AirVPN Vs Avast VPN – What’s The Best Choice For 2022?

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Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the perfect solution for you if yes.

While anybody can declare to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. Right 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 anybody can declare to be special these days, when it pertains to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

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

During the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is explained and details the 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN created 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 than a lot of, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.

The majority of servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the absence of variety of servers minimizes the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies 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 use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most reliable and safe and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

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

No choice is given to any service, protocol, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, 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 instantly improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely reliable. The absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the more recent protocol fully in place until some of its technical and personal privacy issues are attended to.

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

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

You can monitor the existing load on each server, any existing issues, 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 info like the readily available ports, protocols, DNS server info (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

All of it is nice, however given that there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice aspect of this is that you can see what other people 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 pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is really clear. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute concern, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal privacy. There is no personal 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 just 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 among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can figure out what kind of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless 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 strategies will fail against AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also say they abide by EU privacy regulations and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or higher levels of personal privacy and data 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 security provided.

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 forum allow you to get a sense of what current users are stating about the service prior to signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This indicates 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 actually been checked by a 3rd party.

Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the very best offered. It’s similar to that of some other suppliers, but still worth mentioning. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The main data channel utilizes 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 great since it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you will not be able to change 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 data). However even if the federal government requested user information, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, offered on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s significant ability 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

Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the info you require to connect to a VPN.

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

With Windows, there are a heap of download alternatives. There are builds for different running systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to discuss what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t work on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You just click Disconnect when you’re ended up. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do so much more considering that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 essential AirVPN functions 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 chosen last.

Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually 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 safe and secure tunnel. Many basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but 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 shows 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 available servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive information about every one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your area, and current users and server load. Remarkable 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 variety of servers offered 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. Many 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 country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you might select as many nations as you like.

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

By selecting 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 shows an easy 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 most apps show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data downloaded and uploaded, and far more.

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

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

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

The genuinely experienced user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the vast feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be hard to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program usually operates fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you look for them. If you periodically long for power or configurability, the app will supply 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?

There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application provides the very same comprehensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status information.

Separate pages for country 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 handy text additions make the information more easy to understand, however it’s still rather 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 most people will ever need. The software application also tries a little bit more to help you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing 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 excellent, with the app discovering when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of 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.

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

Nevertheless, 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 really excellent 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, streaming, and video gaming conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a broader number of server areas. 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 option for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the big 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 powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Certainly, some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the ideal server needs prolonged trial and error. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other service providers, 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 check to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.

Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

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

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Numerous 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 regional servers, enables port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (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, activated by default, will block 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 really convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN offers a broader range of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 devices concurrently, 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 individuals who live in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for most people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Rates varies based on the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Many plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions offer 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 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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of worldwide alternatives 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 voucher code they send you.

There’s also 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 lots of other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it uses e-mail support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active support online 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 inconsistent with the time it requires to get a reaction. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the representatives are useful and friendly, however the thorough answers 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 section that is separated by topic.

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

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted P2P enabled 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 setup and usage.

Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Forums and Comprehensive 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 extremely user-friendly or pretty like other services.

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced alternatives.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Choice?

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

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

When it comes down to it, this VPN service is more focused on securing your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

Although it might not guarantee the very same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent option for customers who value their privacy.

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

Highly recommended!

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