Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the perfect option for you if yes.
While anybody can claim to be unique nowadays, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to safeguarding user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website begins with an appeal for your trust, mentioning, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anybody can claim to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it really is.
They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications service provider Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).
Throughout the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger organization either.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and information the privacy projects that AirVPN has developed or supported. These consist of 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 supplying a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than a lot of, with only 246 servers spread across 23 countries.
A lot 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 international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their personal privacy.
That stated, Air is well known for its exceptional performance across its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to provide a precise evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, without any speed restrictions or time limits.
To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most dependable and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.
Many ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So ignore PPTP and other hazardous protocols.
No choice is given to any service, protocol, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it automatically enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trusted. The lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol totally in place until a few of its technical and personal privacy problems are attended to.
AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.
Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can easily switch servers as frequently as you like.
You can monitor the current load on each server, any existing issues, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is a comprehensive specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server info (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s gain access to points.
All of it is nice, however since there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being provided will work. But looking at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A great thing about this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service before registering. You don’t 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 company is extremely clear. Online personal privacy and security are the outright top priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal information logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.
AirVPN doesn’t track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It only collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request for this information to be deleted at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.
As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can tell what kind 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 information.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping tactics will fail against AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They likewise say they abide by EU privacy guidelines and that 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 use it to discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level security offered.
You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or nation obstructs OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what current users are saying about the service before registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This suggests that anyone can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a third party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the best offered. It resembles that of some other service providers, but still worth pointing out. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can minimize this value. The primary information channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine email address. That’s fantastic given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be aware that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you do not use one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence information). Even if the government asked for user info, AirVPN would have nothing to give them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, offered on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, in spite of Eddie’s significant capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those providers who use it as requirement.
Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the details you require to connect to a VPN.
Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use user interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download options. There are builds for numerous operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t function on your setup.
After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You simply click Disconnect when you’re finished. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do a lot more because AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
2 key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system 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” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. Many basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, however you can establish the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.
Eddie’s design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six 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 displays all offered servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive information about every one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and current users and server load. Outstanding stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page displays the number of servers readily available in each nation at a look, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise revealed. Lots of 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 discovered 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 basically a favorites list; you may choose as many nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be removed, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By picking a nation, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and select the server you want in a specific nation. 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). There are likewise a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s also a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab shows a basic throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be changed, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.
While the majority of apps show your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained information, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data uploaded and downloaded, and much more.
Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the details they might ever want about the numerous 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 permits you to tweak the setup, such as whether it must always connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The genuinely experienced user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface by means of the Logs pane.
If the large feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be difficult to find out what particular settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.
However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program typically functions fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings up until you look for them. If you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.
Suppose you do not want to utilize Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send out 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 rather. This software application supplies the very same extensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and practical status info.
Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and pick a specific city on the same page. Some useful text additions make the information more easy to understand, however it’s still quite tough to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than the majority of people will ever require. The software application likewise tries a little more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app discovering when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In regards to personal 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.
Since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
However, reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually outstanding overall.
While it wasn’t rather at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and scenarios like HD streaming, video gaming, and video conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a wider variety of server places. This might restrict the availability of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however maybe less so for other regions.
Streaming
Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.
Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, discovering the right server needs prolonged trial and error. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other service providers, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Thankfully, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, merely since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?
Yes, it does; every web protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to set up, no hoops to jump through. Merely connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.
Plus, you can use port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several 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 decent speeds on local servers, enables port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very hassle-free, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Prices
AirVPN provides a larger variety of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 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 outstanding choice for people who reside in a family house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Rates varies based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. The majority of plans use good value; however, longer memberships offer the best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The current plans available 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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global alternatives are also 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than numerous other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has an extremely active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced but can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get a reaction. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are useful and friendly, however the thorough responses can be quite technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, consisting of a large FAQs area that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however novices will have the exact same problems comprehending a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with very little loss.
Unlimited P2P permitted 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 Online Forums and In-depth Guides.
Great prices, particularly 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 very user-friendly or pretty like other services.
Client app may overwhelm newer users.
It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Maybe there are a lot of advanced alternatives.
Located in 14-Eyes Nation.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Choice?
So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s clearly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN provider. Even new users might do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than much of its rival VPN rivals.
This VPN service is more focused on securing your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
It might not ensure the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which appoints you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great alternative for customers who value their privacy.
While it doesn’t 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 outstanding option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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