AirVPN Vs ExpressVPN Comparison – 5 Pros & Cons You Should Learn In 2022

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

While anyone can claim to be special these days, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website starts 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 anybody can claim to be distinct these days, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually 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 service provider Iridium previously ran it, however 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 years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and information the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has established 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 providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than the majority of, with just 246 servers spread throughout 23 nations.

Most servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the absence of diversity of servers lowers the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation methods to offer a precise assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, with no 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 safe and secure and trustworthy way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

Numerous 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 hazardous protocols.

No preference is given to any application, service, or protocol when it comes down to it. 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 immediately improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely reliable. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol totally in place up until a few of its technical and personal privacy issues are dealt with.

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

Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily switch servers as often as you like.

You can keep an eye on the existing load on each server, any existing issues, 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 details 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 need to rely on that what is being offered will work. But looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good feature of this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to 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 company is extremely clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the outright top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack 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 collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can request for this info to be erased 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 determine what sort 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 techniques will fail versus AirVPN since your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also state they stick to EU privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can use it to discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level security offered.

If your ISP or country obstructs 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 existing users are saying about the service prior to registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have been examined by a 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the very best readily available. It resembles that of some other suppliers, however still worth discussing. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The main data channel uses AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s excellent given that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. 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 nations that share intelligence information). But even if the federal government requested for user details, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of 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 standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use user interface, so it may be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download choices. There are builds for numerous running 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 present doesn’t operate on your setup.

After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You simply click Disconnect when you’re ended up. Easy enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more because 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 system launches, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Despite the fact that it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has 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. A lot of standard 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 merely 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 readily available servers in the network, along with detailed details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and existing users and server load. Outstanding 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 readily 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 indicator is likewise revealed. Lots of 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 may select as many nations as you like.

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

By selecting a country, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and choose the server you desire in a particular country. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking the “sign 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 info on ping times and load times.

The Speed tab displays 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 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, information downloaded and uploaded, and far more.

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

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

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

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

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

However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Remember that the program typically functions fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you search for them. Nevertheless, if you sometimes crave power or configurability, the app will offer it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not want 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 exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software offers the exact same extensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and practical status info.

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 same page. Some practical text additions make the information more easy to understand, however it’s still rather difficult to comprehend in some spots.

Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than most people will ever need. The software application also attempts a little bit more to help you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to personal 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 competitors because AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.

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

While it wasn’t rather at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and circumstances like HD video gaming, video, and streaming conferencing definitely will not slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive number of server places. This might restrict the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the big services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, 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 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 states services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the ideal server needs lengthy trial and error. This is most likely since, unlike other service providers, AirVPN doesn’t use 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 absolutely not an area in which AirVPN excels, simply since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?

Yes, it does; every internet protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to configure, no hoops to leap through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several 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 decent 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 deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will block all traffic from leaving your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very hassle-free, 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 concerns whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

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

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

Rates varies based upon the subscription length, and each plan includes the same features. Most plans use good value; nevertheless, longer memberships provide the best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to supply real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily converted 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, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of international alternatives are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending out a message to the support team and utilizing the voucher code they send you.

There’s likewise 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 throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

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

Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t outsourced however can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get an action. That said, the email support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and handy, but the thorough answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, including a big FAQs area that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however beginners will have the same difficulties comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional 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 usage.

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

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.

Good prices, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app might overwhelm more recent users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced options.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with great rates. It’s plainly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN company. Even new users might do much, much worse.

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

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

It might not ensure the 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 option for customers who value their 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 choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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AirVPN: Why It Is The No 1 Rated VPN Company?