AirVPN Vs Norton VPN: The Prizewinner Might Surprise You

  • Time to read: 16 min.
Affiliate Disclaimer

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to products/services. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the perfect service for you if yes.

While anybody can declare to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to safeguarding user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site starts 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 claim to be special nowadays, when it concerns VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of 2 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 presently 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 business either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is explained and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has 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 supplying a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up versus its competitors with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than the majority of, with only 246 servers spread across 23 nations.

A lot of servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small issue here is that the lack of diversity of servers reduces the number of international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to supply an accurate evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely 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 reputable and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Many 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 forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.

When it comes down to it, no preference is given to any service, protocol, or application. Net Neutrality is maintained. Significantly, you can get rid of web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it automatically improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it will not put the more recent protocol totally in place up until a few of its technical and personal privacy problems are addressed.

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

Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily switch servers as frequently as you like.

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

There is an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server information (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

All of it is nice, but since there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being offered will work. However taking a look at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service prior to registering. 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?

The business is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the outright concern, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal privacy. There is no individual details 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 improve services, but you can request this information to be erased at any time. This makes it among 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 using.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi 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 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 state they stick to EU personal privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can use it to learn who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level security supplied.

You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or nation blocks 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 indicates that anybody can check out 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 probably the best offered. 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 information, not even your genuine email address. That’s great since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However understand that you won’t be able to alter 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 countries that share intelligence data). Even if the government asked for user info, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to offer them.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

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

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Regrettably, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly user interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled 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 explain what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t function on your setup.

After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re ended up, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more considering that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 crucial AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.

Although it defines “kill switch” throughout 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 and secure tunnel. A lot of standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, however 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 six 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, along with in-depth information about each one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your area, 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 look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green sign is also revealed. Lots of 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 country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you might pick as many nations as you like.

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

By choosing a nation, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and pick the server you want in a particular nation. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “indication 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 info on ping times and load times.

The Speed tab displays an easy 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 most apps show 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 uploaded and downloaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the info they could ever want about the numerous locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s an invaluable resource.

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

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

The genuinely skilled user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the vast function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be hard to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.

Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Remember that the program typically works fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings till you search for them. However, if you occasionally long for 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 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 extremely feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software offers the very same extensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and handy status details.

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 pick a particular city on the exact same page. Some valuable text additions make the details more understandable, however it’s still rather tough to understand in some spots.

Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still a lot more than the majority of people will ever require. The software application also attempts a little bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of 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.

It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.

Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. Undoubtedly, 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 use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and circumstances like HD gaming, streaming, and video conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server locations. This may restrict the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for most people in the United States and Europe, however possibly 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 USA, whereas others do not.

Certainly, some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the significant streaming services. It appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the best server needs prolonged experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN doesn’t offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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.

However, streaming is absolutely not an area in which AirVPN excels, simply because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

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

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. A number of 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 good speeds on regional servers, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top 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 out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very convenient, especially 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 concerns whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN uses a larger range of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 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 outstanding option for people who reside in a household home or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should be enough for many people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Rates differs based upon the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. Many plans provide good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions offer the very best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, they utilize the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily transformed to and spent for in the currency of your choice.

The existing 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 alternatives are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending out 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 during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than numerous other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it uses email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has an extremely active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a response. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and practical, but the comprehensive responses can be quite technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a great deal of info, consisting of a large Frequently asked questions section that is broken up by subject.

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

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with very little 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 choices in the client app.

Strong Client Service.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Good costs, particularly for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or attractive like other services.

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are too many advanced choices.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are relatively 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 excellent rates. It’s plainly 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 brand-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 much better results than much of its rival VPN competitors.

When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more focused on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

It might not ensure the exact same level of personal 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 good 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 outstanding option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!

AirVPN Vs Avast VPN Comparison: In-Depth Look & Speed Test (2022)