Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the best option for you if yes.
While anybody can declare to be unique these days, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.
AirVPN sticks 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 declare to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
They’ve been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications service provider Iridium previously ran it, however 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 decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger business either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the 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 offering a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
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 many, with just 246 servers spread out across 23 countries.
The majority of 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 minimizes the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its outstanding performance throughout its server network, with numerous nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to provide a precise evaluation 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 reputable method to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.
Various ports and protocols are offered; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any application, service, or protocol. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, you can get rid of internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it automatically improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely dependable. The lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol totally in place till some of its technical and privacy concerns are addressed.
AirVPN has likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can easily change servers as frequently as you like.
You can keep an eye on the present load on each server, any existing issues, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the offered 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 since there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community online 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 individuals say about the service before signing up. 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?
When it pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the company is very clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal 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 only gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can ask for this details to be deleted 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 figure out what type of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
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 information.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping tactics will fail versus AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also state they abide by EU personal privacy regulations and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll stay 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 country blocks OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community forum enable you to get a sense of what present users are stating about the service prior to signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This suggests that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.
Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the very best offered. It resembles that of some other providers, however still worth mentioning. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying happens every 60 minutes, and the user can decrease this value. The primary data channel uses AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real email address. That’s great given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. But know that you won’t be able to change 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 data). However even if the government requested user details, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s considerable capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who utilize it as standard.
Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the info you require 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 user interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a heap of download choices. There are builds for various operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing doesn’t function on your setup.
After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You just click Disconnect when you’re finished. Simple enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more since 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 permits you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t pick 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 very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its secure tunnel. Most standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, but 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 6 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 in-depth details about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and current users and server load. Impressive stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is suggested for you.
The Countries page displays the variety of servers readily available in each nation at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also shown. Many servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller ones have a 100 Mb/s connection.
A green checkmark, a red “X,” and a blank box can be discovered on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a 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 may pick as numerous nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be eliminated, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To remove the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By selecting a nation, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. Connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “sign out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket).
The Speed tab displays a 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 most apps display your current 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, data downloaded and uploaded, and much more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the info they might ever want about the various locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Lastly, Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other information.
A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. 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. Or whether to attempt an SSH tunnel by means of more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The truly proficient user can enter 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 large feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be difficult to determine what particular settings do and how to get the wanted outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.
However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program generally operates fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings until you try to find them. However, if you sometimes yearn for power or configurability, the app will supply 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?
Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application offers the exact same comprehensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and practical status details.
Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and pick a particular city on the exact same page. Some practical text additions make the details more easy to understand, but it’s still quite difficult to comprehend in some spots.
Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than the majority of people will ever require. The software application likewise tries a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to discuss what each option does.
Speeds/Performance
Using 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 excellent, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of personal privacy, leak tests showed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which 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 since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.
However, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be excellent. Undoubtedly, one stated there wasn’t a single nation where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really outstanding overall.
While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and situations like HD gaming, streaming, and video conferencing absolutely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a wider number of server areas. This might limit the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional option for many people in the United States and Europe, however maybe less so for other regions.
Streaming
Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and does not work with any of the major streaming services. It appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.
Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, discovering the best server requires prolonged trial and error. This is probably due to the fact that, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.
Streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, just because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?
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 configure, no hoops to leap 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 badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for up to 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with leading 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 will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really practical, especially 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 & Pricing
AirVPN offers a wider range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five gadgets simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.
This makes it an excellent choice for people who reside in a family home or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Pricing varies based upon the subscription length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. Many plans offer good value; however, longer subscriptions provide the best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The existing 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 worldwide options 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 utilizing 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 used more than 5 GB of data during that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t contracted out but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a response. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the agents are handy and friendly, but the detailed answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of info, consisting of a big Frequently asked questions area that is separated by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several topics, however newbies will have the very same troubles comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.
Unlimited 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.
Strong Client Service.
Active Community Online Forums and In-depth Guides.
Good rates, particularly 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 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.
Maybe there are too many advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are relatively low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with great prices. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN provider. Even new users might 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 better results than a number of its competing VPN rivals.
This VPN service is more focused on securing your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
It may not guarantee the exact same level of 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 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 very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an outstanding choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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