AirVPN Vs CyberGhost: 5 Tests To Determine “Who’s Top” In 2022?

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Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the ideal option for you if yes.

While anyone can declare to be special nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website begins with an appeal for your trust, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can declare to be special these days, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service 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 bigger organization either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by offering a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than a lot of, with just 246 servers spread across 23 nations.

Many servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the absence of variety of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely 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 safe and reliable way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

Various 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. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.

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

The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. The lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the more recent protocol completely in place till a few of its technical and privacy problems are addressed.

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

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

You can keep an eye on 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 specifications 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 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 used will work. But taking a look at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good aspect of this is that you can see what other people say about the service prior to registering. 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 business is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal privacy. There is no individual information 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 just gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve 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, 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 worrying about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

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

They likewise say they comply with EU personal privacy regulations which 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 learn who you are. You’ll stay 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 nation obstructs OpenVPN.

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

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This implies that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a 3rd party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the finest available. The very first exchange utilizes 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 information, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s terrific considering that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However understand that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you do not use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence information). However even if the government asked for user details, 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, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Unfortunately, in spite of Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those suppliers who utilize 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 direct you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a heap of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous 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 discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing does not work on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘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 anybody, but Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer starts up, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Although it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has 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 safe and secure tunnel. Many basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, however 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 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 offered servers in the network, in addition to in-depth information about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your area, and present 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 displays the variety of servers offered in each country at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator 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 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 choose as lots of countries 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 country, click the empty box.

By selecting a nation, 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 a lot of apps show your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained info, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information uploaded and downloaded, and a lot more.

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

Finally, 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 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 try an SSH tunnel through more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The really experienced user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface via the Logs pane.

If the huge feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, 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 operates fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings up until you search for them. Nevertheless, if you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not wish 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 an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software offers the exact same substantial configuration choices as its desktop sibling and practical status information.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a country and pick a specific city on the same page. Some useful text additions make the info more easy to understand, however it’s still rather 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 many people will ever need. The software application likewise tries a little bit more to help you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to privacy, leak tests showed 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.

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

Reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. One said there wasn’t a single country where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a broader number of server places. This may limit the availability of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for most people in the United States and Europe, however 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 utilized by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is pretty bad 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 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 companies, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?

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

Plus, you can use port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. Several 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 local servers, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will block all traffic from leaving your gadget 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 really hassle-free, especially 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 without any issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN uses a larger range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets concurrently, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.

This makes it an excellent option for people who reside in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN companies offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Pricing differs based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans use good value; nevertheless, longer memberships offer the best offer.

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

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 worldwide choices are also 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 using the discount coupon 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 during that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than numerous other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it uses email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get an action. That stated, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and practical, but the detailed answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of info, including a large Frequently asked questions area that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, however novices will have the same difficulties comprehending a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional 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 setup and usage.

Many, many advanced settings and customization options in the client app.

Strong Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good prices, particularly for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and damaging sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t really easy to use or pretty like other services.

Client app might overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Maybe there are too many advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be much 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 utilize if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than a number of its competing VPN competitors.

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

Although it may not guarantee the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent option for consumers who value their privacy.

While it doesn’t 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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