If you value privacy, surely you’ve heard of WireGuard by XDA Recognized Developer zx2c4. To sum it up in a few words, Project WireGuard is a VPN protocol that runs in the Linux kernel, aiming to be faster and simpler than many other alternatives. Earlier this year, the VPN protocol even made its way to the official Linux kernel. WireGuard now has a slew of announcements, with Android TV support through its app, pre-built kernel modules for popular phones, a Kotlin UI rewrite, and much more.
First, in anticipation of upcoming Google TV announcements, WireGuard ported its Android app to work natively on TVs with an easy-to-use interface. This will allow users to run apps like Netflix and others through VPN from the TV.
You can get the app from the Google Play Store or from F-Droid.
The WireGuard app on Android smartphones has a regular VpnService based backend for non-rooted users and a kernel based backend for rooted users. Now, pre-built kernel modules are available for popular devices like the Google Pixel series, thanks to the efforts of recognized developer XDA. nathanchance. This way, users who are in stock but are rooted can also use these kernel modules, instead of needing to be on a custom ROM with WireGuard support. Kernel modules are available from the application. Interested developers can add more supported ROMs through GitHub.
Another of our favorite apps, Tasker, also got WireGuard support earlier this year.
XDA-recognized developer zx2c4 also informs us that WireGuard’s code base has also seen improvements, with extensive renovations undertaken. The project is now split into two modules: a user interface module for the user interface and a tunnel module, which is a stand-alone API that allows any application to integrate into WireGuard. The tunnel module can be imported from JCenter and comes with full documentation. This split has some advantages. On the one hand, developers can now add WireGuard directly into their applications with a single line as an implementation ‘com.wireguard.android:tunnel:$wireguardTunnelVersion“. The tunnel module is written in Java and easily integrates into Java and Kotlin applications. The UI module has also been completely rewritten in Kotlin while using tools like Jetpack and Kotlin Coroutines. The actions are fully asynchronous on the application.
WireGuard Kernel / ROM Integration – XDA Thread
One of the reasons for these code base improvements is to attract new developers. The WireGuard project is actively looking for a new manager for its Android application. If you would like to help with this open source project, contact the WireGuard development team, whose contact details can be found at the bottom of their web page.
