Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the best option for you if yes.
While anyone can claim to be special these days, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website 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 declare to be distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.
They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications supplier 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).
During the last decade, 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 business’s history is discussed and details the personal 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong personal privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with just 246 servers spread out across 23 nations.
Most 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 international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their privacy.
That stated, Air is well known for its impressive performance across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, with no 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 secure and reputable 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. So forget PPTP and other hazardous protocols.
No choice is given to any protocol, application, or service when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic limitations, and traffic shaping.
The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. The absence of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol totally in place till some of its technical and personal privacy concerns are addressed.
AirVPN has actually likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly change servers as often as you like.
You can keep an eye on the present 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 a comprehensive specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server info (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.
All of it is nice, but considering that 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 in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A great feature of this is that you can see what other people say 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?
When it concerns AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is very clear. Online personal privacy and security are the outright priority, with defense 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 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 enhance services, but you can ask for this information to be erased at any time. This makes it one of 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 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 methods will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also state they follow EU privacy guidelines which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact 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 use it to find out who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level protection supplied.
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 allow 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 big plus. This suggests that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a third party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the very best available. It’s similar to that of some other providers, but still worth mentioning. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying happens every 60 minutes, and the user can reduce this value. The primary data channel employs AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real e-mail address. That’s excellent considering that 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 do not utilize one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). Even if the federal government asked for user details, AirVPN would have 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 significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, in spite of Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those suppliers who utilize it as requirement.
Establishing the app is simple, and it has all the information you need to connect to a VPN.
Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly 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 various running 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 brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current does not operate on your setup.
After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re finished, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do so much more since AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
2 essential AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer system starts up, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected 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 protected tunnel. Most basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but 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 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 offered servers in the network, together with in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and current users and server load. Impressive stuff!
This tab likewise 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 country at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also 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 nation, 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 many nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be gotten rid of, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By selecting a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and pick the server you desire in a particular nation. 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 also a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab displays 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 many apps show 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 details they might ever desire about the various locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s an invaluable resource.
Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.
A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This allows 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 try an SSH tunnel via more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The genuinely skilled user can go 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 determine what specific settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to customization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Bear in mind that the program typically functions fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings till you search for them. If you periodically long for power or configurability, the app will provide it.
Suppose you do not 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?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application supplies the same substantial configuration choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status information.
Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and select a specific city on the exact same page. Some valuable text additions make the details more reasonable, 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 a lot more than most people will ever require. The software application also attempts a little bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each choice 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 good, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, 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 reported speeds to be exceptional. One stated there wasn’t a single country where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly outstanding 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 scenarios like HD video, streaming, and video gaming conferencing definitely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a wider number of server areas. This might limit the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for many people in the United States and Europe, but maybe less so for other regions.
Streaming
Streaming the big services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
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 rarely work, and when they do, finding the best server needs prolonged trial and error. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
Nevertheless, streaming is absolutely not an area in which AirVPN excels, just 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. Certainly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to set up, no hoops to leap through. Merely connect to the VPN server of your option and start.
Plus, you can use port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.
File sharing has good speeds on regional 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 works with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from leaving your device 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 hassle-free, 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 with no problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
AirVPN provides a wider range of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five devices concurrently, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.
This makes it an excellent choice for people who live in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should be enough for many people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Pricing varies based on the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. The majority of plans provide good value; however, longer subscriptions provide the very best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.
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 worldwide 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 discount 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 utilized 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 does not have live chat, it provides email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has an extremely active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and valuable, however the detailed responses can be quite technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of info, including a large Frequently asked questions area that is broken up by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, however newbies will have the same difficulties comprehending a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.
Unlimited P2P permitted 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 options in the client app.
Solid Customer Care.
Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.
Excellent prices, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t really easy to use or pretty like other services.
Client app may overwhelm newer users.
It is very hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Maybe there are a lot of advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are reasonably low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with excellent prices. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN provider. But even new users might do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than a number of its competing VPN rivals.
When it comes down to it, this VPN service is more focused on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
It might not ensure the exact same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which appoints you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent choice 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 excellent option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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9 Little Known Things You Didn’t Know About AirVPN
