The VPN industry keeps growing and this year, it is expected to reach new heights with more and more users embracing the software that keeps them safer online. But the picture isn’t all rosy as there will also be some challenges ahead. That, however, is kinda given with all markets and VPN is not an exception.
In this article, we explore what we think are 5 trends that we expect to shape the VPN market in 2020. Without further ado, here’s what we’ve got…
1. VPNs getting even more popular
Although 2019 was one of the record-breaking years for the entire VPN industry, in the years that follow we’ll see even wider adoption of VPN services among individual users and businesses, alike.
The media exposing major security and privacy breaches “helped” the industry in the past, and we don’t see that trend going away anytime soon. Today’s users are more educated and they want to “take the power back.” That’s not always possible, but with a VPN running on their devices, they at least have a “fighting chance.”
Therefore, we expect that even the non-tech community start adopting VPNs in 2020, with research firms predicting the entire market to be worth $27.1 billion this year, up from $20.6 billion in 2018 and $20.6 billion in 2019. After all, this is the year when America chooses its next president.
2. New protocol coming
OpenVPN will likely remain the industry-standard protocol in 2020, except for Hotspot Shield which has its own proprietary technology. But it will get a serious competition in the form of the new Wireguard VPN protocol, which will likely hit the market later this year.
Those who haven’t heard of it should know that Wireguard is much simpler than OpenVPN, having around 4,000 lines of code as opposed to 500,000 lines of OpenVPN. This makes it more lightweight and more secure, as it is much easier to audit.
In addition, the new protocol also promises faster connection speeds and even better security — though, we haven’t heard of anyone breaking OpenVPN on a major scale.
For what it matters, NordVPN was one of the first major VPN providers to announce plans to support Wireguard, with other players likely to follow soon.
3. Further market consolidation
In the past year, we have seen Kape Technologies acquiring Private Internet Access, adding them to its stable that already includes CyberGhost VPN and ZenMate VPN along with a number of other online security tools. Additionally, IPVanish, StrongVPN and Overplay were snapped up by J2 Global, which owns many of the internet’s biggest publications.
We don’t see this trend stopping any time soon, and chances are we’ll see another major acquisition taking place this year. Or perhaps a few. Not that we have any inside information, mind you.
4. New players entering the market
Aside from bigger VPN providers scooping up smaller rivals, we may also see new companies launching their VPN products — further helping drive the market forward.
For one thing, ProtonVPN may be an established player today, but it started as an encrypted email service ProtonMail. Also in recent years, we’ve seen new solutions hitting the market from companies such as Mozilla (maker of the Firefox web browser), Ookla (developer of the popular speed test) and even PornHub.
These new arrivals may not offer the best services on the market, but their audience is huge and the market has a ton of room for growth.
5. More security breaches
With the increasing number of VPN services the risk of security breaches increases. Simply put, more VPN services give hackers more venues to “play with.”
Last year, NordVPN had a minor breach on one of its servers in Finland and has promptly reacted to further bolster its security — since it’s already one of the most secure options out there.
There was also that Facebook’s fake VPN, as well as a few other free VPN “solutions” that did little to keep users secure while harvesting their personal information in the background.
This year, we expect new breaches, including hacks and security leaks. Your best to stay safe is to use one of the best VPNs that have been field-tested for years.
Final word
Every New Year brings along new challenges for all industries and the VPN sector is not an exception. Like that’s usually the case, there are both good and bad things ahead of us; and in order to stay safe on the internet — you’re best off signing-up for one of the services that have been on the market for a long time. Look no further, hop over to our page with Best of the Best VPNs and take it from there.
All of those services have been proven to work for quite some time now, and you won’t go wrong by choosing any one of them. Nevertheless, we strongly suggest grabbing the service at the top and forgetting about it. Let it do its magic in the background as you safely browse the web, download files via BitTorrent, stream movies and so on — all while knowing that no one can look behind your shoulder. And that’s the point of a VPN – to get your privacy back!