Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the best service for you if yes.
While anybody can declare to be special these days, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website begins with an appeal for your trust, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anybody can declare to be distinct these days, when it pertains to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it really is.
They have actually been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of two lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service provider Iridium previously 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 decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger business either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and information 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong personal privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with just 246 servers spread across 23 countries.
A lot of servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the lack of diversity of servers minimizes the number of international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their privacy.
That stated, Air is popular for its outstanding performance across its server network, with lots of nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer a precise 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 trusted and secure method to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.
Various ports and protocols are available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget PPTP and other hazardous protocols.
When it comes down to it, no preference is given to any service, application, or protocol. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. However, the absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol totally in place till a few of its technical and personal privacy problems are resolved.
AirVPN has also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly change servers as frequently as you like.
You can keep track of the present load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous issues on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).
There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the 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 trust that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A nice thing about this is that you can see what other people say 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 comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is very clear. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute concern, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade 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 data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request this info 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 type 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 because your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also say they abide by EU personal privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can use it to find out who you are. You’ll stay 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 country obstructs OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community forum allow you to get a sense of what existing users are stating about the service before signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a 3rd party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best available. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of 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 great since it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. However be aware that you will not 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). Even if the federal government asked for user information, AirVPN would have 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, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, despite Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those service providers who use it as requirement.
Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the information you need to connect to a VPN.
There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly user interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for inexperienced users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download alternatives. 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 describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t operate on your setup.
After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re completed, you just click Disconnect. Easy enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
2 crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer starts up, however 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” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. A lot of basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, however you can set up the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.
Eddie’s layout 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 available servers in the network, in addition to in-depth information about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and current users and server load. Outstanding stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page displays the number of servers offered in each country at a look, 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 sized 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 country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you might select as lots of nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be removed, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By picking 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 display your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data downloaded and uploaded, and far more.
Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the info they might ever desire about the various locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a valuable resource.
Finally, Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other data.
This enables you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it needs to always connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The genuinely competent user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.
If the huge function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to determine what particular settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.
Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just due to the fact that of its intricacy. Remember that the program normally functions fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you look for them. Nevertheless, if you periodically long for power or configurability, the app will offer it.
Suppose you do not want to use 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 utilize a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application provides the very same comprehensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and practical status information.
Different pages for country 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 practical text additions make the details more easy to understand, however it’s still quite challenging to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than many people will ever need. The software likewise tries a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each choice does.
Speeds/Performance
Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN usually connects rapidly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app discovering when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notice, 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.
Due to the fact that AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be excellent. Indeed, one stated there wasn’t a single country where they might complain 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 scenarios like HD video, streaming, and video gaming conferencing certainly won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive variety of server areas. This might restrict the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for many people in the United States and Europe, but 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 been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the USA, 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 United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the right server requires prolonged experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Thankfully, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.
Nevertheless, streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow 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 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 decent speeds on local servers, allows port forwarding for up to 20 ports at the same time (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, triggered by default, will obstruct all traffic from leaving your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really convenient, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Prices
AirVPN uses a wider range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 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 excellent option for individuals who reside in a family home or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Prices differs based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Many plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer memberships provide the best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they use the European Central Bank to provide real-time currency exchange rate for those overseas, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.
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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global choices are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day 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 used more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.
AirVPN Customer Support
AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it offers email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active support online 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 response. That stated, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the agents are friendly and handy, but the detailed answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a lot of information, including a big FAQs section that is separated by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, but novices 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 minimal loss.
Unlimited P2P allowed 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 usage.
Many, many advanced settings and customization options in the client app.
Solid Customer Service.
Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.
Good prices, particularly for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t very user-friendly or attractive like other services.
Client app might overwhelm more recent users.
It is very hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Perhaps there are too many advanced alternatives.
Located in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?
So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good prices. 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 company. However even brand-new users could do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than a lot of its rival VPN competitors.
This VPN service is more focused on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
Although it might not ensure the same level of personal privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great choice for customers who value their privacy.
While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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