Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect service for you.
While anybody can claim to be special these days, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site starts with an appeal for your trust, stating, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can claim to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it really is.
They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications provider Iridium previously ran it, but AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).
Throughout the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger company either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has developed 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 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 personal privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than many, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.
The majority of servers are in Europe (aside from those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the absence of variety of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their personal privacy.
That stated, Air is well known for its impressive performance across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer an accurate 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 use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most reputable and protected way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.
Various ports and protocols are available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Moreover, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.
When it comes down to it, no preference is given to any application, protocol, or service. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can overcome web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. The absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol fully in place till some of its technical and personal privacy issues are dealt with.
AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to try out things.
Switching is unlimited, 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 existing load on each server, any existing issues, and a history of previous issues on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).
There is an in-depth specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the readily available ports, protocols, DNS server details (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 given that there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being provided will work. However taking a look at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A nice feature of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service before 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 personal privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no individual information 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 gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request this information 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 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 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 adhere to EU privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of personal privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a 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 top-level security offered.
You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or nation blocks OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what present users are saying about the service before signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This indicates that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a 3rd party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the very best available. It resembles that of some other suppliers, but still worth pointing out. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying happens every 60 minutes, and the user can minimize this value. The primary information channel uses AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s terrific considering that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be aware that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). Even if the government asked for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to give them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as excellent as those companies who use it as standard.
Setting up 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 assist you. While it’s not tough 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 load of download choices. There are builds for numerous operating 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 discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present doesn’t work on your setup.
After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re ended up, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
Two essential AirVPN functions 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 chosen last.
Although it specifies “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has 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 secure tunnel. A lot of standard kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, however 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 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 displays all readily available servers in the network, in addition to in-depth information about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your place, and existing users and server load. Remarkable stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page shows the number of servers readily available in each nation at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also shown. Numerous servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller sized ones have a 100 Mb/s connection.
A green checkmark, a red “X,” and a blank box can be found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you might choose as lots of countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be eliminated, efficiently 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, go back to the Servers page and choose the server you desire in a specific country. 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 likewise a “refresh” button to get updated info on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab displays 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 a lot of apps show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data downloaded and uploaded, and much more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the details they might ever desire about the numerous locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.
Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other data.
This allows you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it ought to 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 experienced user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.
If the large feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be difficult to find out what particular settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Keep in mind that the program generally works fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you look for them. Nevertheless, if you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide it.
Suppose you don’t want 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?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software provides the exact same substantial configuration options as its desktop sibling and useful status information.
Different 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 exact same page. Some practical text additions make the info more understandable, however it’s still quite tough to comprehend in some spots.
Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than most people will ever require. The software application likewise 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 generally connects rapidly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app spotting when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of 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.
Because AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition.
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 excellent 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 situations like HD gaming, video, and streaming conferencing certainly won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a wider number of server areas. This may restrict the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for most people in the United States and Europe, however possibly 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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Indeed, some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and does not work with any of the significant 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 rarely work, and when they do, finding the right server requires lengthy experimentation. This is probably since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Luckily, 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.
Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Permit P2P?
Yes, it does; every web protocol, consisting of 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 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. A number of applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has good speeds on regional servers, permits 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, triggered 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 Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really hassle-free, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any concerns whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five gadgets 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 option for individuals who reside in a family house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five really should suffice for most people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Pricing differs based on the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans use good value; however, longer memberships provide the best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be easily converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The current plans offered 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 options are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and using the 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than many other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it uses e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Significantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a reaction. That stated, the e-mail support is high quality, and the representatives are practical and friendly, but the detailed answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a lot of information, including a big Frequently asked questions area that is separated by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, but novices will have the very same problems comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with minimal loss.
Unlimited P2P allowed 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 Support.
Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.
Good costs, particularly for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t really easy to use or pretty like other services.
Client app might overwhelm more recent users.
It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Possibly there are too many advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are reasonably low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?
So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN service provider. However even brand-new users could do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and better results than a number of its rival VPN rivals.
When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more concentrated on protecting your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Although it may not ensure the same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent alternative for customers who value their personal privacy.
While it does not 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 exceptional choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!
AirVPN Vs TunnelBear: 7 Tests To Determine “Who’s Best” In 2022?