AirVPN Vs IPVanish Comparison 2022: Don’t Buy Before Checking This

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Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the perfect solution for you if yes.

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

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website starts with an appeal for your trust, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anybody can declare to be unique nowadays, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of two lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. 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).

During 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.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is explained and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually 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 created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN compare to 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 throughout 23 countries.

The majority of servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small issue here is that the absence of variety of servers lowers the number of international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is well known for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.

They use transparent bandwidth allocation methods to offer a precise assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, without any speed constraints or time limits.

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most trustworthy and safe and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

Various ports and protocols are available; 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 boils down to it, no choice is given to any application, protocol, or service. Net Neutrality is maintained. Notably, you can get rid of internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic limitations, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately improves users’ privacy and security and is highly reputable. The lack of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol fully in place till some of its technical and personal privacy issues are resolved.

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

Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can easily change servers as frequently as you like.

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

There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the available ports, protocols, DNS server info (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

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

A nice feature of this is that you can see what other people state 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?

When it pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is extremely clear. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute concern, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no personal details 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 information” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request this info to be deleted at any time. This makes it among 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 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 information.

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

They also say they follow EU personal privacy guidelines which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher 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 learn who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection supplied.

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 existing users are saying about the service before signing up.

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

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the very best available. It’s similar to that of some other companies, but still worth discussing. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying happens every 60 minutes, and the user can reduce this value. The primary data channel uses AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your real e-mail address. That’s fantastic since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However be aware that you won’t have the ability to alter your account’s password if you don’t use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence information). But even if the government asked for user details, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Unfortunately, despite Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those providers who use it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use interface, so it may be a more challenging learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download alternatives. There are builds for different running 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 explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t work on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anybody, however Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.

Even though it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has actually 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 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 6 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 available servers in the network, together with comprehensive details about every one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your area, and present 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 shows the variety of servers available in each country at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also revealed. 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 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 pick as numerous nations as you like.

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

By choosing a country, you are not immediately 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 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 many apps display your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals 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, information downloaded and uploaded, and much more.

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

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

A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This enables you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it should always connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to try an SSH tunnel through more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the huge feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to determine what particular settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Remember that the program generally functions fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you search for them. If you occasionally long for power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not 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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the exact same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status info.

Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and choose a specific city on the exact same page. Some handy text additions make the details more reasonable, however it’s still quite 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 many people will ever need. The software application likewise tries a bit more to assist you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app spotting when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, 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 competition.

However, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. One said there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a broader number of server locations. This may limit the ease of access of close-by servers for some users (which will always lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for the majority of 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 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. Nevertheless, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix seldom 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 provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

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 absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to leap through. Merely connect to the VPN server of your option and start.

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 Web.

File sharing has decent 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 top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from leaving your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really hassle-free, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have shown torrenting to be impressive, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN uses a wider variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 devices concurrently, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.

This makes it an outstanding option for people who live in a family house or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five really should suffice for most people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing differs based on the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. A lot of plans provide good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions offer the very best offer.

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

The present plans offered are:

Three days- EUR2

One month – EUR7

Three months – EUR15 – works out to EUR 5/month

Six months – EUR29 – works out to EUR 4.83/month

One year – EUR49 – works out to EUR 4.08/month

Two years – EUR79 – works out to EUR 3.29/month

Three years – EUR99 – works out to EUR 2.75/month

AirVPN accepts major credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and a whole load of cryptocurrencies, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global alternatives 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 using the voucher 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 throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than numerous other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it provides e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a really active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Significantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced however can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get an action. That stated, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are handy and friendly, however the comprehensive answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of info, including a big FAQs section that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various subjects, but novices will have the exact same problems comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited P2P permitted with Port Forwarding.

Strong security on apps and servers alike, with advanced protocols and encryption.

Network Lock/Kill Switch.

Split tunneling.

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and routers.

Supports Tor over VPN.

Easy app installation and use.

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

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent rates, particularly for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists shield you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and harmful 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 very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are too many advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with good pricing. 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. However even new users could do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to use if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and much better results than much of its competing VPN competitors.

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

It may not guarantee the same level of personal privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which designates you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent option 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 outstanding option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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