AirVPN Vs TorGuard: Awesome VPNs Matched Up

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Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the perfect option for you if yes.

While anyone can declare to be distinct nowadays, when it concerns VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN stands 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 anybody can claim to be special these days, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications provider Iridium previously ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently 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 business either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and details the privacy projects that AirVPN has actually established 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up versus its rivals with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

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

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to provide an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely 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 trustworthy method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

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

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

The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly reputable. However, the absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, but it will not put the more recent protocol fully in place until a few of its technical and personal privacy issues are attended to.

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

Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly switch servers as often as you like.

You can keep track of the existing 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 specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the readily available ports, protocols, DNS server information (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s gain access to points.

All of it is nice, but given that there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being offered will work. But looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service prior to registering. You do not need 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 very clear. Online privacy and security are the outright top priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade 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 just collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request for this information to be deleted at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

As a result, no one 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 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 methods 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 likewise state they stick to EU privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or higher 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 no one can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level protection provided.

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 online forum enable you to get a sense of what present users are stating about the service before registering.

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

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the finest offered. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

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. But be aware that you will not have the ability to change your account’s password if you do not utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence information). However even if the federal government requested user information, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to give them.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, despite Eddie’s significant capability 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 easy, and it has all the info you need to connect to a VPN.

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

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

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re finished, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more considering that AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 essential AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t pick 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 actually 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 secure tunnel. Most basic kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, but 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 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 displays all readily available servers in the network, along with in-depth information about every one, such as the server’s label, place, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Excellent stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the variety of servers available in each country at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also shown. Numerous 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 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 countries 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 nation, click the empty box.

By choosing a country, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and pick the server you desire in a particular country. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “indication 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 likewise a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.

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 most apps show your current 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, information uploaded and downloaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the info they could ever want about the various locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a valuable resource.

Lastly, Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other data.

This permits you to tweak the setup, such as whether it must constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the vast feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be difficult to find out what particular settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to customization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just since of its intricacy. Remember that the program usually functions fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. If you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the same comprehensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and practical 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 country and select a specific city on the exact same page. Some valuable text additions make the info more reasonable, but it’s still rather difficult to understand in some spots.

Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than many people will ever require. The software also tries a little bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

Using 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 excellent, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of 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.

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

Nevertheless, reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. Certainly, one stated there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly outstanding overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive number of server places. This might limit the availability of nearby 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, however perhaps 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 actually 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.

Some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major 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 US Netflix rarely work, and when they do, discovering the best server needs lengthy trial and error. This is most likely since, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

Luckily, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.

Nevertheless, streaming is absolutely not an area in which AirVPN stands out, simply because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on personal privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Allow P2P?

Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Simply connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. A number of 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, allows port forwarding for up to 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 integrated kill switch, triggered 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 really convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no concerns whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN uses a larger variety of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 devices at the same time, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.

This makes it an exceptional choice for people who live in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for most people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

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

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they utilize the European Central Bank to supply real-time currency exchange rate for those abroad, so it can be quickly converted 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 also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending out 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 throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it uses email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has an extremely active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

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

AirVPN’s site has a lot of info, consisting of a large FAQs area that is broken up by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, but beginners will have the exact same difficulties understanding a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent 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 installation and usage.

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

Strong Customer Service.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Great 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 attractive 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 too many advanced alternatives.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably 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 excellent pricing. It’s clearly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN service provider. Even brand-new users might 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 many of its rival VPN competitors.

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 might not ensure the exact 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 alternative for customers who value their privacy.

While it doesn’t 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 option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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