AirVPN Vs Hotspot Shield Comparison: What You Really Should Know

  • Time to read: 16 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 stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the best option for you if yes.

While anyone can declare to be special these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it really is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to safeguarding user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website 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 providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications supplier Iridium previously ran it, however AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 information the privacy projects that AirVPN has 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 providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than the majority of, with only 246 servers spread out across 23 nations.

A lot of servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor issue here is that the lack of diversity of servers minimizes the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while preserving their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is well known for its outstanding performance throughout its server network, with numerous nations 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 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 trusted way to create encrypted tunnels. It provides 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. In addition, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So ignore PPTP and other unsafe protocols.

When it comes down to it, no choice is given to any service, protocol, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly reliable. Nevertheless, the lack of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol totally in place up until some of its technical and personal privacy concerns are resolved.

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

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

You can keep an eye on the existing load on each server, any existing issues, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).

There is an in-depth specs 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 access points.

All of it is nice, but since there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service prior to registering. You don’t need to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

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

The business is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal 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 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 gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request this info 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 sort 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 versus AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They likewise state they comply with EU privacy policies which 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 no one can utilize it to find out who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level security provided.

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

Open-source clients and a lively community online forum allow you to get a sense of what current users are stating about the service before signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anybody can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best offered. The first exchange uses 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 information, not even your genuine email address. That’s excellent given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However be aware that you will not have the ability to change your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). Even if the federal government asked for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to provide them.

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, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, in spite of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those service providers who utilize it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the info you require to connect to a VPN.

Sadly, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly user interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous 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 introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re finished, you just click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more given that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer system launches, however you can’t select 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 exact same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. A lot of 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 layout 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 offered servers in the network, together with in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s label, place, latency in milliseconds from your place, and existing users and server load. Remarkable stuff!

This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is suggested for you.

The Countries page displays the variety of servers offered in each nation at a look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. Many 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 nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you may choose as many nations 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 choosing a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and choose the server you desire in a particular 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 details on ping times and load times.

The Speed tab displays 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 a lot of apps show your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information uploaded and downloaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the information they could ever desire about the different locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.

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

This allows you to tweak the setup, such as whether it ought to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The really experienced user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the vast function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be difficult to determine what specific settings do and how to get the wanted outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.

Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Remember that the program usually functions fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings until you search for them. However, if you periodically long for power or configurability, the app will supply 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 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 a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software supplies the same substantial configuration options as its desktop sibling and valuable status info.

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 select a specific city on the same page. Some handy text additions make the information more easy to understand, but it’s still rather challenging 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 the majority of people will ever need. The software also attempts a little bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app finding 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.

It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition because AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a broader variety of server places. This may limit the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly result in 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 TV, 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.

Certainly, some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and does not work with any of the significant 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 hardly ever work, and when they do, discovering the best server requires lengthy trial and error. This is most likely since, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

Nevertheless, streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN stands out, merely because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

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

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several 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 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 block all traffic from leaving your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN offers a larger variety of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 devices 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 outstanding option for individuals who reside in a family house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Pricing differs based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. The majority of plans provide good value; however, longer memberships offer 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 easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.

The present 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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global alternatives are also 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 voucher code they send you.

There’s likewise 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 Support

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it uses e-mail support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a reaction. That said, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are practical and friendly, but the thorough answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of details, consisting of a big FAQs area that is broken up by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various subjects, however beginners 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 minimal loss.

Unrestricted 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 setup and use.

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

Strong Customer Care.

Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good prices, particularly for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and damaging sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or pretty like other services.

Client app might overwhelm more recent users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Possibly 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 great prices. It’s clearly 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 service provider. Even new users could do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and better results than many of its rival VPN rivals.

When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more concentrated on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

It might not ensure the exact 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 alternative for customers who value their personal privacy.

While it does not 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 excellent option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!

AirVPN Vs Le VPN Pricing: A Full Guide For 2022