AirVPN Vs Hotspot Shield: Which Is Better? (2022 Compared)

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Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the ideal option for you if yes.

While anybody can claim to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it really is.

AirVPN stands 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, stating, “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 unique these days, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of two lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications supplier Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).

Throughout the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger business either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details 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 providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up versus its competitors with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than many, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.

A lot of servers are in Europe (besides those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the lack of diversity of servers lowers the number of global AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while preserving their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is popular for its outstanding performance across its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.

They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer a precise assessment 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 use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and secure and dependable way 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 unsafe protocols.

When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any service, application, or protocol. Net Neutrality is maintained. Significantly, you can get rid of internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely reliable. The absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, but it will not put the more recent protocol completely in place till some of its technical and personal privacy issues are dealt with.

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

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

You can keep an eye on the current 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 a comprehensive 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 gain access to points.

All of it is nice, but considering that 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 comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service before signing up. 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?

When it pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the company is really clear. Online personal privacy and security are the outright top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no personal 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 only collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request 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 tell what kind of traffic or protocol you’re using.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi 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 due to the fact that your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They likewise state they follow EU personal privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or greater levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can use it to discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level security supplied.

If your ISP or nation blocks OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.

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

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 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best readily available. It resembles that of some other companies, however still worth discussing. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The main data channel uses AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine email address. That’s fantastic considering that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. But understand that you will not have the ability to alter your account’s password if you do not use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). However even if the federal government requested for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely 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. Despite Eddie’s considerable capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as great as those suppliers who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide 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 inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download options. 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 discuss what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing does not operate on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re completed, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more considering that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually 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 starts up, but 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 specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. A lot of basic kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, however you can set up the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.

Eddie’s design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview simply shows the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.

The Servers page displays all offered servers in the network, along with detailed details about each one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Outstanding stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the number of servers readily available in each country at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise revealed. Lots of servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller sized ones have a 100 Mb/s connection.

A green checkmark, a red “X,” and a blank box can be 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 pick as many countries as you like.

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

By picking a country, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and select the server you want in a specific country. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking the “indication out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket). There are likewise a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s also a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.

The Speed tab displays an easy 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 show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, such as the server’s location, load, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information uploaded and downloaded, and much more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the info they could ever desire about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s an invaluable resource.

Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other data.

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

The genuinely experienced user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface through the Logs pane.

If the large feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the desired results. 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 ever see the settings until you search for them. However, if you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will offer it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t wish to utilize 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 incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software supplies the exact same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status details.

Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and choose a particular city on the same page. Some valuable text additions make the information more reasonable, however it’s still quite 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 much more than the majority of people will ever require. The software application also tries a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of 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 just supports OpenVPN.

However, reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. Indeed, one stated there wasn’t a single country where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly outstanding overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a wider number of server areas. This might restrict the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, but possibly 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 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 bad for streaming and doesn’t 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 US Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the ideal server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely because, unlike other providers, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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 certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, simply because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Just connect to the VPN server of your choice 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’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.

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

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your gadget 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 really convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN uses a broader variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five devices 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 live in a family home or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN companies offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. A lot of plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions use the very best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, they utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time currency exchange rate for those abroad, so it can be easily transformed to and spent for in the currency of your option.

The present plans 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 international choices are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than numerous other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a reaction. That stated, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and practical, however the detailed answers can be quite technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of info, including a large FAQs area that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, however newbies will have the same troubles comprehending a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted P2P enabled 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 Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent costs, particularly for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t really easy to use or attractive like other services.

Client app may overwhelm more recent users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with excellent 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 service provider. Even brand-new users might 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 better results than many of its competing VPN competitors.

When it comes down to it, this VPN service is more focused on securing your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

Although it may 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 an excellent choice 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 best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an outstanding option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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