Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the ideal option for you if yes.
While anyone can declare to be distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands 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 anyone can declare to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.
They have actually been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications supplier Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 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 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 providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up versus its competitors with such strong privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than many, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.
The majority of servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the absence of variety of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.
That stated, Air is well known for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to offer a precise evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely 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 safe and reputable way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers 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. 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 service, protocol, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can overcome web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ personal privacy and security and is extremely reputable. The lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it won’t put the newer protocol completely in place till some of its technical and personal privacy issues are addressed.
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 often as you like.
You can keep an eye on the current load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the readily available ports, protocols, DNS server info (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s gain access to points.
All of it is nice, however given that there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A good feature of this is that you can see what other people say about the service prior to registering. 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?
When it concerns AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is very clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute concern, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no individual 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 only collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can request for this information 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 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 system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping methods 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 say they adhere to EU privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher 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 learn who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level security supplied.
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 online forum allow you to get a sense of what present users are saying about the service before signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This suggests that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a third party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best readily available. The very first exchange uses 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 information, not even your genuine email address. That’s fantastic given that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you do not use 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 details, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to offer 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. In spite of Eddie’s considerable capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as excellent as those service providers who use it as standard.
Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the details you require to connect to a VPN.
Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use user interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download options. There are builds for different operating 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 describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current does not work on your setup.
After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more considering that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
2 key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer starts up, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.
Even though it defines “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 safe and secure tunnel. Most basic kill switches just 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 six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview just 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 each one, such as the server’s label, place, latency in milliseconds from your place, and present users and server load. Excellent stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is suggested for you.
The Countries page displays the number of servers available in each country at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise revealed. Lots of 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 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 pick as lots of nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be gotten rid of, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To remove the green checkmark from a country, 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 a lot of apps show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals 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 uploaded and downloaded, and a lot more.
Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the info they could ever want about the numerous locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.
Lastly, 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 enables you to tweak 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 try an SSH tunnel through more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The genuinely proficient user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface by means of the Logs pane.
If the vast function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of personalization.
Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just since of its intricacy. Remember that the program generally functions fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you try to find them. However, if you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.
Suppose you don’t want 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?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application supplies the same substantial setup choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status details.
Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and select a particular city on the very same page. Some valuable text additions make the info more easy to understand, but it’s still quite 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 a lot more than many people will ever need. The software application also tries a little bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each option 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 excellent, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of 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.
Because AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Nevertheless, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. Undoubtedly, one stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly impressive 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 circumstances like HD video gaming, streaming, and video conferencing certainly will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a wider variety of server places. This may restrict the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will always lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other areas.
Streaming
Streaming the huge 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 utilized by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and doesn’t 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 ideal server needs prolonged trial and error. This is probably since, unlike other service providers, AirVPN doesn’t offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Fortunately, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal 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 utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Numerous applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.
File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at the same time (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from leaving 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 convenient, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have shown torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Prices
AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets all at once, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.
This makes it an excellent choice for individuals who reside in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for many people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Pricing differs based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. Many plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer memberships provide the best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.
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 international 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 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 during that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides 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 outsourced however can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get an action. That stated, the email support is high quality, and the representatives are helpful and friendly, however the thorough answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of details, consisting of a big FAQs section that is broken up by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, however newbies will have the same troubles comprehending a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Exceptional speeds with very little loss.
Unrestricted P2P enabled 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.
Solid Client Service.
Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.
Great prices, 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 really user-friendly or pretty like other services.
Client app may overwhelm more recent users.
It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Possibly there are too many advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?
So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trusted, and safe VPN service with good pricing. 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 service provider. 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 many of its rival VPN rivals.
This VPN service is more focused on securing your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
Although it may 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 an excellent option for customers who value their privacy.
While it doesn’t 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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AirVPN Vs VeePN Comparison: Comprehensive Speed & Look Test (2022)
