AirVPN Vs CyberGhost: The Smart Option Is

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Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the best solution for you if yes.

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

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its commitment to safeguarding user privacy. Right 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 distinct nowadays, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it really 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 small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications company Iridium formerly 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).

During the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger business either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is discussed and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has 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 offering a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

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

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than a lot of, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.

The majority of servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the lack of variety of servers minimizes the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That said, Air is well known for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with lots of nations having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to offer a precise assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, without any speed restrictions 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 way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses 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. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.

When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any service, application, or protocol. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic limitations, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly reputable. The absence of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place till some of its technical and privacy issues are dealt with.

AirVPN has actually also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.

Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can quickly change servers as frequently as you like.

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

There is a comprehensive specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the 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, however because there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice feature of this is that you can see what other people state about the service before registering. 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?

The business is very clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade 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 just collects 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 stressing over 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 since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also state they follow EU personal privacy regulations and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can utilize it to find out who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection provided.

If your ISP or country blocks OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.

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

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

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best readily available. It’s similar to that of some other service providers, but still worth mentioning. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can reduce this value. The primary information channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine email address. That’s excellent because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. But know 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 countries that share intelligence data). But even if the federal government requested for user details, 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, available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as great as those suppliers who use it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a load of download alternatives. There are builds for various running systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit flavors, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current does not operate on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re completed, you just click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, however Eddie can do a lot more considering that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer launches, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.

Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the very 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 just do this when the VPN is on, however you can set up the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.

Eddie’s design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview simply 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 available servers in the network, along with detailed details about each one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and present users and server load. Outstanding stuff!

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

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

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

By picking 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 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 the majority of apps show your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained information, such as the server’s location, load, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information 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 want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a valuable resource.

Finally, Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.

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

The genuinely competent user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface through the Logs pane.

If the large feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be hard to find out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just since of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program generally functions fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you search for them. If you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide 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 out all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.

How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software provides the same substantial setup choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status details.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a country and select a particular city on the same page. Some valuable text additions make the details more reasonable, however it’s still rather challenging 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 many people will ever require. The software also tries a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects quickly and is ready to enter 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 personal 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.

Due to the fact that AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.

Nevertheless, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. One said there wasn’t a single country where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually 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 situations like HD video, video gaming, and streaming conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive variety of server areas. This might limit the ease of access of nearby servers for some users (which will always lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for many people in the United States and Europe, but maybe less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the big services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has 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 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 says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the ideal server requires prolonged experimentation. This is probably due to the fact that, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

Yes, it does; every internet protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Indeed, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to leap through. Just connect to the VPN server of your choice 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 badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.

File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will block all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have shown torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN offers a larger range of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five devices all at once, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an excellent choice for individuals who live in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for many people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Pricing differs based upon the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. Many plans provide good value; nevertheless, longer memberships use the best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, they utilize the European Central Bank to offer real-time currency exchange rate for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.

The current plans readily available are:

Three days- EUR2

One month – EUR7

Three months – EUR15 – works out to EUR 5/month

Six months – EUR29 – works out to EUR 4.83/month

One year – EUR49 – works out to EUR 4.08/month

Two years – EUR79 – works out to EUR 3.29/month

Three years – EUR99 – works out to EUR 2.75/month

AirVPN accepts major credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and a whole load of cryptocurrencies, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of 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 discount coupon 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 used more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

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

Significantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t outsourced but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a response. That stated, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and helpful, but the thorough responses can be quite technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a great deal of information, consisting of a large Frequently asked questions section that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, however newbies will have the very same troubles understanding a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited 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 use.

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

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Forums and Comprehensive Guides.

Good prices, particularly 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 very easy to use 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.

Possibly there are a lot of advanced alternatives.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Choice?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with excellent rates. 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 supplier. Even brand-new users might do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to use if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than many of its competing VPN competitors.

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

Although it might not ensure the very 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 great option for consumers who value their personal privacy.

While it doesn’t hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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AirVPN Review – Views On Their Service