AirVPN Vs Le VPN Comparison – Are They Any Good? Site Novice’s Candid View

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

While anyone can claim to be special these days, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website 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 anyone can claim to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it really 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 small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications provider Iridium previously ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).

During the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and information the privacy projects that AirVPN has actually established 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN compare to its rivals with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than a lot of, with just 246 servers spread across 23 countries.

Many servers are in Europe (aside from those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the lack of diversity of servers decreases the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That said, Air is well known for its outstanding performance across its server network, with many countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer an accurate evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally 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 trustworthy and protected way to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.

Numerous 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 preference is given to any application, service, or protocol. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic limitations, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly reputable. The lack of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place until a few of its technical and privacy concerns are dealt with.

AirVPN has actually likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.

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

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

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

All of it is nice, but considering that there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being used will work. But taking a look at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good thing about this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to 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?

The business is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no individual information 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, but you can ask for this info to be erased at any time. This makes it one of the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can 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 data.

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

They likewise say they follow EU privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher levels of personal privacy and data protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level security provided.

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

Open-source clients and a lively community online 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 huge plus. This indicates 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 actually been examined by a third party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the finest readily available. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine email address. That’s fantastic given that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. However know that you won’t be able to change your account’s password if you do not utilize one.

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

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, offered on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as excellent as those suppliers who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Regrettably, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface, so it may be a more tough learning curve for inexperienced users.

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

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. You simply click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do so much more given that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve 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 starts up, but you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Although it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has actually 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 protected tunnel. Most standard 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 merely 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 displays all available servers in the network, together with comprehensive info about every one, such as the server’s nickname, place, 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 suggested for you.

The Countries page shows the number of servers offered in each nation at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise shown. Many servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller 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 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 might select as numerous nations as you like.

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

By selecting a nation, 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 a simple throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be altered, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.

While the majority of apps show your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, such as the server’s location, load, current 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 ability to utilize a VPN with all the info they might ever want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s a valuable resource.

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

A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This allows 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 flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the large function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be tough to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.

However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program normally operates fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings till you look for them. Nevertheless, if you sometimes crave power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not wish to use Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send out all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.

How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?

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

Separate pages for country and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a country and choose a particular city on the exact same page. Some handy text additions make the information more understandable, but it’s still rather tough to understand in some spots.

Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than the majority of people will ever need. The software also tries a bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notification, 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.

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

Reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. One said there wasn’t a single nation where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really impressive overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a broader variety of server areas. This may restrict the ease of access of close-by servers for some users (which will always lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional option for most people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other areas.

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 states services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix rarely work, and when they do, discovering the right server requires prolonged experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?

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

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

File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (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 exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very convenient, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five devices simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an excellent option for people who live in a household house or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for many people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Rates differs based on the subscription length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. Most 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 offer real-time currency exchange rate for those overseas, so it can be quickly transformed to and spent 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 options are also 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 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it provides email assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t outsourced however can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are practical and friendly, but the detailed responses can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of information, consisting of a big FAQs section that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, but novices will have the very same troubles comprehending a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted 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 options in the client app.

Strong Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and In-depth Guides.

Good rates, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app might overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Possibly there are too many advanced options.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trusted, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s clearly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. But even new users might do much, much worse.

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

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

It may not ensure the exact same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which appoints you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great option for consumers who value their personal privacy.

While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s definitely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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