AirVPN Vs HideMyAss Comparison: Are Either Actually Worth The Money? (7 Thoughts)

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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 claim to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN site begins 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 special nowadays, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of 2 lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service provider 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 company’s history is explained and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually developed 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 supplying 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 than many, with just 246 servers spread across 23 countries.

A lot of servers are in Europe (besides those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the lack of variety of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, with no speed constraints or time limits.

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most protected and reliable way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Many 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 hazardous protocols.

No preference is given to any protocol, service, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can get rid of web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly dependable. Nevertheless, the lack of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol totally in place till a few of its technical and privacy concerns are resolved.

AirVPN has actually also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.

Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily switch servers as often as you like.

You can keep track of 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 specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the readily available ports, protocols, DNS server information (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

All of it is nice, however considering that there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good aspect of this is that you can see what other people say about the service prior to 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 business is extremely clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the outright priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no individual info logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.

AirVPN does not track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It just collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can request for this info to be deleted at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

As a result, nobody can identify you online; not even your ISP can determine 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 system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

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

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

You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can use it to discover 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 forum allow you to get a sense of what present users are stating 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 just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best offered. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your real e-mail address. That’s fantastic given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful 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). But even if the government requested user info, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as excellent as those companies who use it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the information 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 user-friendly user interface, so it may 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 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 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, but Eddie can do so much more given that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 essential AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer launches, however 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 actually 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 safe and secure tunnel. Most 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 design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six 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, in addition to in-depth information about every one, such as the server’s nickname, place, 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 understand whether a server is suggested for you.

The Countries page displays the number of servers readily available in each country at a look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise 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 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 countries as you like.

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

By picking a nation, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and pick the server you want in a particular country. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “indication 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 information on ping times and load times.

The Speed tab displays a basic 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, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data uploaded and downloaded, and much more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the details they could ever desire 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 allows 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 via more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The genuinely proficient user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.

If the large function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be tough to determine what particular settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.

Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just since of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program normally functions fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings until you search for them. However, if you sometimes crave 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 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 utilize an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application provides the very same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status info.

Separate 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 specific city on the same page. Some useful text additions make the information more understandable, however it’s still rather challenging to understand 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 likewise attempts a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN typically connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app discovering when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notice, 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 competition because AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.

However, reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. One stated there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly outstanding overall.

While it wasn’t quite on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and circumstances like HD video, streaming, and gaming conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server areas. This may restrict the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will always lead to 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 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 quite poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. However, it appears to deal 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, finding the right server requires prolonged trial and error. This is probably since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

The good news is, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.

However, streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit 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 set up, no hoops to leap through. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Numerous applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.

File sharing has good speeds on local servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in 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 out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN provides a broader range of plans than most 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 excellent option for people who live in a family house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for many people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Prices varies based on the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. Many plans offer good value; however, longer subscriptions use the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they use the European Central Bank to provide real-time currency exchange rate for those overseas, so it can be quickly converted to and paid for in the currency of your choice.

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 global choices are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and utilizing 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 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 offers email assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t outsourced but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get an action. That stated, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the agents are friendly and practical, but the thorough answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a great deal of information, including a big Frequently asked questions section that is broken up by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, however beginners 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.

Unlimited P2P allowed 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 use.

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

Solid Customer Service.

Active Community Online Forums and In-depth Guides.

Great costs, particularly for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists protect you from ads, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely user-friendly or attractive like other services.

Client app may overwhelm more recent users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are too many advanced choices.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with excellent 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 company. However even brand-new users could 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 a lot of its competing VPN rivals.

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

Although it may not guarantee the very 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 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 option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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