AirVPN Vs Hotspot Shield Comparison (2022) – 1 Clear Winner

  • Time to read: 15 min.
Affiliate Disclaimer

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to products/services. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the best service for you if yes.

While anybody can claim to be special nowadays, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website begins 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 anyone can claim to be special these days, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 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 organization either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is discussed and information the 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 created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than a lot of, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.

Most servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small issue here is that the lack of variety of servers decreases the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is popular for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer an accurate assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, without any 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 safe and secure and reputable method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses 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. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.

When it comes down to it, no choice is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic limitations, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is extremely trusted. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its competitors. That said, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol fully in place up until a few of its technical and privacy problems are addressed.

AirVPN has actually also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to try out things.

Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly change servers as often as you like.

You can keep track of the current load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems 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 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 need to trust that what is being used 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 don’t have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

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

When it concerns AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is extremely clear. Online personal privacy and security are the outright concern, with protection 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 information” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request this details 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 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 worrying 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 since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also say they follow EU personal privacy regulations 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 brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level security provided.

You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or country obstructs OpenVPN.

Open-source clients and a lively community forum enable you to get a sense of what current users are stating about the service prior to registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This implies that anyone 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 inspected by a third party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the finest available. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s fantastic given that it lets you avoid 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). However 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 major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as great as those companies who use it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the information you need to connect to a VPN.

Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a load of download alternatives. There are builds for different operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit flavors, and in portable or installable 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 operate on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re finished, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more considering that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 essential AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer system launches, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Even though it defines “kill switch” anywhere in 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 safe and secure tunnel. Many standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, however you can establish 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 available servers in the network, together with in-depth details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your location, 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 variety of servers readily available in each nation at a look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign 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 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 many countries as you like.

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

By selecting a country, you are not right away 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 altered, 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 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 a lot more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the info they could ever want about the various locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.

Lastly, Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.

This enables you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it needs to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor support, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The truly knowledgeable user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.

If the vast feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Remember that the program normally functions fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings till you look for them. Nevertheless, if you sometimes yearn for power or configurability, the app will offer it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t wish to use 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 an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application offers the very same comprehensive setup options as its desktop sibling and handy status information.

Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a country and choose a specific city on the exact same page. Some handy text additions make the information more easy to understand, however it’s still rather difficult 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 many people will ever need. The software application also tries a little more to help you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to personal 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.

Because AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.

However, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be excellent. Indeed, one said there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really excellent overall.

While it wasn’t quite on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for most people, and scenarios like HD streaming, video, and video gaming conferencing definitely will not slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server locations. This may restrict the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will always lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for most people in the United States and Europe, however maybe less so for other areas.

Streaming

Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has 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.

Indeed, some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and does not work with any of the major streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to deal 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 best server needs prolonged experimentation. This is probably because, 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 definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Merely connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.

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

File sharing has decent speeds on local 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 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 unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely convenient, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN uses a larger range of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 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 outstanding choice for individuals who reside in a family home or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing varies based upon the subscription length, and each plan includes the exact same features. The majority of plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer memberships provide the very best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those abroad, 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 international alternatives are likewise 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 utilizing the discount coupon code they send you.

There’s likewise a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they have not 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 numerous other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it provides e-mail support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) 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 but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get an action. That said, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and helpful, however the detailed answers can be quite technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

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

AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, however newbies will have the very same troubles understanding a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted 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 setup and use.

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

Strong Customer Care.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent rates, 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 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.

Maybe there are too many advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

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 great pricing. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. But even 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 much better results than a number of its competing VPN competitors.

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 might not guarantee 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 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 definitely the very 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 PureVPN: The Complete Buyer’s Checklist