AirVPN Vs AVG VPN – What’s The Leading Choice For 2022?

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

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

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing 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 anybody can claim to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun 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 over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).

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

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and information the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually developed 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 developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up versus its rivals with such strong personal privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

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

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer an accurate assessment of performance, without any 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 protected and reputable method to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.

Various ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So ignore PPTP and other hazardous protocols.

No choice is given to any application, service, or protocol when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is extremely trustworthy. However, the absence of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol completely in place till a few of its technical and privacy concerns are resolved.

AirVPN has likewise added 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 switch servers as frequently as you like.

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

There is a comprehensive specs 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 considering that there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice feature of this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to signing up. 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?

The company is extremely clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no individual details 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 information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request this information to be erased at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

As a result, nobody 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 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 likewise say they comply with EU privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or higher levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level protection provided.

If your ISP or country blocks OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.

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

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This implies that anybody 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 third party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best readily available. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine email address. That’s fantastic given that 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 utilize one.

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

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, offered on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as good as those companies who use it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is easy, 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 tough to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly user interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download options. 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 explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most current does not work on your setup.

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re finished, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, however Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Even though it defines “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. A lot of basic kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, however 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 merely 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 readily available servers in the network, together with comprehensive details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and present users and server load. Excellent stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the variety of servers offered in each nation at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign is also shown. Numerous 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 found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you might pick as many nations as you like.

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

By picking 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 shows a basic 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 display your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained details, 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 much more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the info they might ever desire about the various locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s an invaluable resource.

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 enables 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 attempt an SSH tunnel by means of more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the large function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be tough to find out what specific settings do and how to get the wanted outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to personalization.

However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Remember that the program normally functions fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you try to find them. Nevertheless, if you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will offer 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 use an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software offers the very same substantial configuration options as its desktop sibling and helpful status info.

Different 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 pick a specific city on the same page. Some practical text additions make the info more reasonable, however it’s still quite difficult to understand 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 most people will ever need. The software also tries a little more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

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

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

In regards to personal privacy, leak tests showed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which 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 competition.

Nevertheless, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. One said there wasn’t a single country where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually impressive overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a wider variety of server locations. This might restrict the ease of access of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps less so for other areas.

Streaming

Streaming the huge 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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and does not work with any of the major streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, discovering the best server needs prolonged experimentation. This is probably because, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

Thankfully, 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 excels, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Allow P2P?

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

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. A number of 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 local servers, permits port forwarding for up to 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in 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 out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very hassle-free, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN offers a wider variety of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five devices 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 individuals who reside in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for most people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Prices varies based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. A lot of plans provide good value; however, longer subscriptions provide the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily transformed 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 worldwide options are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day free trial, which can be obtained by sending out a message to the support team and using the voucher code they send you.

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

AirVPN Customer Assistance

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

Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t contracted out but can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a response. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are practical and friendly, however the thorough responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a great deal of details, including a large FAQs area that is separated by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however novices will have the same troubles comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited 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.

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent prices, particularly for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and damaging 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 very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Maybe there are a lot of advanced choices.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with great prices. 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 provider. But even brand-new users might 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 much better results than a number of its rival VPN competitors.

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

It might not guarantee the exact 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 a good choice for consumers who value their privacy.

While it does not 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 exceptional choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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AirVPN Review: Is It Truly Worth The Money?