AirVPN Vs IPVanish Comparison: Comprehensive Speed & Look Test (2022)

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Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect solution for you.

While anybody can claim to be unique nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN site starts 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 anybody can claim to be distinct these days, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of 2 lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications service provider Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently 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 bigger company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is discussed and information the 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 supplying a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

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

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

Most 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 worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That said, Air is popular for its impressive performance across its server network, with lots of countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

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

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most reliable and secure method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses 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. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget PPTP and other unsafe protocols.

No preference is given to any protocol, service, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely trustworthy. Nevertheless, the lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol totally in place up until some of its technical and privacy problems are dealt with.

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

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

You can monitor the current 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 offered ports, protocols, DNS server information (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

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

A great feature of this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service prior to signing up. You do not have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

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

The business is very clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute concern, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no personal info 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 data” to keep the server running and enhance services, but 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, nobody can identify you online; not even your ISP can tell what kind of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

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 information.

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

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

You can get a new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can use it to learn who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level protection 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 existing users are saying about the service before registering.

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, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have been inspected by a 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best readily available. It’s similar to that of some other providers, but still worth pointing out. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can minimize this value. The main information channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s fantastic because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence information). Even if the government asked for user information, AirVPN would have nothing to offer them.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, readily available on all significant 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 excellent as those service 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 assist you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use user interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a load of download choices. There are builds for different running systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing does not function on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more considering that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two essential AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows 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” throughout the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its secure tunnel. Most basic kill switches only 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 just displays 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 readily available servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive info about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and existing users and server load. Excellent stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the variety of servers offered in each nation at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise revealed. 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 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 country will be eliminated, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a country, click the empty box.

By choosing a country, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and select the server you want in a specific nation. 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 also a “refresh” button to get updated info on ping times and load times.

The Speed tab shows a basic throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be changed, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.

While a lot of apps display 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, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data 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 want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s a valuable resource.

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

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 attempt an SSH tunnel via more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The genuinely knowledgeable 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 vast feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be hard to find out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply because of its complexity. Keep in mind that the program typically works fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you try to find them. Nevertheless, if you periodically crave 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?

There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software provides the very same substantial setup choices as its desktop sibling and practical status information.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and pick a particular city on the exact same page. Some useful text additions make the info more reasonable, however it’s still rather difficult to comprehend in some spots.

Android does not have as many settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than most people will ever need. The software application also attempts a little bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to discuss what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to privacy, leak tests revealed 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.

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

Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. Undoubtedly, one said there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly remarkable overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server places. This may limit the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for many people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the big 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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and does not 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 United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the ideal server requires lengthy trial and error. This is most likely because, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

Luckily, 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.

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

Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?

Yes, it does; every web protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Indeed, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to configure, no hoops to leap through. Just 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 Internet.

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN uses a wider range of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 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 live in a household home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

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

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

The existing 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 choices are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending out a message to the support team and utilizing the discount coupon code they send you.

There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they haven’t broken the terms of service or utilized more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it uses email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has an extremely active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced but can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a reaction. That said, the email support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and valuable, however the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of info, including a large Frequently asked questions section that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, however beginners will have the exact same problems understanding a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited P2P permitted 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 choices in the client app.

Solid Customer Service.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Great prices, 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 very 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.

Possibly there are a lot of advanced alternatives.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with great rates. It’s clearly tailored 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 new users could do much, much worse.

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

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

Although it might not ensure the very same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent alternative for consumers 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 choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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