AirVPN Vs Avira VPN Comparison – Are They Any Good? Site Novice’s Candid View

  • 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 wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect solution for you.

While anybody can declare to be distinct nowadays, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting 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 anyone can claim to be special these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium previously ran it, however AirVPN took control of 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 bigger company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is explained 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by offering a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

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 many, with only 246 servers spread across 23 countries.

The majority of 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 minimizes the number of global AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their 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 use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer a precise evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, without any 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 protected and trustworthy way to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.

Many 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 unsafe protocols.

No choice is given to any service, application, or protocol when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can overcome web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ privacy and security and is highly trusted. The lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol fully in place until a few of its technical and personal privacy issues are attended to.

AirVPN has actually likewise added 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 quickly switch servers as often as you like.

You can keep track of the present 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 an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the readily available ports, protocols, DNS server information (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s gain access to points.

All of it is nice, but since there is no third-party audit, you have to trust 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 great aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals 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 pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is extremely clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no individual 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 collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request for this info 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 tell what kind of traffic or protocol you’re using.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without fretting about 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 likewise say they abide by EU personal privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can use it to learn who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level security offered.

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 present users are stating about the service before signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This means that anyone can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been examined by a third party.

Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the finest available. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real e-mail address. That’s fantastic considering that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However understand that you won’t have the ability to change your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). But even if the federal government requested user info, 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, offered on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s significant capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as excellent as those companies who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Unfortunately, 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 easy to use 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 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 explain what’s brand-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. When you’re finished, you just click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, 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 key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer starts up, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.

Although it defines “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. The majority of basic 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 design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview just 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, along with in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your place, and current users and server load. Excellent stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the variety of servers readily available in each nation at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. Many 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 nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you might choose as lots of nations as you like.

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

By picking a country, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and choose the server you desire in a specific country. 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 likewise a “refresh” button to get updated info on ping times and load times.

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 many apps show 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, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information downloaded and uploaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the details they might ever want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s an invaluable resource.

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

This allows you to tweak the setup, such as whether it ought to always connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The truly skilled user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the huge feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to determine what specific settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program generally operates fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you search for them. Nevertheless, if you occasionally yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide 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 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?

There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application supplies the same comprehensive setup options as its desktop sibling and useful 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 very same page. Some valuable text additions make the info more easy to understand, but it’s still rather challenging to comprehend 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 likewise attempts a little bit more to help you, with additional 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 good, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notification, 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 competition.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. One said there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually remarkable overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a broader variety of server locations. This might restrict the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will always lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for most people in the United States and Europe, but maybe less so for other regions.

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 U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. However, 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 ideal server needs prolonged trial and error. This is most likely since, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Allow P2P?

Yes, it does; every internet protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Undoubtedly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to set up, no hoops to leap through. Just connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.

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

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, enables port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at the same time (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, triggered by default, will block all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than a lot 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 outstanding choice for individuals who reside in a household house or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for most people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing differs based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans offer good value; however, longer subscriptions use the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly converted to and paid for in the currency of your choice.

The existing plans 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 choices are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

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

AirVPN Customer Support

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it provides 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.

Importantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t outsourced but can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get an action. That said, the email assistance is high quality, and the agents are friendly and practical, but the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a great deal of details, including a large Frequently asked questions area that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, but newbies will have the very same problems comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted P2P permitted 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.

Strong Customer Service.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Good costs, 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 very user-friendly or pretty like other services.

Client app might overwhelm more recent users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Maybe there are a lot of advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with great prices. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN service provider. However even brand-new users could do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and better results than a lot of its competing VPN rivals.

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

It may not ensure the exact same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent option for customers who value their privacy.

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

Highly recommended!

Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!

AirVPN 101 – A New User’s Guide To Choosing The Ideal VPN Service Provider