AirVPN Vs AVG VPN: Find Out About The Major Differences

  • Time to read: 16 min.
Affiliate Disclaimer

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to products/services. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the ideal service for you if yes.

While anybody can claim to be special nowadays, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website starts with an appeal for your trust, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can declare to be distinct these days, when it pertains to VPN providers, 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 help of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service provider Iridium previously 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).

Throughout the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger business either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is discussed and information the personal 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 providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

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

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.

The majority of servers are in Europe (besides those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the lack of diversity of servers decreases the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to provide an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, with no 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 safe and secure method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses 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. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So ignore PPTP and other hazardous protocols.

When it comes down to it, no preference is given to any service, application, or protocol. Net Neutrality is maintained. Notably, you can overcome web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol completely in place until a few of its technical and privacy problems are addressed.

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

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

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

There is a detailed specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server details (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

All of it is nice, but because there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being used will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good aspect of this is that you can see what other people say about the service before signing up. 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?

The business is extremely clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the outright priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal 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 just collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request for this details to be erased at any time. This makes it one of the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

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

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

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

They likewise state they follow EU personal privacy guidelines which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can utilize it to find out who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level security offered.

You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or nation blocks OpenVPN.

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

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

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best readily available. It resembles that of some other suppliers, however still worth discussing. 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 decrease 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 terrific 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 don’t use one.

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

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Unfortunately, despite Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those suppliers who use 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 direct you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly user interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.

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

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You simply click Disconnect when you’re ended up. Simple enough for anybody, but Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer starts up, however you can’t choose 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 actually a tab called “network lock” that does the same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. The majority of standard kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but you can establish 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 displays all available servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive info about each one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, 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 available in each nation at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green sign 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 pick as numerous nations as you like.

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

By selecting a country, 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 most apps show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows 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 far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the details they could ever desire about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.

Lastly, Logs is a detailed 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 fine-tune 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 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, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.

If the huge function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to find out what particular settings do and how to get the wanted outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to customization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Remember that the program usually works fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you look for them. Nevertheless, if you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t want 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 exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status information.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and choose a particular city on the exact same page. Some practical text additions make the information more easy to understand, but 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 a lot more than many people will ever require. The software application also tries a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects quickly 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, alerting us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to 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.

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

However, reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. Undoubtedly, one said there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really outstanding 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 scenarios like HD streaming, video, and video gaming conferencing definitely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a broader variety of server places. This might restrict the ease of access of nearby servers for some users (which will constantly result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the big services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has 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.

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

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the best server needs prolonged experimentation. This is probably because, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

Nevertheless, streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, simply since 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. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.

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

File sharing has good 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 works with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely hassle-free, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be impressive, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.

This makes it an excellent option for people who live in a household house or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for many people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing differs based on the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans use good value; however, longer memberships offer the best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily converted to and spent 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 choices are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day 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 haven’t broken the terms of service or utilized more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than numerous other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it provides email assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t outsourced however can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get an action. That said, the email support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and handy, however the comprehensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of info, consisting of a large FAQs area that is broken up by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover several topics, but newbies will have the very same difficulties understanding a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted P2P 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 setup and use.

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

Strong Customer Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good costs, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with good pricing. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much 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 a lot of its competing VPN competitors.

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

Although it may not ensure the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent choice for consumers 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 exceptional choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!

AirVPN Vs Avast VPN: 5 Tests To Determine “Who’s Best” In 2022?