Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the best option for you.
While anybody can claim to be distinct these days, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website 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 anybody can declare to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.
They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications provider Iridium previously ran it, however 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 organization either.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the privacy projects that AirVPN has actually developed or supported. These consist of an online encryption tool, a net neutrality monitor, and other projects such as Tor, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and WikiLeaks.
AirVPN takes the unconventional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up versus its rivals with such strong privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than many, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.
Most servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor issue here is that the absence of variety of servers reduces the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its exceptional performance throughout its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply an accurate 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 protected and dependable way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.
Numerous ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Additionally, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So ignore PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
No choice is given to any protocol, service, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic constraints, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it automatically improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trusted. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place till some of its technical and personal privacy problems are addressed.
AirVPN has actually also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.
Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily switch servers as often as you like.
You can keep an eye on the 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 comprehensive specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information 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 have 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 say about the service prior to signing up. You do not need to take their word for it or the word of an audit.
Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?
When it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is extremely clear. Online personal privacy and security are the outright priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no personal 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 just collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request for this details to be erased at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.
As a result, nobody 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 stressing over your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping strategies 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 stick to EU personal privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll remain 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 nation obstructs OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what current users are stating about the service prior to registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This implies 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 actually been checked by a third party.
Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the best available. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your real e-mail address. That’s great because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. But know 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 data). But even if the government asked for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to give them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as great as those companies who utilize it as requirement.
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 user-friendly user interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.
With Windows, there are a load of download alternatives. There are builds for various operating 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 brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current does not function on your setup.
After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You simply click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more since AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
2 essential AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer launches, however you can’t select 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 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 safe tunnel. A lot of standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, but you can set up the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.
Eddie’s design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview merely shows the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page shows all available servers in the network, together with detailed information about each one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your location, and current users and server load. Excellent stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page shows the number of servers offered in each country at a look, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. Numerous 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 found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you may select as many countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be removed, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By choosing a nation, you are not instantly 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 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 show your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, existing user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data uploaded and downloaded, and a lot more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the information 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 an in-depth 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 through more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The truly experienced user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, among other 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 difficult to determine what particular settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of personalization.
Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Remember that the program normally functions fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. Nevertheless, if you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will supply it.
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 use an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application offers the exact same comprehensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status information.
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 country and pick a particular city on the very same page. Some helpful text additions make the info more understandable, however it’s still quite difficult to comprehend in some spots.
Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many 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 discuss what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN generally connects quickly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of 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 because AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.
Nevertheless, reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really impressive overall.
While it wasn’t quite on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and circumstances like HD video, gaming, and streaming conferencing definitely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive variety of server areas. This may restrict the ease of access of nearby servers for some users (which will always result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for most people in the United States and Europe, however maybe less so for other regions.
Streaming
Streaming the big 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.
Certainly, some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the significant streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.
Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the right server needs prolonged experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Fortunately, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.
Streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?
Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.
Plus, you can use port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with leading 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 won’t be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very hassle-free, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Prices
AirVPN offers a larger range of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 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 exceptional option for individuals who reside in a household house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 should be enough for most people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Rates varies based upon the subscription length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Most plans provide good value; however, longer memberships use the very best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to supply real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be easily converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The current 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 worldwide options are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and utilizing the discount coupon 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 throughout that time.
AirVPN Customer Support
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than many other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the agents are friendly and practical, but the extensive answers can be quite technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a lot of info, including a large FAQs section that is broken up by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various subjects, but newbies will have the very same problems comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Outstanding speeds with very little 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 usage.
Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.
Strong Customer Service.
Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.
Excellent rates, particularly for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or attractive like other services.
Client app might overwhelm more recent users.
It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Perhaps there are a lot of advanced choices.
Found in 14-Eyes Nation.
Server numbers are relatively low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with excellent rates. 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 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 better results than much of its competing VPN rivals.
When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more focused on securing your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
It might not ensure the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which designates you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good choice 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 very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an exceptional option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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AirVPN Review 2022 – Recommended Service? Expert’s Straightforward Opinion
