AirVPN Vs Avast VPN (2022) – “The Champion Is”

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Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the best option for you if yes.

While anyone can claim to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website begins with an appeal for your trust, stating, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can declare to be special these days, when it concerns VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of two lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications provider Iridium previously ran it, but AirVPN took control of 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 larger company either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than many, with only 246 servers spread across 23 nations.

Most servers are in Europe (aside from those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the absence of diversity of servers minimizes the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is popular for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, without any speed constraints or time limits.

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most dependable and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.

Various 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. So ignore PPTP and other hazardous protocols.

No choice is given to any protocol, application, or service when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically improves users’ privacy and security and is highly dependable. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol completely in place until a few of its technical and personal privacy problems are addressed.

AirVPN has actually likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.

Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly switch servers as frequently as you like.

You can monitor the existing load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).

There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server information (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 because there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being used will work. But looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A great feature of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service prior to registering. You do not have 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 really clear. Online privacy and security are the outright priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal info 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 gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can ask for this details to be deleted 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 system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping strategies will fail against AirVPN because your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also say they adhere to EU personal privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater 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 no one can use it to discover who you are. You’ll remain 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 country blocks OpenVPN.

Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what existing users are saying about the service before registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This implies 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 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best readily available. It’s similar to that of some other companies, however still worth pointing out. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying occurs every 60 minutes, and the user can minimize this value. The primary data channel uses AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real email address. That’s excellent since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However understand that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). But even if the federal government asked for user information, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to give them.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, in spite of Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who use it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Establishing the app is simple, and it has all the info you need to connect to a VPN.

There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use interface, so it may be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a load of download alternatives. There are builds for different running 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 operate on your setup.

After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You simply click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 crucial 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 picked last.

Even though it defines “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the exact 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 just do this when the VPN is on, however you can set up 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 simply 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 offered servers in the network, in addition to detailed information about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your area, and current users and server load. Excellent stuff!

This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is suggested for you.

The Countries page shows the number of servers readily available in each nation at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise 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 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 essentially a favorites list; you may choose as many nations as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that nation will be gotten rid of, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.

By choosing a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and select the server you desire in a particular 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 also 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 displays a simple 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 a lot of apps display 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, 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 capability to utilize a VPN with all the details they might ever want about the various locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s an invaluable resource.

Lastly, Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.

A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This permits you to tweak the setup, such as whether it should always connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to try an SSH tunnel via more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The genuinely skilled user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.

If the vast feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be tough to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply because of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program normally works fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings till you try to find them. Nevertheless, if you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not 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 incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application provides the exact same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and useful status info.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and select a particular city on the very same page. Some helpful text additions make the info more easy to understand, but it’s still rather tough to comprehend in some spots.

Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still a lot more than the majority of people will ever need. The software application likewise tries a little bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects rapidly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of personal privacy, leak tests revealed 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 competition due to the fact that AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.

However, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually impressive overall.

While it wasn’t quite at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and circumstances like HD video, video gaming, and streaming conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server places. This may limit the availability of close-by servers for some users (which will always lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however maybe 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 actually 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.

Indeed, some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. However, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the best server requires prolonged trial and error. This is most likely because, unlike other providers, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

Fortunately, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.

Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, simply since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

Yes, it does; every internet protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Undoubtedly, 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 start.

Plus, you can use 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 decent speeds on regional servers, permits 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 integrated kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from leaving your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not 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 revealed torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any concerns whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN offers a larger variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 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 exceptional choice for people who reside in a family home or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing varies based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. A lot of plans use good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions provide the best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.

The existing plans readily 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 international options 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 coupon code they send you.

There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they haven’t broken the terms of service or utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has an extremely active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t contracted out however can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get a reaction. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and practical, however the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a great deal of information, consisting of a large FAQs section that is separated by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, but novices will have the same difficulties understanding a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited P2P permitted with Port Forwarding.

Strong security on servers and apps 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 Support.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Great rates, especially for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists shield you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t really user-friendly or attractive like other services.

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Maybe there are a lot of advanced options.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with great rates. It’s clearly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN company. Even brand-new users could do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than a lot of its rival VPN competitors.

This VPN service is more focused on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.

It might not ensure the very same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which designates you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good alternative for consumers who value their personal 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 excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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