Ending support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 in our app

In June we wrote about ending support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, at the end of 2021. Now the time has come to say bye bye to all the older versions of Windows.

From version 2022.1 (yet to be released), Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 are no longer supported in our app.

For your own security, we recommend you to run up to date and supported operating systems. However, if you really want to, you can still continue using our service on these old Windows versions with version 2021.6 of our app or the third party OpenVPN and WireGuard® apps.

As pointed out in the blog post from June last year: Privacy is dependent upon security, and when the operating system does not receive security patches they become vulnerable over time.

Microsoft discontinued extended support for Windows 7 in 2020 and mainstream support for Windows 8.1 in 2018. They still have Extended Security Updates for special volume licenses of Windows 7 and extended support for Windows 8.1 until January 2023. We expect extremely few of our users are on special volume licenses and we know very few of our users use Windows 8.1. Since January 2023 is only 11 months away, it’s about time to upgrade.

This deprecation is not only about the operating systems being unsupported. It’s also about focusing our efforts where it has the most impact and will be of value to the majority of our users. Supporting Windows 7 and 8.1 takes time from both developers and testers. If we spend this time on improving the app on Windows 10 and 11 instead, those improvements will benefit a greater number of of users.