--- title: ProGuard® 20th Anniversary | Guardsquare description: Learn about the evolution of ProGuard®, including every milestone that brought Guardsquare to where we are today. image: https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/ProGuard-20th-anniversary-history-landing-page-feature.jpg --- ![TIMELINE](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/timeline_5_FULL-LENGTH.svg) [![ProGuard® - Guardsquare](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/PG_20YEARS_LOGO3D_00199.png) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/proguard) Learn how the Java bytecode shrinker [ ProGuard® began enhancing and optimizing apps all over the world](https://www.guardsquare.com/proguard) by scrolling our timeline or watching our video below. ## [The ProGuard® Story:](https://www.guardsquare.com/proguard) 20 years of innovation in Java optimization This month we are kicking off our ProGuard® 20th Anniversary celebrations with a giveaway! Here we'll take you through ProGuard®'s journey over the past two decades and how it's grown from a small hobby project to a leading open-source Java optimization tool. 2002 ## May 1, 2002 First code commit in ProGuard® Repository ![Computer screen](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/desktop_erix.gif) Right from the start [ProGuard®](https://www.guardsquare.com/proguard) was readily available for Android covered desktop, server and early mobile devices using J2ME. ![Old Proguard® Logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/PG_OLDLOGO_00000.png) ![Old Java logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/JAVA_LOGO_00000.png) By the end of 2004, Java was running on 1.5 billion devices. ## June 2002 Version 1.0 released to public ![Old Proguard® logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/PG_OLDLOGO_00000.png) 1.0 Bytecode optimization was added in 2004 to shrink applications even more. ## 2010 December 2010 ProGuard® integrated in Android SDK ![Android in computerscreen](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/DESKTOP_ANDROID.png) The release of Android 2.3 (gingerbread) marked the first release that made [ProGuard®](https://www.guardsquare.com/proguard) readily available for Android developers worldwide. ![Android Gingerbread](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/GINGERBREAD_ANDROID.svg) ![Android ProGuard® Java](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/ANDROID_ORBIT.png) ## 2012 2012 DexGuard created [![DexGuard, by Guardsquare](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/DexGuard-logo_white-RGB.svg) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/dexguard) Layered on top of ProGuard®, [DexGuard](https://www.guardsquare.com/dexguard) becomes the preferred choice by Android developers to protect their app from static and dynamic analysis. ![](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/phone-app-protection.png) ![](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/DEXGUARD_OLDLOGO_00000.png) The first DexGuard logo ## 2014 2014 Guardsquare founded by Eric Lafortune & Heidi Rakels [![Guardsquare, mobile application protection](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/1-Guardsquare-logo-white.svg) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/) Our portfolio of solutions now protects over 6 billion app users. 1. Optimize [![Threatcast_logo logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/proguard-icon-white.svg) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/proguard) 2. Protect [![DexGuard logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/DexGuard-icon-white.svg) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/dexguard) [![IxGuard logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/iXGuard-icon-white.svg) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/ixguard) 3. Test [![Appsweep logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/AppSweep-icon-white.svg) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/appsweep-mobile-application-security-testing) 4. Monitor [![Threatcast_logo logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/ThreatCast-icon-white.svg) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/threatcast-mobile-threat-defense) ## 2020 ProGuard® project moves from SourceForge to GitHub 2020 Between 2002 and 2020 ProGuard® would see over 1 million downloads from SourceForge. [![Screenshot of the ProGuard® repository on GitHub](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/Github_ProGuard.png) ](https://github.com/Guardsquare/proguard) 2020 ## June 2020 ProGuardCORE released [![The ProGuardCore by Guardsquare, logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/ProGuard_core_logo.svg) ](https://github.com/Guardsquare/proguard-core) With [ProGuardCORE](https://github.com/Guardsquare/proguard-core), developers can now easily use the same tools used by ProGuard® & DexGuard for code analysis and bytecode manipulation in their own projects. ![Screenshot of ProGuardCORE repository on GitHub](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/Github_ProGuardCORE.png) ## September 2020 Guardsquare community launched To this day, we've seen over 100 conversations about ProGuard® and other Guardsquare open source tools. 2021 ## 2021 AppSweep mobile app security testing tool launched [![Appsweep by Guardsquare, logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/AppSweep-logo-white.svg)](https://www.guardsquare.com/appsweep-mobile-application-security-testing) ProGuardCORE is used to build the Java code analysis for the new [AppSweep](https://www.guardsquare.com/appsweep-mobile-application-security-testing) mobile app security testing tool. [![Screenshot of Appsweep](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/AppSweep.png) ](https://www.guardsquare.com/appsweep-mobile-application-security-testing) ## February 2021 ProGuard® Playground -keep rule library visualizer launched [![ProGuard® Playground logo](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/ProGuard_Playground_logo.svg) ](https://playground.proguard.com/) Playgrounds created: 3,134 Configs evaluated: 21,008 [![Screenshot of ProGuard® playground in action](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/ProGuard_Playground.png) ](https://playground.proguard.com/) ![icon with blocks](https://www.guardsquare.com/hubfs/Website/ProGuard%2020%20page%20assets/part_blocks.svg) Present day Learn more about how [ProGuard® is evolving today > ](https://www.guardsquare.com/proguard) ![](https://px.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=479689&fmt=gif)