Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the ideal solution for you if yes.
While anyone can claim to be special these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it really is.
AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site starts with an appeal for your trust, mentioning, “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 distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
They have actually been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of two lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications company Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took control of 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 larger organization either.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has established or supported. These include an online encryption tool, a net neutrality monitor, and other projects such as Tor, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and WikiLeaks.
AirVPN takes the non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong personal privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.
Most servers are in Europe (aside from those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the absence of variety of servers minimizes the number of global AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their personal privacy.
That said, Air is popular for its outstanding performance throughout its server network, with lots of nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to provide a precise evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, without any speed restrictions or time limits.
To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and secure and trusted method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.
Various ports and protocols are offered; 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. Forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
When it comes down to it, no choice is given to any service, protocol, or application. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately enhances users’ privacy and security and is extremely trustworthy. Nevertheless, the lack of WireGuard as standard might show 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 some of its technical and privacy issues are dealt with.
AirVPN has actually also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily change servers as frequently as you like.
You can monitor the present load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).
There is an in-depth specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the 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 since there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being used will work. However looking at the active community forum or the detailed 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 do not 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 top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no personal details 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 gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can ask for this information 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 figure out what sort of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without fretting about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping methods will fail against AirVPN because your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also state they adhere to EU personal privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or greater levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can use it to find out who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level protection supplied.
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 online forum allow you to get a sense of what current users are stating about the service before signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anybody can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.
Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best offered. It resembles that of some other suppliers, however still worth mentioning. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain 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 minimize this value. The main information channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real e-mail address. That’s great given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However know that you will not have the ability to change your account’s password if you don’t use one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). Even if the government asked for user info, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to offer them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, available on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as excellent as those providers who utilize it as standard.
Establishing 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 guide you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly user interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a heap of download choices. There are builds for various 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 brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most present does not operate on your setup.
After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re finished, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
2 crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer starts up, however you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.
Even though it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. A lot of basic 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 design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview simply displays the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page shows all offered servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive details about each one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your place, and existing users and server load. Outstanding stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page shows the number of servers readily available in each country at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also shown. 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 basically a favorites list; you may choose as many countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be eliminated, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By choosing a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. 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 changed, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.
While a lot of apps display your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained information, such as the server’s location, load, existing user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data uploaded and downloaded, and far more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the information they might ever want about the various locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s an invaluable resource.
Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.
This permits 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. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The truly experienced user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.
If the large function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to find out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to customization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply due to the fact that of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program generally works fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings until you search for them. If you periodically long for power or configurability, the app will offer it.
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 a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software supplies the same comprehensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status details.
Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and select a particular city on the exact same page. Some handy text additions make the information more reasonable, however it’s still rather difficult to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still a lot more than most people will ever need. The software also tries a little more to assist you, with extra text subtitles to discuss what each option does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN usually connects quickly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of personal privacy, leak tests revealed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which reveals that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.
Now let’s get to those speeds.
Since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. Certainly, one stated there wasn’t a single country where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually impressive overall.
While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for most people, and circumstances like HD video, streaming, and video gaming conferencing definitely won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server locations. This may limit the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for many people in the United States and Europe, but maybe 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 actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major 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 hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the best server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely because, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Fortunately, 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.
However, streaming is absolutely 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 Torrenting?
Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Just connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.
Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at the same time (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s integrated 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 Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very convenient, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be impressive, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
AirVPN uses a larger variety of plans than many 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 outstanding option for individuals who reside in a family home or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Prices differs based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. A lot of plans use good value; however, longer memberships offer the best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, they use the European Central Bank to supply real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be easily converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The present 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, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of international alternatives are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending out a message to the support team and using the coupon 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 used more than 5 GB of data during that time.
AirVPN Customer Support
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it offers email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Significantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the email support is high quality, and the agents are valuable and friendly, but the detailed answers can be quite technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a lot of info, consisting of a large FAQs area that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, but newbies will have the very same problems comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with minimal loss.
Unrestricted P2P allowed 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 installation and use.
Many, many advanced settings and customization options in the client app.
Solid Customer Service.
Active Community Online Forums and In-depth Guides.
Excellent prices, particularly for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or attractive like other services.
Client app might overwhelm more recent users.
It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Maybe there are too many advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
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 excellent pricing. It’s plainly 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 brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than a lot 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 permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent option for consumers who value their personal privacy.
While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s definitely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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