Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the ideal option for you.
While anybody can claim to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site 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 anyone can claim to be special these days, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
They have actually been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of two lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications company 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).
Throughout the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger organization either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’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 providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with only 246 servers spread throughout 23 countries.
Many servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the lack of diversity of servers minimizes the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while preserving their personal privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its impressive performance across its server network, with many countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to provide a precise evaluation of performance, with no 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 use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and reputable method 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. So ignore PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it automatically improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trusted. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol completely in place up until some of its technical and privacy concerns are dealt with.
AirVPN has 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 quickly switch servers as frequently as you like.
You can keep track of the current load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).
There is an in-depth specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details 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, however given that there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being used will work. However taking a look at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A nice feature of this is that you can see what other people say 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?
When it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is really clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal 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 gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request 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 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 fretting 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 against AirVPN due to the fact that your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also say they abide by EU personal privacy regulations and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of personal privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can utilize it to learn 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 blocks OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community forum allow 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 implies that anyone can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been examined by a 3rd party.
Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the very best offered. It resembles that of some other companies, however still worth discussing. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying occurs every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The main data channel employs AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal info, not even your real email address. That’s terrific given that it lets you prevent 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, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence information). Even if the government asked for user information, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to provide 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, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, despite Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those service providers who utilize it as standard.
Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the information you require to connect to a VPN.
Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous running 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 present doesn’t operate on your setup.
After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re completed, you just click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, but Eddie can do a lot more because AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
Two crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer system launches, however you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.
Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. Most standard kill switches just 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 six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview merely 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 displays all offered servers in the network, in addition to detailed information about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and existing users and server load. Outstanding 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 sign is likewise shown. 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 nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you may choose as numerous countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be gotten rid of, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To remove the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By picking 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 displays a basic 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 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 use a VPN with all the info they could ever desire about the various locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s an invaluable resource.
Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other information.
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 attempt an SSH tunnel through more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really knowledgeable user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface via the Logs pane.
If the vast feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be hard to determine what specific settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply due to the fact that of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program usually functions fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you search for them. If you sometimes yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide it.
Suppose you do not 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 utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software supplies the very same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status info.
Separate 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 specific city on the exact same page. Some valuable text additions make the information more understandable, 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 most people will ever need. The software application also attempts a bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing 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, informing us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In regards to 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 only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
However, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. Undoubtedly, one said there wasn’t a single nation where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really outstanding overall.
While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and circumstances like HD streaming, gaming, and video conferencing absolutely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a broader variety of server areas. This may limit the availability of nearby servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for most people in the United States and Europe, but maybe less so for other areas.
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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Certainly, 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 says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, discovering the best server requires prolonged trial and error. This is most likely since, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Thankfully, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
However, streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow 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 set up, no hoops to jump through. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice 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 poorly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.
File sharing has good speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for up to 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really practical, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
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 outstanding choice for individuals who reside in a family home or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should be enough for many people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Prices varies based on the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. Most plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions offer the best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to supply real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The current plans 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, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of worldwide alternatives 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 assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Significantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t outsourced but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a reaction. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the agents are helpful and friendly, however the comprehensive responses can be quite technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a lot of details, consisting of a large Frequently asked questions section that is separated by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, but beginners will have the same problems comprehending a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Outstanding 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 installation and use.
Many, many advanced settings and customization options in the client app.
Solid Customer Support.
Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.
Excellent costs, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and damaging sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t really easy to use or attractive like other services.
Client app might overwhelm more recent users.
It is really hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Perhaps there are too many advanced options.
Located in 14-Eyes Nation.
Server numbers are reasonably low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trusted, and safe VPN service with great rates. It’s clearly geared 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 provider. However even brand-new users could do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than much of its competing VPN rivals.
This VPN service is more focused on safeguarding your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
It may not ensure the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which appoints you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good alternative 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 very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an outstanding choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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