thing to know before switching protocols is that there isn't a WireGuard VPN provider. WireGuard isn’t a company that owns servers around the world that mask your IP address and protect your privacy. It's simply a VPN protocol.

When it comes to how to setup WireGuard VPN, there are two approaches. Your first option would be using commercial VPN services that offer WireGuard configuration support. Such VPNs include NordVPN, SurfShark, Mullvad, and CyberGhost.

But more commercial VPNs are adapting the WireGuard VPN protocol as it's gaining popularity. Even if your current VPN doesn’t support WireGuard, chances are it’s only a matter of time before it does. The second option is using WireGuard's free application and software and connecting them to your VPN provider or your self-hosted VPN.

The Drawbacks of Using WireGuard

When it comes to WireGuard, its disadvantages are more subjective and rely on a case-to-case basis rather than being outright bad. Still, switching to WireGuard from a fully-managed commercial VPN can have drastic drawbacks if you’re not prepared.

It’s Secure not Anonymous

WireGuard focuses on security and speed, not privacy and anonymity. That makes it suitable for transferring sensitive data online or performing security checkups instead of anonymous browsing.

By default, WireGuard doesn’t support IP address flexibility and even stores them indefinitely on the hosting server to maintain a connection. Even though you can go around this shortcoming by using privacy-oriented VPN providers that don't keep logs, it’s still something to consider before signing up.

Protocol Support

WireGuard only uses UDP, or user datagram protocol. UDP is an online communication protocol that allows WireGuard to run at the high speeds it's known for compared to other VPNs. But that also makes it more likely for network admins to block, stopping it from working properly or accessing specific sites.

It’s a Work in Progress

At the time of writing, WireGuard has been in development for almost five years and is still not ready for a full release. It’s an unstable work in progress with a lot of bugs and issues that can make it less than ideal to use full-time.

If you’re a tech-savvy and experienced user, you might be able to repurpose WireGuard and use it in very specific circumstances without sacrificing security. But if you’re an average internet user simply looking for a private and safe internet, you should stick to commercial VPNs.

The Future of WireGuard

Despite the few drawbacks of using WireGuard, its future as a leader in the VPN industry seems promising. Most major VPN protocols were designed decades ago. With time, they became bloated and inefficient at meeting modern security and privacy standards along with user demand.

WireGuard, on the other hand, relies fully on modern tech and cryptography, making it more likely to find its way into most VPNs and other security and privacy-oriented software in the upcoming years.