Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the perfect option for you if yes.
While anybody can declare to be distinct these days, when it pertains to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website 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 anybody can declare to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service provider Iridium formerly ran it, but 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 larger business either.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is discussed and details the 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN compare to its competitors with such strong privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than many, with just 246 servers spread throughout 23 nations.
Many servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor issue here is that the absence of variety of servers decreases the number of global AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their privacy.
That said, Air is popular for its outstanding performance across its server network, with lots of nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to offer a precise assessment of performance, without any 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 safe and dependable way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses 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 unsafe protocols.
No preference is given to any service, application, or protocol when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly reliable. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol completely in place till a few of its technical and privacy problems are addressed.
AirVPN has likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can quickly change servers as often as you like.
You can keep track of the present 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 an in-depth specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the available 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 considering that there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being used will work. But looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A nice thing about this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service before signing up. You don’t 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 personal privacy and security are the outright top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no personal details logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.
AirVPN doesn’t track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It only gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request this info to be erased at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.
As a result, nobody can identify you online; not even your ISP can figure out what kind of traffic or protocol you’re using.
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 methods will fail versus AirVPN due to the fact that your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They likewise say they abide by EU privacy regulations 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 conceal your IP so that nobody can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level security supplied.
You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or country obstructs OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what present users are saying about the service before signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anyone can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have been inspected by a 3rd party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best available. It’s similar to that of some other companies, but still worth pointing out. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying occurs every 60 minutes, and the user can minimize this value. The primary data channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s fantastic because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. But be aware that you won’t have the ability 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 countries that share intelligence data). But even if the government requested user information, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to provide.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as great as those companies who utilize it as standard.
Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the details you require to connect to a VPN.
Sadly, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a lot of download alternatives. There are builds for various operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing doesn’t operate on your setup.
After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re ended up, you just click Disconnect. Easy enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
2 crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits 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.
Even though it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the exact 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 only 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 simply displays 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 in-depth info about each one, such as the server’s label, place, latency in milliseconds from your place, and present users and server load. Impressive 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 available in each country at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise revealed. Numerous 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 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 may select as lots of countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be removed, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a country, click the empty box.
By selecting a nation, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. Connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “sign out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket).
The Speed tab shows 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 a lot of apps show your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data downloaded and uploaded, and far more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the information they might ever want about the numerous locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a valuable resource.
Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.
This allows you to tweak 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 support, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really skilled user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface via the Logs pane.
If the huge feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be difficult to find out what particular settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to customization.
Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Remember that the program usually operates fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings until you try to find them. If you sometimes long for power or configurability, the app will supply it.
Suppose you do not wish to utilize Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.
How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software offers the very same extensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and useful status details.
Different 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 helpful text additions make the information more easy to understand, however it’s still rather tough to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than many people will ever need. The software likewise tries a bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to discuss what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN typically 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, notifying 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.
Since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Nevertheless, reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. Indeed, one said there wasn’t a single country where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable overall.
While it wasn’t quite on top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and scenarios like HD video, gaming, and streaming conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a wider variety of server locations. This may limit the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however maybe 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 been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Indeed, some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and does not work with any of the significant streaming services. Nevertheless, 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, discovering the best server needs prolonged trial and error. This is probably because, unlike other service providers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can check to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
Streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely 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. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to jump through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your option and start.
Plus, you can use port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. A number of 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 decent speeds on regional servers, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be impressive, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
AirVPN provides a wider variety of plans than a lot of 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 gadgets all at the same time.
This makes it an outstanding choice for people who live in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Rates varies based upon the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. The majority of plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions use the very best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time currency exchange rate for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.
The existing 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 alternatives are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and using the voucher code they send you.
There’s likewise a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they have not broken the terms of service or utilized more than 5 GB of data throughout 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 e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a really active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced but can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are useful and friendly, but the thorough answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, including a large FAQs section that is separated by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, however newbies will have the same troubles comprehending a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Exceptional 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 setup and use.
Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.
Strong Customer Support.
Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.
Great prices, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists shield you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t very easy to use or pretty like other services.
Client app might overwhelm newer users.
It is really hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Maybe there are a lot of advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are relatively low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?
So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with excellent pricing. It’s clearly tailored 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 supplier. 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 competing VPN rivals.
When it comes down to it, this VPN service is more concentrated on safeguarding your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Although it may not ensure the exact same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and enables 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 choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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