Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the ideal solution for you if yes.
While anybody can declare to be distinct these days, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. 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 declare to be unique these days, when it pertains to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
They’ve been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of two lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications supplier Iridium previously ran it, however AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 business either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually established 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 developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
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 most, with just 246 servers spread throughout 23 countries.
Most servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the absence of diversity of servers reduces the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.
That stated, 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 techniques to offer a precise 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 trustworthy and protected method to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.
Various ports and protocols are readily available; 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. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.
When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, you can overcome internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically improves users’ personal privacy and security and is extremely trustworthy. The absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol totally in place up until some of its technical and personal privacy problems are dealt with.
AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily change servers as often as you like.
You can monitor the current load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous problems 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, however since there is no third-party audit, you need 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 good thing about this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service prior to registering. You do not 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 top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no personal details logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.
AirVPN 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 enhance services, but you can request for 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 stressing over your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping methods 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 also state they abide by EU personal privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher levels of privacy and data 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 find out 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 allow you to get a sense of what existing users are saying about the service before registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This implies 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 inspected by a 3rd party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the finest available. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via 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 given that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. But be aware that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you do not utilize one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). But even if the government requested for user info, 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 significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, in spite of Eddie’s significant capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those service providers who use it as standard.
Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the details you need to connect to a VPN.
Regrettably, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download choices. There are builds for different running systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present doesn’t operate on your setup.
After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. You just click Disconnect when you’re finished. Simple enough for anybody, but Eddie can do a lot more because AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
Two crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.
Even though it specifies “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 safe and secure tunnel. Most standard 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 details about each one, such as the server’s label, place, latency in milliseconds from your location, and current users and server load. Excellent stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is suggested for you.
The Countries page displays the number of servers readily available in each nation at a look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green sign is also revealed. Numerous servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller 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 might pick as lots of nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be removed, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By selecting a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and pick the server you desire in a specific nation. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “indication out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket). There are likewise a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s likewise a “refresh” button to get updated information on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab shows an easy 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 many apps show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, existing user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data downloaded and uploaded, 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 number of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Finally, Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.
This enables you to tweak the setup, such as whether it ought to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The genuinely proficient user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface through the Logs pane.
If the vast function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of personalization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply due to the fact that of its complexity. Keep in mind that the program usually operates fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings up until you search for them. Nevertheless, if you occasionally long for power or configurability, the app will provide it.
Suppose you do not wish 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 a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software offers the same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status info.
Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and select a specific city on the same page. Some valuable text additions make the info more reasonable, but it’s still quite difficult to comprehend 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 application likewise attempts a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Using 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 good, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of privacy, leak tests showed 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 competition since AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.
Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. Certainly, one said there wasn’t a single country where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really impressive overall.
While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for most people, and situations like HD video, gaming, and streaming conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server areas. This may limit the ease of access of nearby servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps less so for other areas.
Streaming
Streaming the big 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 used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.
Certainly, some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and does not 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 seldom work, and when they do, finding the right server requires lengthy trial and error. This is probably because, unlike other service providers, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can check to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
Streaming is absolutely not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow P2P?
Yes, it does; every web protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely 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 improve your file-sharing performance. Numerous 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, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports at the same time (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely convenient, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have shown torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
AirVPN provides a wider variety of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 devices simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.
This makes it an exceptional choice for people who live in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for most people, other VPN companies offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Prices varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. Many plans provide good value; however, longer subscriptions provide the very best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily 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 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 utilizing 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 throughout that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t outsourced but can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get an action. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are useful and friendly, but the comprehensive answers can be quite technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a great deal of details, including a large Frequently asked questions area that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however novices will have the very same troubles understanding a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.
Unrestricted 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 usage.
Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.
Strong Client Service.
Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.
Great rates, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t extremely user-friendly or pretty like other services.
Client app may overwhelm more recent 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 relatively low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Choice?
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 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 much of its competing VPN competitors.
This VPN service is more focused on protecting your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
Although it may not guarantee the exact same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good choice for consumers who value their personal privacy.
While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s definitely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an outstanding choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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AirVPN Review (2022): The Ultimate Guide
