AirVPN Vs PureVPN: Excellent VPNs Compared

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

While anybody can declare to be unique nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site begins 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 claim to be unique these days, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications company Iridium formerly ran it, however AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is discussed and information 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 offering a VPN developed 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 sized than a lot of, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.

A lot of servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the absence of diversity of servers decreases the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while preserving their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation methods to offer a precise evaluation of performance, without any 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 utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most reliable and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Various 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.

No choice is given to any protocol, application, or service when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can get rid of web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the more recent protocol totally in place until a few of its technical and personal privacy concerns are addressed.

AirVPN has actually likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.

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

You can keep an eye on the current 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 comprehensive specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server details (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

All of it is nice, however because there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being used will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A great feature of this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service before signing up. You do not have 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 personal privacy and security are the absolute concern, with security 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 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 for 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 tell 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 methods will fail against AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also state they stick to EU privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can use it to find out who you are. You’ll stay 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 nation obstructs OpenVPN.

Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what present users are stating about the service before signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best offered. It resembles that of some other service providers, however still worth discussing. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying occurs every 60 minutes, and the user can decrease this value. The primary data channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real email address. That’s great given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be aware that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence information). Even if the government asked for user details, 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, available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, in spite of Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those providers who use it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Regrettably, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a load of download alternatives. There are builds for different 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 explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t function on your setup.

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re ended up, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN provides 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, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.

Even though it specifies “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has actually 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 secure tunnel. Many basic 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 displays all offered servers in the network, in addition to in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your area, and present users and server load. Excellent stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the variety of servers readily available in each country at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also shown. Many servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller ones have a 100 Mb/s connection.

A green checkmark, a red “X,” and a blank box can be found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a nation, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you might choose as many countries as you like.

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

By selecting a country, you are not instantly 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 a simple 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 display your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows 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 uploaded and downloaded, and much more.

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

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

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

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

If the huge feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.

Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Remember that the program normally works fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you try to find them. Nevertheless, if you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will provide 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 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 an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the exact same substantial configuration choices as its desktop sibling and handy status details.

Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and choose a particular city on the same page. Some helpful text additions make the information more reasonable, 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 a lot more than the majority of people will ever require. The software application likewise attempts a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN usually 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, informing us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to personal privacy, leak tests revealed 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.

Due to the fact that AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.

Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be excellent. Certainly, one said there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable 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, gaming, and video conferencing absolutely will not slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a wider variety of server places. This might restrict the availability of neighboring servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, but 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 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 quite poor for streaming and does not work with any of the significant streaming services. However, it appears to deal 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, discovering the best server needs lengthy trial and error. This is probably because, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not 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, simply because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

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 utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very hassle-free, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have shown torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN offers a larger variety of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five devices simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an exceptional choice for individuals who live in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five should be enough for many people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

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

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 easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.

The current 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, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global alternatives are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and utilizing the 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 used more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

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

Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get an action. That said, the email support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and handy, but the extensive answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

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

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different subjects, however newbies will have the very same problems comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo 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 options in the client app.

Strong Customer Support.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Excellent costs, especially for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or pretty like other services.

Client app may overwhelm more recent users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Maybe there are a lot of advanced choices.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are reasonably low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with great prices. It’s plainly 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 company. But even new users could do much, much worse.

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

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

Although it might not guarantee the exact same level of 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 option for consumers who value their personal privacy.

While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s definitely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an outstanding choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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