Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the best service for you if yes.
While anyone can declare to be unique these days, when it pertains to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site starts with an appeal for your trust, stating, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can claim to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it really is.
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 hackers and activists. The satellite communications provider Iridium formerly ran it, but 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.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually 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 providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN compare to its rivals with such strong personal privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.
Most servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor issue here is that the lack of diversity of servers minimizes the number of international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its exceptional performance across its server network, with many countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer a precise evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely 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 safe and secure and reputable way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses 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. Additionally, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget PPTP and other hazardous protocols.
No preference is given to any service, application, or protocol when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely trusted. Nevertheless, the lack of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the more recent protocol completely in place till some of its technical and privacy issues are addressed.
AirVPN has actually also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can quickly change servers as often as you like.
You can monitor the present load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is a comprehensive specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the available ports, protocols, DNS server info (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 because there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A nice thing about this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service before signing up. 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 company is very clear. Online privacy and security are the outright top priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal 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 collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can request for this info 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 figure out what sort of traffic or protocol you’re using.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without stressing over 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 since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They likewise state they comply with EU personal privacy regulations and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can use it to discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-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 online forum enable you to get a sense of what present 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 look into 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 3rd party.
Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the finest available. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real email address. That’s fantastic since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you will not be able to change 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 nations that share intelligence information). Even if the federal government asked for user info, AirVPN would have 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, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, in spite of Eddie’s significant capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who use it as requirement.
Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the details you require to connect to a VPN.
Sadly, 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 user-friendly user interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a lot of download options. There are builds for different 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 brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing doesn’t function on your setup.
After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. You just click Disconnect when you’re ended up. Easy enough for anybody, however Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
Two crucial AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer starts up, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.
Although it defines “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. Most standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, however you can establish the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.
Eddie’s layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview just displays the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page shows all readily available servers in the network, along with in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and present users and server load. Impressive stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page shows the number of servers offered in each country at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign 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 essentially a favorites list; you might pick as numerous nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be eliminated, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By choosing a nation, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and choose the server you want in a particular country. 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 likewise a “refresh” button to get updated information on ping times and load times.
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 many apps display your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained details, 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 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 number of users on a particular server. It’s an invaluable resource.
Finally, Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other information.
This permits you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it needs to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor support, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really skilled user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.
If the huge function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to determine what specific settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. 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 complexity. Remember that the program typically operates fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings up until you look for them. If you sometimes long for power or configurability, the app will offer it.
Suppose you do not wish 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 use an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software supplies the very same extensive setup options as its desktop sibling and useful status details.
Separate pages for country 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 very same page. Some valuable 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 numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than most people will ever need. The software likewise tries a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each choice does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN usually connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop notification, 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.
Since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. One said there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable 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 situations like HD streaming, gaming, and video conferencing absolutely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a broader number of server places. This may restrict the ease of access of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for many people in the United States and Europe, however 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 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.
Certainly, some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t 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 US Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the ideal server needs lengthy experimentation. This is probably due to the fact that, unlike other service providers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Thankfully, 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 stands out, simply since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Permit P2P?
Yes, it does; every internet protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to jump through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.
Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Numerous applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, enables port forwarding for up to 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, activated by default, will block all traffic from leaving 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 very hassle-free, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have shown torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no concerns whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Pricing
AirVPN uses a broader range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 devices simultaneously, 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 reside in a family home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN providers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Pricing varies based on the subscription length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. The majority of plans offer good value; however, longer memberships 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 easily converted to and paid for in the currency of your choice.
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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global alternatives are likewise 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 voucher code they send you.
There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they have not broken the terms of service or used more than 5 GB of data throughout 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 e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a reaction. That said, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are practical and friendly, but the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of info, consisting of a big FAQs section that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various subjects, however beginners will have the very same troubles understanding a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Exceptional speeds with very little loss.
Unlimited 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 usage.
Many, many advanced settings and customization options in the client app.
Strong Customer Care.
Active Community Online Forums and In-depth 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 very user-friendly 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 too many advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are reasonably low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with excellent rates. It’s clearly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN service provider. Even new users could do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and better results than a lot of its competing VPN rivals.
This VPN service is more focused on protecting 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 privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great option for consumers who value their privacy.
While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s definitely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an outstanding option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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