AirVPN Vs TorGuard: The Complete Buyer’s Check-List

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

While anybody can declare to be distinct nowadays, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. Right 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 concerns VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium formerly ran it, however AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).

During the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger company either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and information the 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.

So how does AirVPN compare to its competitors with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than the majority of, with only 246 servers spread throughout 23 nations.

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

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely unlimited, without any speed constraints or time limits.

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and trusted method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

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

When it comes down to it, no choice is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can get rid of web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly reliable. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol fully in place till a few of its technical and personal privacy issues are addressed.

AirVPN has likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.

Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily change servers as frequently as you like.

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

There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the readily 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, however since there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice aspect of 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?

When it pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the company is really clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute priority, with defense 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 just collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can request 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 using.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi network without stressing over your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.

Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping strategies will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They likewise state they comply with EU privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or greater levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can use it to learn who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level protection offered.

If your ISP or country blocks OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.

Open-source clients and a lively community online forum enable you to get a sense of what current users are saying about the service before registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge 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 been inspected by a 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the finest offered. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish 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 email address. That’s great given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. But understand that you will not have the ability 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 nations that share intelligence data). Even if the federal government asked for user details, 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, offered on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s significant capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as great as those companies who use it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the details you require to connect to a VPN.

There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use interface, so it may be a more tough learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a heap of download alternatives. There are builds for different operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing does not operate on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You simply click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple 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’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two essential AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system launches, but you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.

Although it specifies “kill switch” throughout 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 protected tunnel. Most standard kill switches only 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 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, in addition to detailed details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your place, and current users and server load. Excellent stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the number of servers offered in each country at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green sign is also shown. Lots of 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 essentially a favorites list; you might choose as lots of countries as you like.

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

By picking a country, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and choose the server you want 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 likewise a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s also a “refresh” button to get updated information 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 the majority of 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, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data downloaded and uploaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the information they could ever want about the different locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s an invaluable resource.

Lastly, 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 permits you to tweak the setup, such as whether it should always connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to attempt an SSH tunnel by means of more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The really competent user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.

If the huge function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be hard to find out what specific settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.

Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program typically works fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings until you search for them. However, if you occasionally yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not want 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 utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software supplies the very same extensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and useful status information.

Separate 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 particular city on the same page. Some helpful text additions make the info more understandable, but it’s still quite 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 likewise attempts a bit more to help you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN generally connects rapidly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to personal 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.

It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually impressive overall.

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

What AirVPN does not have is a broader variety of server locations. This might restrict the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly 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 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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Indeed, some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and does not work with any of the significant 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 requires lengthy experimentation. This is probably because, unlike other service providers, AirVPN doesn’t 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.

Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

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

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’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, allows port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (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 exiting your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very hassle-free, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN offers a broader range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five devices at the same time, 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 individuals who live in a household home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for most people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Rates differs based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. The majority of plans provide good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions provide the best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, they use the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates 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, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of international 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 coupon code they send you.

There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they haven’t broken the terms of service or used more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than numerous other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a really active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a reaction. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and practical, but the extensive answers can be quite technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of details, including a large Frequently asked questions section that is separated by topic.

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

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with very little loss.

Unrestricted 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 usage.

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

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Forums and Comprehensive Guides.

Good rates, particularly for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists shield you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and damaging sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or attractive like other services.

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is extremely hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Maybe there are too many advanced alternatives.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s plainly 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 company. Even brand-new users could do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than a number of its rival VPN rivals.

When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more focused on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

It might not guarantee the same level of personal privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent alternative for customers who value their 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 outstanding choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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