Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the perfect service for you if yes.
While anybody can declare to be distinct these days, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN site begins with an appeal for your trust, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can claim to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.
They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium previously ran it, however AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).
During the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger organization either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is explained and details the privacy projects that AirVPN has established or supported. These include an online encryption tool, a net neutrality monitor, and other projects such as Tor, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and WikiLeaks.
AirVPN takes the unconventional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up versus its competitors with such strong personal privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than a lot of, with only 246 servers spread across 23 nations.
The majority of servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the absence of variety of servers lowers the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their privacy.
That stated, Air is popular for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with lots of countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply a precise evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, with no speed constraints or time limits.
To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most reputable and protected method to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.
Many ports and protocols are available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. In addition, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
When it comes down to it, no preference is given to any application, service, or protocol. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, however it won’t put the more recent protocol fully in place up until a few of its technical and privacy issues are dealt with.
AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.
Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can quickly change servers as often as you like.
You can keep track of the present load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).
There is a comprehensive specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the available ports, protocols, DNS server details (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.
All of it is nice, but because there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being provided will work. But taking a look at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A great aspect of this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to signing up. You do not need to take their word for it or the word of an audit.
Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?
When it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is very clear. Online personal privacy and security are the outright concern, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal details logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.
AirVPN does not track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It only gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request for this info to be erased at any time. This makes it one of the most privacy-friendly VPN services.
As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can tell what sort of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without worrying about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping strategies will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They likewise say they adhere to EU privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or higher levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can utilize it to find out who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level protection offered.
You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or country obstructs OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what present users are saying about the service before registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This suggests that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have been inspected by a third party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best offered. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal info, not even your real e-mail address. That’s great because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you will not be able to change your account’s password if you don’t use one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence data). But even if the government requested user information, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as great as those companies who utilize it as standard.
Establishing the app is simple, and it has all the details you require to connect to a VPN.
Regrettably, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a lot of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit flavors, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing doesn’t work on your setup.
After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re completed, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
2 essential AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.
Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its secure tunnel. The majority of basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, however you can set up the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.
Eddie’s layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview just displays the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page shows all readily available servers in the network, together with detailed details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your location, and existing users and server load. Excellent stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is suggested for you.
The Countries page displays the variety of servers readily available in each country at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also revealed. Numerous servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller ones have a 100 Mb/s connection.
A green checkmark, a red “X,” and a blank box can be found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a nation, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you might choose as numerous nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be eliminated, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By picking a nation, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. Connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “sign out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket).
The Speed tab shows a basic throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be altered, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.
While most apps display your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, existing user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information uploaded and downloaded, and far more.
Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the info they might ever desire about the different locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.
This allows you to tweak the setup, such as whether it ought to always connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The truly experienced user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.
If the vast feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be difficult to find out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.
However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program usually functions fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings until you look for them. If you sometimes yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide it.
Suppose you don’t want to use Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.
How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the exact same extensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status info.
Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and pick a specific city on the very same page. Some useful text additions make the details more understandable, however it’s still rather challenging to comprehend in some spots.
Android does not have as many settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still a lot more than the majority of people will ever require. The software likewise attempts a little bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each option does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN generally connects rapidly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In regards to privacy, leak tests showed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which reveals that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.
Now let’s get to those speeds.
It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors due to the fact that AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.
Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. Indeed, one said there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly remarkable overall.
While it wasn’t quite on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and circumstances like HD video gaming, video, and streaming conferencing certainly will not slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a wider number of server locations. This might restrict the ease of access of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for most people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other areas.
Streaming
Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Certainly, some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the significant streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.
Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the ideal server requires lengthy experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other service providers, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can check to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.
Nevertheless, streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Permit P2P?
Yes, it does; every internet protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Certainly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to set up, no hoops to leap through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.
Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. A number of applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has good speeds on local servers, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports at the same time (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
AirVPN uses a broader range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five devices all at once, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.
This makes it an excellent choice for people who reside in a family home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN providers offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Pricing varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. A lot of plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions offer the very best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The present plans offered are:
Three days- EUR2
One month – EUR7
Three months – EUR15 – works out to EUR 5/month
Six months – EUR29 – works out to EUR 4.83/month
One year – EUR49 – works out to EUR 4.08/month
Two years – EUR79 – works out to EUR 3.29/month
Three years – EUR99 – works out to EUR 2.75/month
AirVPN accepts major credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and a whole load of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of international options are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and utilizing the discount coupon code they send you.
There’s likewise a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they have not broken the terms of service or used more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than many other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it uses email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Significantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t contracted out however can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a reaction. That said, the email support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and practical, however the detailed responses can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of information, consisting of a large FAQs section that is broken up by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, however newbies will have the same difficulties understanding a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with very little loss.
Unrestricted P2P allowed with Port Forwarding.
Strong security on apps and servers alike, with advanced protocols and encryption.
Network Lock/Kill Switch.
Split tunneling.
Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and routers.
Supports Tor over VPN.
Easy app installation and use.
Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.
Solid Customer Service.
Active Community Forums and Comprehensive Guides.
Excellent costs, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from ads, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t really user-friendly or pretty like other services.
Client app may overwhelm more recent users.
It is very hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Maybe there are too many advanced choices.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good pricing. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN service provider. Even brand-new users might do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than many of its competing VPN competitors.
When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more concentrated on securing your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Although it may not guarantee the very same level of privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great option for consumers who value their personal privacy.
While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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