tunnelkit VS mobile-ios

On some devices, when your iPhone or iPad goes to sleep, it causes ProtonVPN to stop working. This will typically cause the device to disconnect from your WiFi network. We have identified that the problem lies with iOS and is outside of our control. Thus, unfortunately, we cannot fix it at this time. This bug also affects other VPN clients and providers, as shown in this issue opened on GitHub on Dec. 1, 2019. You can fix this error by restoring your iPhone or iPad to its factory settings and reinstalling the ProtonVPN app. This will remove all data from your device. We only advise that users who have a high threat model consider taking this step. More details here.

Sounds familiar? https://github.com/passepartoutvpn/tunnelkit/issues/193

>API seems to specifically be for apps created by owners of WiFi hotspots to help users connect to those hotspots.

VPN apps also seem to use it: https://github.com/pia-foss/mobile-ios/blob/4618b55161ec5b8b...

I'm satisfied with the transparency Mullvad has shown by publishing its 9 audits.[1] I also appreciate how Mullvad releases up-to-date source code for all of its software clients, which I consider a bare minimum for any VPN to even be considered.[2]

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. Having open source clients was the PIA's last claim to credibility 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://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.privateint... / 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 browser extension - GitHub: https://github.com/pia-foss/extension-chrome/releases / Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/private-internet-a...

[7] HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21612488

No idea but the PIA VPN app for swift is open source. At the very least you can dig through the code here and figure something out

PIA VPN - VPN App by Private Internet Access.

Note that the underlying application for Librem Tunnel on iOS ( https://github.com/pia-foss/vpn-ios ) is still on the Apple store and can still be used with the Librem One services ... one simply needs to perform the setup yourself (much like one needs to do for Librem One Mail on Apple).