AirVPN Vs Avira VPN Comparison: Give Us 5 Minutes, We’ll Give You The Facts

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

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

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site 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 service providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 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).

During the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger organization 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 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 offering a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN compare to its competitors with such strong privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

Most servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the lack of variety of servers decreases the number of global AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That said, Air is popular for its outstanding performance throughout its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer a precise assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, without any 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 safe and reputable method to create encrypted tunnels. It provides 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. In addition, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So ignore PPTP and other unsafe protocols.

When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any application, protocol, or service. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, you can get rid of internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic constraints, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly dependable. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place till a few of its technical and privacy problems are dealt with.

AirVPN has actually likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to try out things.

Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily switch servers as often as you like.

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

There is a detailed specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the readily available 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 trust 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 individuals state about the service prior to signing up. You don’t have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?

The company is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal privacy. There is no personal info 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 data” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can request 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 tell what type of traffic or protocol you’re using.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without worrying about your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

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

They likewise state they comply with EU personal privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or greater levels of 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 discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-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 forum allow you to get a sense of what present users are saying about the service prior to 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 only ProtonVPN’s apps have been examined by a third party.

Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the finest available. The first exchange utilizes 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 information, not even your genuine email address. That’s excellent because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you will not be able to alter 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 nations that share intelligence information). However 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, offered on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, regardless of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those service providers who use it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use interface, so it may 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 portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present 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 just click Disconnect when you’re ended up. Easy enough for anyone, but Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer system launches, however 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” throughout 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 secure tunnel. Many basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but 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 just 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 offered servers in the network, together with comprehensive information about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Excellent 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 variety of servers offered in each country at a look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like 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 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 essentially a favorites list; you might choose as numerous nations as you like.

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

By picking a nation, you are not immediately 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 an easy 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 the majority of apps display your current 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 ability to utilize a VPN with all the information they could ever desire about the different locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s a valuable resource.

Lastly, Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.

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 through more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the vast function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to find out what specific settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to customization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Remember that the program usually functions fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings until you search for them. If you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t 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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application provides the exact same extensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and handy status info.

Separate pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a country and pick a particular city on the same page. Some useful text additions make the details more understandable, however it’s still quite difficult to understand in some spots.

Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than the majority of people will ever need. The software application likewise tries a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN generally connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app discovering when the VPN tunnel drops, informing 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.

It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors since AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. Indeed, one stated there wasn’t a single country where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly remarkable overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a wider number of server places. This might limit the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for many people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other regions.

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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t 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 says services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix seldom work, and when they do, discovering the right server needs prolonged experimentation. This is most likely because, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN doesn’t use 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 examine to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.

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

Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?

Yes, it does; every internet protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Undoubtedly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to set up, no hoops to jump through. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Numerous 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 good speeds on regional 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 integrated 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 unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really hassle-free, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have shown torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN offers a broader variety of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 gadgets at the same time, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.

This makes it an exceptional option for individuals who live in a household home or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for most people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Prices differs based on the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. The majority of plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions use the very best offer.

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

The present 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 global alternatives are also 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 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 during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

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

Significantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a reaction. That stated, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are valuable and friendly, however the extensive answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

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

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

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted P2P enabled 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 choices in the client app.

Solid Customer Service.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

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

Client app may 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 fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with excellent prices. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN provider. Even new users could 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 much of its competing VPN competitors.

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

It may not guarantee the exact same level of 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 a great choice for customers who value their personal 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 excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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