AirVPN Vs ProtonVPN Comparison 2022: We Have A Clear-Cut Champ!

  • Time to read: 15 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 stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect solution for you.

While anyone can declare to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website starts 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 anyone can declare to be distinct these days, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of two lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications provider Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 larger company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and information the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has 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 supplying a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN compare to its rivals with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than the majority of, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.

Many servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the absence of diversity of servers reduces 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 across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to provide an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, without any 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 dependable and protected method to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Numerous ports and protocols are offered; 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 unsafe protocols.

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

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly reputable. However, the absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol fully in place till a few of its technical and privacy issues are dealt with.

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 quickly change servers as frequently as you like.

You can keep an eye on the existing 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 information like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server information (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 given that there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being used will work. However taking a look 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 say about the service before registering. You don’t 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 company is extremely clear. Online privacy and security are the outright priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal 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 just gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request for this details to be deleted 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 determine what sort of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi 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 strategies will fail versus AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They likewise state they abide by EU privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or greater levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level protection 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 present users are saying about the service prior to registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This implies 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 first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real email address. That’s excellent since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. But know that you won’t have the ability to change 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 asked for user info, 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, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, despite Eddie’s significant capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who utilize it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

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

With Windows, there are a ton of download options. There are builds for numerous running 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 discuss what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most present does not work on your setup.

After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

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

Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. Most basic kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, but 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 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 readily available servers in the network, in addition to in-depth information about every one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your location, and present users and server load. Impressive stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the number of servers offered in each nation at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise revealed. Numerous 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 found 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 pick as lots of nations as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that nation will be eliminated, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To remove the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.

By picking a nation, you are not right away 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 displays an easy 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 the majority 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, existing 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 utilize a VPN with all the info they could ever desire about the various locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.

Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.

This permits you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it ought to constantly 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 truly knowledgeable 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 huge function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be hard to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.

However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Bear in mind that the program usually works fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings up until you try to find them. If you periodically long for power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not wish 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?

There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize a very feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software supplies the very same substantial setup choices as its desktop sibling and useful status information.

Separate pages for country and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and select a particular city on the exact same page. Some valuable text additions make the information more reasonable, however it’s still rather difficult 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 require. The software likewise tries a little more to help you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing 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 great, with the app spotting when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of personal 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 only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. Undoubtedly, one said there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really outstanding overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive variety of server areas. This might restrict 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 the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however possibly less so for other regions.

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 powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the U.S.A., 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 US Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the right server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

The good news is, 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.

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

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

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. Merely connect to the VPN server of your option 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 regional servers, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports at once (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 won’t be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely practical, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have shown torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any concerns whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN provides a larger variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five 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 excellent choice for people who live in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing varies based on the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans provide good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions provide the very best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to supply real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly converted to and paid for in the currency of your choice.

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 international alternatives are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending out a message to the support team and using the discount 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 Support

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t outsourced however can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get a reaction. That said, the email support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and helpful, however the comprehensive responses can be quite technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a great deal of information, including a big FAQs section that is separated by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however novices will have the exact same troubles understanding a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited P2P allowed 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 setup and usage.

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

Strong Customer Care.

Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good rates, particularly for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and damaging sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely user-friendly or attractive like other services.

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are too many advanced options.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

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 company. But even brand-new users might 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 many of its rival VPN rivals.

This VPN service is more focused on protecting your personal 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 privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great alternative 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!

Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!

AirVPN Vs Avast VPN Comparison 2022: Don’t Buy Before Reading This