AirVPN Vs PIA Comparison – Are They Any Good? Website Newbie’s Candid View

  • 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 wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect option for you.

While anyone can declare to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website 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 claim to be distinct these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of two lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service provider Iridium previously 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).

During the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger organization either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and details the 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 providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

Many servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the lack of diversity of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is well known for its outstanding performance throughout its server network, with many countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply a precise assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, with no 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 protected and trustworthy 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. So forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.

When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can get rid of web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. The absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place up until some of its technical and privacy concerns 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 monitor the present load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous issues 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 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, however given that there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice thing about this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service before 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 company is extremely clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute concern, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no individual info 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 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, no one 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 fretting about your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping tactics will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also say they stick to EU privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact 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 no one can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level protection offered.

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 current users are stating about the service prior to registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means 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.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the finest 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 information, not even your real e-mail address. That’s great because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. But understand that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence information). However even if the government requested user information, 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, offered on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, regardless of Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those providers who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly user interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a heap of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit flavors, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to discuss what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing does not work on your setup.

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You simply click Disconnect when you’re completed. Easy 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 have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows 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 picked 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 and secure tunnel. The majority of 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 layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 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 shows all available servers in the network, in addition to detailed info about every one, such as the server’s label, place, 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 shows the variety of servers readily available in each country at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise revealed. Many 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 country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that nation 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 country 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 country, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and select the server you desire 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 also 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 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 display your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained information, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information uploaded and downloaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize 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 an invaluable resource.

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

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

The truly skilled user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface via the Logs pane.

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

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program usually functions fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings till you look for them. If you sometimes crave power or configurability, the app will offer it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not wish 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 a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software offers the exact same comprehensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and practical status information.

Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and pick a specific city on the exact same page. Some handy text additions make the info more reasonable, however it’s still quite tough 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 most people will ever need. The software also tries a little more to help you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.

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

In regards to privacy, leak tests showed 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 just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition.

Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. Indeed, one stated there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually impressive overall.

While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and scenarios like HD video, streaming, and video gaming conferencing certainly will not slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a broader variety of server areas. This might limit the availability of nearby servers for some users (which will always result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for most people in the United States and Europe, but maybe 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 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.

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 says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix rarely work, and when they do, discovering the best server requires prolonged trial and error. This is most likely because, unlike other service providers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

Luckily, on AirVPN’s website, 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 certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, just because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

Yes, it does; every web protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Indeed, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to set up, no hoops to leap through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. A number of applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly 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 top 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 unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely practical, 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 provides a wider variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 devices concurrently, 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 reside in a household house or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for most people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Rates differs based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. Many plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions offer the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they utilize the European Central Bank to supply real-time currency exchange rate for those abroad, so it can be easily converted to and spent for in the currency of your option.

The present 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 worldwide alternatives are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and using the coupon code they send you.

There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they have not broken the terms of service or used more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has an extremely active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Significantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a response. That stated, the email support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and helpful, however the detailed answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of information, consisting of a big Frequently asked questions area that is separated by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, but beginners will have the exact same troubles comprehending a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted 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 use.

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

Solid Customer Service.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Excellent rates, 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 user-friendly or attractive like other services.

Client app might overwhelm newer users.

It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Possibly there are a lot of advanced alternatives.

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, dependable, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN provider. However even new users might 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 number of its rival VPN competitors.

This VPN service is more focused on safeguarding your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.

Although it might not guarantee the very same level of personal privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great alternative 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 exceptional option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!

AirVPN Vs IPVanish – What’s The Most Reliable Choice For 2022?