I’m going to assume you know a bit about what Bubble is all about and what makes Bubble different from everything else out there. If not, you’ll probably enjoy learning about it.
In this blog series, I’m going to talk about the reasons that I started Bubble. There are many reasons, so I’ll go through them one at a time, in no particular order. Without further adieu –
I wanted to run a VPN and I didn’t trust any of the vendors
I decided it was time for me to use a VPN. As someone who dearly values their online privacy, I had been using the internet “in the clear” for far too long.
Trust Issues
After doing some research, I discovered that the VPN industry has some serious trust issues. While promising increased privacy, many of them actively violate your privacy. Others just get hacked, being the large attractive targets to criminals that they are.
So I decided I would run my own VPN. This is no small task, and requires a fair bit of technical expertise. But I was up to the task. In evaluating technology choices, my goals were to find a solution that was 100% open source, easy to use, and supported all of my devices (iOS, Android, Mac OS X, and Windows).
Open Source VPN
My technology evaluation led me to WireGuard, hands-down the best open source VPN software available today. It is 100% open source and supports all my devices, but it’s not exactly easy to use. WireGuard has a lot of knobs and dials, and I wanted to make sure they were all tuned to optimum settings. Fortunately, there are a number of open source tools available to setup and configure WireGuard for you, ensuring that the security settings are all properly tightened down. I decided to use AlgoVPN, which is one of the most popular and well-supported ways to set up and manage a WireGuard VPN.
After a bit of work, it was all set up, and I was enjoying my new VPN. But some things were tediously technical. For example, adding and removing devices was a pain: I had to login to the server, edit a file, and manually run a reconfiguration script. I decided to automate the tedious stuff and created a simple web application to manage my VPN and devices. This system was essentially the first nascent “bubble” in existence.
Sharing is Caring
Having done all of this myself, I wanted to make it easy for non-technical people to replicate what I had done. It had to be super easy to use: no technical jargon, no command-line steps, all web-based with a clean and responsive UI. This user-friendly, user-focused approach has been Bubble’s vision from the very beginning.
More than a VPN
We have built Bubble into so much more than just a VPN. While we have made great strides with our solution, we have just scratched the surface of what is possible with this powerful platform. But don’t take my word for it – request an invite and experience Bubble for yourself!
