Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the ideal option for you.
While anyone can claim to be unique nowadays, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN shows 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 anybody can declare to be distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
They’ve been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications service provider Iridium previously ran it, but 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 larger organization either.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with just 246 servers spread across 23 countries.
A lot of servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the lack of diversity of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their personal privacy.
That said, Air is popular for its outstanding performance across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply an accurate evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely 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 safe method 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. Furthermore, 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, protocol, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can get rid of internet constraints 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 reputable. The lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol fully in place up until some of its technical and personal privacy problems are attended to.
AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can quickly change servers as frequently as you like.
You can monitor the present load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous issues 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 readily 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, but given that there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being offered will work. But 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 people say about the service before registering. 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 personal privacy and security are the absolute priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal 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 just collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can ask for this info 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 wi-fi network without fretting about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping techniques will fail versus AirVPN due to the fact that your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also state they comply with EU privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the 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 no one can use it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection provided.
You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or country blocks OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community 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 anybody can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been examined by a 3rd party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the finest offered. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine email address. That’s excellent because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you do not utilize one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence data). Even if the federal government asked for user information, AirVPN would have nothing to offer them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, available on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as good as those providers who use it as requirement.
Setting up the app is simple, 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 hard to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download alternatives. There are builds for various 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 describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t function on your setup.
After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
Two key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system launches, however you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.
Even though it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in 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. The majority of 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, together with in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and present users and server load. Impressive stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page displays the number of servers readily available in each country at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. Lots of 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 discovered 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 essentially a favorites list; you might pick as lots of 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 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 shows a simple 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 the majority of apps show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained information, 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 much more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the details they could ever want about the various locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s an invaluable resource.
Finally, Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.
A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This allows you to tweak the setup, such as whether it should always connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to attempt an SSH tunnel by means of more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really experienced user can go 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 vast feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be hard to determine what specific settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of personalization.
However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program typically functions fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings till you look for them. Nevertheless, if you sometimes crave power or configurability, the app will offer it.
Suppose you do not wish to utilize 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?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use a very feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the exact same substantial configuration options as its desktop sibling and valuable status information.
Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and pick a particular city on the very same page. Some helpful text additions make the info more easy to understand, however it’s still rather challenging to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than the majority of people will ever need. The software also tries a little more to help you, with additional text subtitles to discuss 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 great, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of privacy, leak tests revealed 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.
It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.
Nevertheless, reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. One stated there wasn’t a single country where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really impressive overall.
While it wasn’t rather at the top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and situations like HD video, streaming, and gaming conferencing certainly won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive variety of server places. This may limit the ease of access of nearby servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for many people in the United States and Europe, however possibly less so for other regions.
Streaming
Streaming the huge 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 powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. Nevertheless, 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, finding the ideal server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Luckily, 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.
Nevertheless, streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely because 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, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to set up, no hoops to jump through. Merely 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 system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really practical, specifically 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 & Prices
AirVPN provides a larger range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets at the same time, 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 family home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 should be enough for most people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Prices differs based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. A lot of plans use good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions use the very best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed 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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global choices are also 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 haven’t 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 lots of other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides e-mail support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Significantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t outsourced however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a reaction. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are useful and friendly, but the thorough responses can be pretty technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of info, including a big Frequently asked questions area that is separated by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, but newbies will have the exact 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.
Unrestricted P2P permitted 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 usage.
Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.
Solid Client Service.
Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.
Great rates, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t really easy to use or attractive like other services.
Client app may overwhelm more recent users.
It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Possibly 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, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good prices. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN company. But even brand-new users could do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and much better results than a lot of its rival VPN competitors.
This VPN service is more focused on protecting your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
Although it may not 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 a great choice for customers who value their personal privacy.
While it doesn’t hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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AirVPN Review – 9 Pros & 2 Cons You Need To Discover In 2022
