AirVPN Vs Avast VPN: Check Out The Major Differences

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Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect service for you.

While anyone can declare to be special nowadays, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site starts 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 claim to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications supplier Iridium formerly ran it, however AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).

Throughout the last decade, 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 discussed and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually 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 offering a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.

The majority of servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor issue here is that the lack of diversity of servers minimizes the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That said, Air is well known for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with many countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They use transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely 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 safe and trustworthy way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Numerous ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Moreover, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.

No preference is given to any service, application, or protocol when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is extremely trustworthy. The lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the more recent protocol fully in place up until a few of its technical and privacy concerns are attended to.

AirVPN has actually likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to try out things.

Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily change 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 specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the readily available 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, but considering that there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being offered will work. But looking at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good thing about this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service prior to 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 pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is very clear. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no individual info 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 collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can ask for this info 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 kind of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi network without stressing over your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.

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

They also state they follow EU privacy regulations and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can use it to learn who you are. You’ll remain 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 nation obstructs OpenVPN.

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

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have been examined by a 3rd party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best readily available. It’s similar to that of some other suppliers, but still worth discussing. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying occurs every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The main information channel employs 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 great since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be aware that you won’t be able to change your account’s password if you do not use one.

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

Who Or What Is Eddie??

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

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

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

With Windows, there are a lot of download choices. There are builds for numerous 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 discuss what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current does not function on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You just click Disconnect when you’re finished. Easy enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more considering that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer launches, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Although it defines “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. Many standard 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 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 readily available servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive info about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, 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 know whether a server is suggested for you.

The Countries page displays the number of servers readily available in each country at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also revealed. Lots of servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller sized 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 country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you may pick as many countries as you like.

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

By picking a nation, you are not instantly 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 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 the majority of apps show 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, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information uploaded and downloaded, and a lot more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the information they might ever want about the different locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a valuable resource.

Finally, Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other information.

This allows you to tweak the setup, such as whether it needs to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The really proficient user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the vast function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to find out what particular settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.

Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just since of its complexity. 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. If you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will offer it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t wish to utilize 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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application offers the same extensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status info.

Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a country and pick a particular city on the exact same page. Some useful text additions make the info more reasonable, however it’s still rather tough to comprehend 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 most people will ever need. The software also attempts a little more to help you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to personal privacy, leak tests revealed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which shows that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.

Now let’s get to those speeds.

Since AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition.

Reviewers have 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 truly excellent overall.

While it wasn’t rather at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and circumstances like HD streaming, gaming, and video conferencing certainly will not slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a broader number of server locations. This might restrict the availability of close-by servers for some users (which will always lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for most people in the United States and Europe, but maybe less so for other areas.

Streaming

Streaming the big services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Indeed, some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and does not work with any of the significant streaming services. It appears to work 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 because, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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

However, streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.

File sharing has good speeds on regional servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from leaving your device 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 extremely hassle-free, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be impressive, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN uses a wider range of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 gadgets simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an exceptional option for people who live in a family home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for most people, other VPN companies offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Rates varies based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Many plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions provide the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, 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 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 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 used more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

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

Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t outsourced but can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get a reaction. That said, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are useful and friendly, however the comprehensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a great deal of details, consisting of a big Frequently asked questions area that is separated by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, but beginners will have the same difficulties comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted P2P allowed 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 options in the client app.

Strong Customer Support.

Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.

Excellent rates, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t very easy to use or pretty like other services.

Client app may overwhelm more recent users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced options.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s plainly 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 company. However even new users might do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than a number of its rival VPN rivals.

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

Although it might not ensure 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 an excellent option for customers who value their personal privacy.

While it doesn’t hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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