AirVPN Vs Norton VPN: 6 Tests To Decide “Who’s Number 1” In 2022?

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

While anybody can declare to be unique nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website begins with an appeal for your trust, mentioning, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can declare to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of two lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium formerly 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 bigger business either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is explained and details 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up versus its rivals with such strong personal privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with just 246 servers spread throughout 23 countries.

A lot of servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the lack of diversity of servers decreases the number of international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while preserving their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to provide a precise evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, without any speed constraints or time limits.

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most dependable and safe and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It provides 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. Additionally, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.

When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any service, application, or protocol. Net Neutrality is maintained. Notably, you can overcome web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, however it won’t put the newer protocol totally in place until some of its technical and privacy concerns are dealt with.

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

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

You can keep an eye on 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 comprehensive specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the readily 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, but given that there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being used will work. Looking at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good feature of this is that you can see what other people state about the service before signing up. You don’t need to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

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

When it concerns AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the company is extremely clear. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no personal info logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.

AirVPN doesn’t track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It just gathers 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, nobody can identify you online; not even your ISP can tell what sort of traffic or protocol you’re using.

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 data.

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

They also state they adhere to EU personal 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 brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can use it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection supplied.

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

Open-source clients and a lively community online forum allow 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 huge plus. This implies that anyone can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.

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

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real email address. That’s terrific considering that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you won’t be able to change your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

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

Who Or What Is Eddie??

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

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Establishing the app is simple, and it has all the details you require 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 interface, so it may be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a load of download choices. There are builds for numerous running 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 current doesn’t function on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. You just click Disconnect when you’re finished. Easy enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more since AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system starts up, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Even though it specifies “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its secure tunnel. Most standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, but 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 simply shows the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.

The Servers page displays all offered servers in the network, along with detailed info about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and present users and server load. Impressive stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the variety of servers offered in each country at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise revealed. 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 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 may choose as many nations as you like.

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

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

The Speed tab displays 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 most apps show your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals 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, information uploaded and downloaded, and much more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the information they might ever desire about the numerous locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.

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

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

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

If the vast feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be tough to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.

Nevertheless, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Bear in mind that the program normally works fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings till you look for them. However, if you sometimes crave power or configurability, the app will offer 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 exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software offers the exact same extensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and handy status details.

Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and choose a specific city on the very same page. Some helpful text additions make the details more easy to understand, however it’s still rather difficult to comprehend in some spots.

Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than most people will ever require. The software likewise tries a little more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

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

In terms of personal 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.

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

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

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

What AirVPN does not have is a wider number of server areas. This may limit the accessibility of close-by servers for some users (which will always result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for many 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 TV, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. However, it appears to deal 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, finding the best server requires prolonged experimentation. This is probably since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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

Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal 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 nothing to set up, no hoops to leap through. Just connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.

File sharing has good speeds on local servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (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 obstruct all traffic from exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN provides a larger range of plans than a lot 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 devices all at the same time.

This makes it an exceptional choice for individuals who live in a household home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for most people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

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

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they utilize 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 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 worldwide options are likewise 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 using 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 support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it provides e-mail support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get an action. That said, the email support is high quality, and the agents are handy and friendly, but the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a great deal of details, consisting of a large Frequently asked questions area that is separated by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, however novices will have the exact same troubles comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with very little 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 setup and use.

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

Strong Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.

Great costs, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t very easy to use or pretty 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.

Maybe there are too many advanced alternatives.

Located in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

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

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

When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more concentrated 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 appoints 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 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 excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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