AirVPN Vs ProtonVPN: Discover The Major Differences

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

While anyone can claim to be distinct these days, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows 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 begins with an appeal for your trust, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can declare to be special nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

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

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has established 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN created 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 a lot of, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.

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

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is popular for its impressive performance across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply an accurate assessment of performance, with no 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 use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most dependable and safe way to create encrypted tunnels. It provides 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. In addition, 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 preference is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can overcome internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is extremely reliable. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol totally in place up until some of its technical and privacy concerns are addressed.

AirVPN has actually likewise included 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 switch servers as frequently as you like.

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

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

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

A great thing about this is that you can see what other people say about the service prior to 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?

The business is extremely clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade 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 just gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can request this info to be deleted 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 type of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi network without worrying about your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.

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

They likewise say they stick to EU personal privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can utilize it to find out who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level protection 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 current users are stating about the service before signing up.

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 examined by a 3rd party.

Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the finest readily available. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s fantastic given that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). 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 main open-source application, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as good as those service providers who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the details you need to connect to a VPN.

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

With Windows, there are a lot of download alternatives. There are builds for various running systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current does not function on your setup.

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

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two essential AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer system launches, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Although it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. The majority 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 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 offered servers in the network, together with in-depth information about every one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Remarkable 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 variety of servers offered in each country at a look, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. 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 found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you may choose as many countries as you like.

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

By choosing a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and pick the server you desire in a specific country. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking the “sign 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 details 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 most apps display your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, 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 much more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the information they might ever desire about the various locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s an invaluable resource.

Lastly, Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other data.

A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This allows you to tweak the setup, such as whether it should always connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to attempt an SSH tunnel by means of more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the vast function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be tough to find out what particular settings do and how to get the wanted outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program usually works fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you look for them. If you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t want to use 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 instead. This software offers the same substantial setup options as its desktop sibling and helpful 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 pick a particular city on the exact same page. Some helpful text additions make the info more easy to understand, but it’s still rather challenging to comprehend in some spots.

Android does not have as many settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than most people will ever need. The software likewise tries a little bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to discuss what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to personal privacy, leak tests showed 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.

Since AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition.

Nevertheless, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. One said there wasn’t a single country where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a broader variety of server locations. This may restrict the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will constantly result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, but 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 actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is pretty bad 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 seldom work, and when they do, finding the ideal server needs prolonged experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other service providers, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

Fortunately, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can check to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.

Streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?

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. Merely connect to the VPN server of your option 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 Internet.

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (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, activated by default, will block all traffic from exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really convenient, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN provides a wider variety of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 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 exceptional option for people who live in a family house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Rates differs based on the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. A lot of plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer memberships offer 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 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 global options 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 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

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

Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t outsourced but can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get an action. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and handy, however the comprehensive answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

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

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, however beginners will have the same problems understanding a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with very little loss.

Unlimited P2P permitted 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.

Strong Customer Support.

Active Community Online Forums and In-depth Guides.

Excellent costs, especially 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 really easy to use or attractive like other services.

Client app might overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Possibly there are too many advanced choices.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trusted, and safe VPN service with great pricing. 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 company. However even brand-new users could do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than a number of its competing VPN rivals.

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

It may not guarantee the same level of 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 choice 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 very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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