Independent audit
An examination of a provider’s systems or policy by an external firm, published with the firm’s name, the date, and the scope.
Glossary
Open-source client
A VPN application whose source code is published, so anyone can inspect what it does.
Why it matters
It is the difference between trusting a claim about leak handling and being able to check it. A researcher can read the code; you benefit from the fact that they can.
What most explanations leave out
Open source does not mean audited, and published source does not guarantee the binary you install was built from it. Reproducible builds close that gap and few providers offer them. It is a necessary condition for verification, not verification itself.
Related terms
No-logs policy
A provider’s commitment not to record which sites you visit, when you connected, or what address you connected from.
Terms are defined here because they appear in our scoring rubric or in provider reviews, not to fill a glossary.