AirVPN Vs PureVPN Comparison: Are These Companies Still Reliable?

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Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect solution for you.

While anybody can declare to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it really is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. 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 genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications company 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).

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

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the privacy projects that AirVPN has actually 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 created 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 many, with only 246 servers spread across 23 nations.

Many servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor issue here is that the lack of variety of servers reduces the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply an accurate assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally 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 trustworthy and protected method 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. Moreover, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget PPTP and other risky protocols.

No preference is given to any service, protocol, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately enhances users’ privacy and security and is extremely trustworthy. The absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the more recent protocol completely in place up until a few of its technical and privacy problems are dealt with.

AirVPN has actually also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.

Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily change servers as often as you like.

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

There is an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the readily available 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 since there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A great aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service prior to signing up. 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 really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the outright concern, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no individual details logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.

AirVPN does not track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It only collects non-identifiable “technical 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 among 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 techniques will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They likewise state they stick to EU personal privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of 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 use it to learn who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection offered.

If your ISP or nation obstructs OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.

Open-source clients and a lively community forum enable you to get a sense of what current users are saying about the service prior to signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This suggests that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but only ProtonVPN’s apps have been examined by a third party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the best readily available. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine email address. That’s excellent considering that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. However know that you will not have the ability to change your account’s password if you do not use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence information). 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 main open-source application, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, in spite of Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who use it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Unfortunately, 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 easy to use interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a load 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 discuss 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 ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anybody, but Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two crucial AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables 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 picked last.

Although 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 standard 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 six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview merely 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 displays all readily available servers in the network, along with in-depth details about each one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your place, and existing users and server load. Remarkable stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the variety of servers available in each nation at a look, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. 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 might pick as many nations as you like.

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

By picking a nation, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and pick the server you want in a particular country. 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). There are also a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s likewise a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.

The Speed tab shows 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 a lot of apps show your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, such as the server’s location, load, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data downloaded and uploaded, and much more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the details they might ever want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a valuable resource.

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

A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This enables 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 try an SSH tunnel via more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The genuinely proficient user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.

If the vast function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be tough to find out what particular settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.

Nevertheless, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Bear in mind that the program typically functions fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you try to find them. If you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t want to utilize Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.

How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?

There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software provides the exact same comprehensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and helpful 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 particular city on the same page. Some valuable text additions make the information more easy to understand, 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 a lot more than the majority of people will ever need. The software application likewise tries a little more to assist you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

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

In terms of 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 competitors.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. 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 circumstances like HD video gaming, video, and streaming conferencing absolutely will not slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive number of server areas. This may limit the availability of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for most people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Indeed, some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t 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 United States Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the right server requires prolonged experimentation. This is most likely because, unlike other providers, AirVPN doesn’t offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?

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

Plus, you can use port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Numerous applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, enables port forwarding for as much as 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 gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN uses a wider variety of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five devices all at once, 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 individuals who live in a family home or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for most people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Pricing differs based upon the subscription length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Many plans provide good value; however, longer memberships offer the best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they use the European Central Bank to supply real-time currency exchange rate for those overseas, so it can be easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.

The existing plans offered are:

Three days- EUR2

One month – EUR7

Three months – EUR15 – works out to EUR 5/month

Six months – EUR29 – works out to EUR 4.83/month

One year – EUR49 – works out to EUR 4.08/month

Two years – EUR79 – works out to EUR 3.29/month

Three years – EUR99 – works out to EUR 2.75/month

AirVPN accepts major credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and a whole load of cryptocurrencies, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of international options are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

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

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

AirVPN Customer Support

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

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

AirVPN’s site has a lot of information, consisting of a large Frequently asked questions section that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however newbies will have the very same problems understanding a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted P2P allowed with Port Forwarding.

Strong security on apps and servers alike, with advanced protocols and encryption.

Network Lock/Kill Switch.

Split tunneling.

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and routers.

Supports Tor over VPN.

Easy app setup and use.

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

Strong Customer Support.

Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent costs, 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 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.

Maybe there are too many advanced choices.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably 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 great 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. Even brand-new users might do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than a lot of its rival VPN rivals.

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

Although it may not guarantee the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good alternative for consumers who value their privacy.

While it doesn’t 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 exceptional option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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