AirVPN Vs StrongVPN: The Victorious One May Shock You

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

While anybody can declare to be special nowadays, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website starts 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 anybody can declare to be distinct these days, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications service provider Iridium previously ran it, but AirVPN took control of 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 larger organization either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is discussed and information the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has developed 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 against its rivals with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than a lot of, with just 246 servers spread across 23 countries.

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

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is well known for its exceptional performance throughout its server network, with lots of nations having high-performance physical individual servers.

They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer a precise evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, with no 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 secure and dependable method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

Numerous ports and protocols are offered; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Additionally, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other hazardous protocols.

When it comes down to it, no preference is given to any service, application, or protocol. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, you can overcome web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic constraints, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ privacy and security and is highly reputable. The absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it won’t put the more recent protocol completely in place until a few of its technical and personal privacy concerns are addressed.

AirVPN has actually likewise added 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 switch servers as often as you like.

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

There is a detailed specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the available ports, protocols, DNS server details (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s gain access to 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 forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good thing about this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to 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 privacy and security are the outright top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack 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 only gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can ask for this info to be erased 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 determine what type of traffic or protocol you’re using.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi network without worrying about your computer 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 say they stick to EU privacy guidelines which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or higher levels of personal privacy and information 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 find out who you are. You’ll stay 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 existing 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 probably the best offered. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal info, not even your genuine email address. That’s fantastic since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you won’t be able to change your account’s password if you don’t utilize 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 information, AirVPN would have 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 major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those suppliers who use it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a load of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit flavors, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present does not function on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anybody, however Eddie can do a lot more considering that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer starts up, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.

Even though it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has 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 tunnel. Most standard kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but you can establish the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.

Eddie’s design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 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 readily available servers in the network, together with detailed details about each one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your area, and current users and server load. Impressive 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 nation at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also shown. Many 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 discovered 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 basically a favorites list; you may pick as lots of nations as you like.

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

By picking a nation, you are not right away 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 many 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 a lot more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the info they could ever want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.

Lastly, Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.

A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This permits you to fine-tune 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 via more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The truly competent user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.

If the huge function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be hard to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to customization.

Nevertheless, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program normally works fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you search for them. However, if you periodically long for 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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software supplies the exact same substantial setup choices as its desktop sibling and practical status information.

Separate 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 details more easy to understand, however it’s still rather tough to comprehend 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 the majority of people will ever require. The software application also attempts a little bit more to assist you, with extra text subtitles to discuss what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app discovering when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, 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 reveals 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 exceptional. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly 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, and streaming conferencing definitely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive variety of server locations. This may restrict the accessibility of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for most people in the United States and Europe, but 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 been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Certainly, some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the significant streaming services. Nevertheless, 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, finding the right server requires prolonged trial and error. This is probably because, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not offer 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.

Nevertheless, streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated 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 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 decent speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at the same time (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 gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five devices all at once, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an excellent option for people who live in a family home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for most people, other VPN providers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing varies based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Most plans offer good value; however, longer subscriptions offer the very best offer.

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

The present 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 worldwide choices are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and using the coupon 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 used more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a reaction. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and valuable, but the detailed responses can be pretty technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, consisting of a big Frequently asked questions section that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, however newbies will have the exact same difficulties understanding a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted P2P enabled 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 Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.

Excellent costs, 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 easy to use or pretty like other services.

Client app might overwhelm newer users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced alternatives.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with good rates. 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 company. 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 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 may not ensure 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 an excellent option for consumers 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 option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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