AirVPN Vs StrongVPN: The Prizewinner Might Surprise You

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

While anyone can declare to be special these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN site 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 anybody can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of two lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service provider Iridium previously ran it, however 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 decade, 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 explained and details the privacy projects that AirVPN has actually developed or supported. These consist of 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 providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

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

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than the majority of, with only 246 servers spread throughout 23 countries.

A lot of servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the absence of variety of servers lowers the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is popular 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 provide a precise evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, without any 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 offers more security than the military.

Various ports and protocols are 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. Forget about PPTP and other hazardous protocols.

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

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is extremely trusted. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the more recent protocol totally in place till a few of its technical and privacy issues are resolved.

AirVPN has actually also 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 often as you like.

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

There is a comprehensive specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the readily available 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, but because there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community forum or the detailed 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 before registering. 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 absolute priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal information 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 information” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can ask for 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 determine what sort of traffic or protocol you’re using.

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

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

They also state they comply with EU privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or higher levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can use it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level protection provided.

If your ISP or country 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 allow you to get a sense of what existing users are stating about the service prior to registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This means that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but only ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been inspected by a 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the best readily available. The first exchange utilizes 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 details, not even your real email address. That’s excellent because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you won’t be able to change 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). However even if the federal 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, offered on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, despite Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

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

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

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer system launches, however you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked 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 tunnel. Most basic 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 layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 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, along with in-depth details about each one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and current users and server load. Impressive stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the number of servers readily available in each nation at a glimpse, together with an indicator 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 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 basically a favorites list; you may pick as numerous nations as you like.

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

By selecting a country, 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 a basic 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 display your existing 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 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 want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s an invaluable resource.

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

This enables you to tweak the setup, such as whether it must always 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 knowledgeable user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the large feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to determine what specific settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of personalization.

Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just since of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program typically works fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. Nevertheless, if you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

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

How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software offers the same comprehensive setup options as its desktop sibling and helpful status details.

Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and select a specific city on the same page. Some useful text additions make the information more reasonable, but it’s still rather tough to understand in some spots.

Android does not have as many settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than many people will ever require. The software also tries a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to 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.

It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors due to the fact that AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.

However, reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really impressive overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a broader number of server locations. This may restrict the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for most people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps less so for other areas.

Streaming

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

Indeed, some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and does not work with any of the major streaming services. It appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the ideal server needs prolonged trial and error. This is probably since, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

The good news is, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming sites 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 Permit P2P?

Yes, it does; every web protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Undoubtedly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to jump through. Just connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.

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

File sharing has good speeds on regional servers, permits port forwarding for up to 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, activated by default, will block all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very convenient, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN uses a larger range of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five gadgets at the same time, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an exceptional option for individuals who live in a family home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Pricing varies based on the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. A lot of plans use good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions provide the very best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they use the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed to and spent for in the currency of your option.

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

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

There’s also 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 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 email assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Significantly, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a response. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the agents are practical and friendly, however the detailed answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, including a big FAQs section that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various subjects, however novices will have the very same problems comprehending a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted P2P enabled 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 installation and usage.

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

Strong Customer Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good rates, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app may overwhelm more recent users.

It is very 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 fairly 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 excellent prices. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN service provider. Even new users could do much, much worse.

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

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

Although it may not guarantee the same level of 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 good option for customers who value their privacy.

While it doesn’t 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 excellent option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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