Windscribe VPN Celebrates 10 Years of Independent, Open-Source Privacy Protection

Something to Celebrate: 10 Years of Windscribe

Canadian VPN provider marks a decade of bootstrapped growth, surpassing 104 million registered users without venture capital or paid advertising

We grew because people told other people about us. That's it. No Super Bowl ads, no paid influencer campaigns, no affiliate carpet-bombing. Just a product that does what it says.”

— Yegor Sak, Co-Founder

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, April 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Windscribe, the Canadian-based VPN and privacy platform, today celebrates its 10th anniversary. Founded in 2016 by Yegor Sak and Alex Paguis, the company has grown from a self-funded project between friends to one of the most widely used VPN services in the world, with over 104 million registered users and servers spanning over 69 countries and 130 cities.

Windscribe has operated for a full decade without venture capital, private equity backing, or outside investment of any kind. In an industry increasingly defined by consolidation, where major VPN brands are now owned by conglomerates and holding companies, Windscribe remains fully independent and founder-operated from Toronto, Canada.

"We started this company with no office, no business plan, and no outside money. Ten years later, all three of those things are still mostly true," said Yegor Sak, co-founder of Windscribe. "We grew because people told other people about us. That's it. No Super Bowl ads, no paid influencer campaigns, no affiliate carpet-bombing. Just a product that does what it says."

The company's approach has earned recognition from major publications. PCMag awarded Windscribe its Editors' Choice designation, writing: "From its deep set of features to its class-leading transparency, Windscribe offers an excellent, refreshingly clear-cut VPN experience."

The company's growth has been driven entirely by word of mouth and a generous free tier offering 10 GB of encrypted data per month, a model that has remained unchanged since launch. Windscribe doesn't pay for reviews, sponsor random YouTube channels, or run paid advertising for its consumer VPN product. The approach is unusual in an industry that spends heavily on affiliate marketing and paid placements, but it has proven durable. The company has been profitable and self-sustaining since its early years.

Windscribe has also made transparency a core part of its operations. All client applications for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android are fully open source and publicly available on GitHub. In April 2025, a two-year legal case brought against the company in the Court of Athens, Greece was dismissed after Windscribe demonstrated it possessed no user activity logs to produce, providing real-world legal validation of its privacy architecture.

"Privacy companies love to say 'trust us.' We got tired of saying it, so we open-sourced everything and let a court confirm the rest," said Sak. "When a government asks for your data and you can prove it doesn't exist, that's not a marketing claim, that's a design decision."
The company also publishes a public transparency report detailing every legal request it receives and maintains a comprehensive ethics page outlining its philosophy on user privacy, data collection, and the VPN industry at large.

To mark the 10-year anniversary, Windscribe is offering its Pro plan at $29 per year, reduced from the standard $69. The promotional price includes unlimited data, access to all server locations, and the company's DNS-level threat and ad filtering tool, R.O.B.E.R.T.. The $29 rate locks in at renewal with no introductory pricing bait-and-switch.

About Windscribe
Windscribe is a Canadian privacy technology company founded in 2016. It provides VPN and internet security tools across all major platforms, including desktop, mobile, browser extensions, routers, and streaming devices. All client software is open source. The company operates under Canadian jurisdiction, which does not require VPN providers to retain user data. For more information, visit windscribe.com.

Yegor Sak
Windscribe Ltd.
press@windscribe.com
Visit us on social media:
Instagram
YouTube
TikTok
X
Other

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.