AirVPN Vs FastestVPN Comparison – Are They Any Good? Website Beginner’s Candid View

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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 anybody can declare to be unique these days, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting 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 comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of two lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium formerly ran it, however AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).

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

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is explained and information 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 providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up versus its competitors with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with only 246 servers spread out across 23 countries.

A lot of servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small issue here is that the absence of diversity of servers lowers the number of global AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while preserving their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to provide an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely 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 reliable and safe way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Numerous ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Moreover, 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 service, application, or protocol when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can get rid of web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic limitations, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trusted. The absence of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol totally in place up until some of its technical and personal privacy problems are addressed.

AirVPN has actually also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with 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 existing load on each server, any existing problems, 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 information like the 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 given that there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being provided will work. But taking a look at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good thing about this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to signing up. You don’t have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

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

The company is extremely 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 attack privacy. There is no individual 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 improve 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 tell what type of traffic or protocol you’re using.

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

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

They also say they follow EU privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can use it to find out who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level protection provided.

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 present users are saying about the service prior to signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This implies that anybody 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 best offered. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your real email address. That’s terrific given that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence data). Even if the federal government asked 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 major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Unfortunately, in spite of Eddie’s considerable 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.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Sadly, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download options. 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 explain what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most present does not function on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, but 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

2 key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer starts up, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked 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 difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. Many basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but you can set up the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.

Eddie’s layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview just shows the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.

The Servers page shows all offered servers in the network, along with comprehensive info about each one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your location, and present users and server load. Impressive 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 readily available in each nation at a glance, together with a sign 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 found 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 numerous countries as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that country will be eliminated, 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 right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and choose the server you desire in a specific nation. 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). There are also a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s also a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.

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 display your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, 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 utilize a VPN with all the information they might ever desire about the different locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.

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

This enables you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it should always 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 genuinely knowledgeable user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few 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 specialist, it might be difficult to determine what specific settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.

Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply since of its complexity. Bear in mind that the program normally operates fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you look for them. If you occasionally long for power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t 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 application offers the exact same comprehensive setup options as its desktop sibling and valuable status information.

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 country and pick a specific city on the very same page. Some valuable text additions make the details more easy to understand, but it’s still rather difficult to comprehend 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 the majority of people will ever need. The software also attempts a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN usually connects rapidly 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, notifying us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to 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.

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. Certainly, one said there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really excellent overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive variety of server areas. This may limit the ease of access of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other areas.

Streaming

Streaming the big services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t 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 US Netflix rarely work, and when they do, discovering the ideal server needs lengthy trial and error. This is probably since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

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

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. A number of 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, allows port forwarding for up to 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works 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 won’t be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN provides a larger range of plans than most 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 option for individuals who live in a household house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five really should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Prices differs based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. The majority of plans use good value; however, 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 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 global options are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day free trial, which can be obtained by sending out 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 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 numerous other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers email assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a reaction. That said, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are handy and friendly, but the detailed answers can be quite technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of information, including a large FAQs section that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, however newbies will have the very same problems understanding 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 installation and use.

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

Solid Customer Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good costs, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t really user-friendly 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.

Maybe there are a lot of advanced alternatives.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with good prices. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. However even brand-new users might do much, much worse.

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

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

It may not ensure the exact same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good choice for consumers who value their privacy.

While it doesn’t 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 excellent option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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