Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the best option for you.
While anyone can claim to be distinct these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its commitment 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 unique these days, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.
They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications company 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).
Throughout the last decade, 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 discussed and information the 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 supplying a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than a lot of, with just 246 servers spread throughout 23 nations.
Many servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small issue here is that the absence of diversity of servers lowers the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while preserving their personal privacy.
That stated, Air is well known for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with numerous nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally 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 protected and trusted method to create encrypted tunnels. It provides 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. Additionally, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
When it boils down to it, no preference is given to any service, application, or protocol. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. The absence of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol completely in place up until a few of its technical and personal privacy issues are addressed.
AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is limitless, so if you do not 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 an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server information (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 rely on that what is being used will work. But taking a look at the active community forum or the in-depth 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 do not need to take their word for it or the word of an audit.
Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?
When it concerns AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the company is really clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute concern, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no individual information 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 just collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request for this details to be deleted 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 sort of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi network without worrying about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping tactics will fail versus AirVPN due to the fact that your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also state they comply with EU personal privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or greater 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 use it to learn who you are. You’ll stay 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 nation obstructs 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 prior to 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 just ProtonVPN’s apps have been examined by a third party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the finest offered. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of 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 great because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be aware that you won’t 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 information). But even if the government asked for user details, 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, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s considerable capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as good as those service providers who use it as requirement.
Establishing the app is simple, and it has all the info you need 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 interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a load of download choices. There are builds for numerous 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 describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most present does not operate on your setup.
After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more given that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
Two 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 picked last.
Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has 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 safe tunnel. Most standard kill switches just 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, together with in-depth details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your place, and current users and server load. Remarkable stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is suggested for you.
The Countries page shows the variety of servers available in each country at a look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise 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 select as numerous nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be removed, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To remove the green checkmark from a country, click the empty box.
By picking a nation, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and pick the server you want in a specific nation. 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). There are also a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s also a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab shows a simple 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 the majority 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, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data uploaded and downloaded, and a lot more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the details they could ever want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other information.
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 utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to try an SSH tunnel through more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The truly proficient user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.
If the large feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be hard to find out what particular settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.
Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just due to the fact that of its complexity. Remember that the program normally works fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings up until you look for them. However, if you sometimes long for power or configurability, the app will supply it.
Suppose you don’t want to utilize Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send out 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 utilize an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the very same substantial configuration options as its desktop sibling and handy status details.
Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and choose a particular city on the exact same page. Some handy text additions make the information more reasonable, but it’s still rather tough to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than the majority of people will ever require. The software also tries a little bit more to assist you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects rapidly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, 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 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.
However, reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly remarkable overall.
While it wasn’t rather at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for most people, and situations like HD streaming, gaming, and video conferencing absolutely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a wider variety of server areas. This might limit the accessibility of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for many people in the United States and Europe, but possibly less so for other areas.
Streaming
Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, 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 USA, whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is quite bad 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 states services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the ideal server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other service providers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
However, streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, merely because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?
Yes, it does; every internet protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Certainly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to configure, no hoops to jump through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your option and start.
Plus, you can use 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, allows port forwarding for as much as 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 integrated kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from exiting your gadget 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 really hassle-free, particularly 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 with no problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Pricing
AirVPN offers a larger range of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 gadgets all at once, 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 reside in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for most people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Pricing varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. A lot of plans offer good value; however, longer subscriptions provide the best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, 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 choice.
The current 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 global choices 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.
AirVPN Customer Support
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers email assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a really active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t outsourced however can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a reaction. That said, the email support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and valuable, however the thorough responses can be quite technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a great deal of info, consisting of a large FAQs area that is separated by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, but beginners will have the exact same troubles comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with very little 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 choices in the client app.
Solid Customer Service.
Active Community Forums and Comprehensive Guides.
Good 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 attractive like other services.
Client app may overwhelm newer users.
It is really hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Possibly there are a lot of advanced choices.
Found in 14-Eyes Nation.
Server numbers are relatively 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 excellent rates. It’s plainly 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 company. However even new users could 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 lot of its competing VPN competitors.
This VPN service is more focused on securing your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
Although it might not ensure the same level of personal 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 alternative for customers who value their 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 exceptional choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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