AirVPN Vs TunnelBear Comparison 2022: Don’t Buy Before Checking This

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

While anyone can declare to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. 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 nowadays, when it concerns VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of two lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications service provider Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 business either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is explained and information the privacy projects that AirVPN has actually established or supported. These include an online encryption tool, a net neutrality monitor, and other projects such as Tor, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and WikiLeaks.

AirVPN takes the non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than many, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.

Many servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the lack of variety of servers minimizes the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, with no speed restrictions or time limits.

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

Various ports and protocols are offered; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget PPTP and other hazardous protocols.

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

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. Nevertheless, the lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol totally in place up until a few of its technical and personal privacy issues are attended to.

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

Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can quickly switch servers as frequently as you like.

You can keep track of the current load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).

There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the available ports, protocols, DNS server details (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

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

A great feature of this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service prior to signing up. You don’t have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?

When it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is very clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute concern, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no individual details 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 information” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can request for this details 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 determine what type of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

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

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 likewise state they stick to EU personal privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or higher levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can use it to find out who you are. You’ll remain safe with the top-level protection offered.

You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or nation obstructs OpenVPN.

Open-source clients and a lively community online forum allow 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 big plus. This means that anybody can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best available. The first exchange utilizes 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 info, not even your genuine email address. That’s excellent because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. But be aware that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of 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 give them.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as excellent as those service providers who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the information you need to connect to a VPN.

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

With Windows, there are a lot of download options. There are builds for numerous running systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to describe what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing doesn’t operate on your setup.

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re finished, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more considering that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer system starts up, 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 distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. Many 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 design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview merely 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 displays all available servers in the network, along with in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Remarkable 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 glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green sign is also revealed. 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 country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you may choose as lots of countries as you like.

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

By picking a nation, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. Connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “sign out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket).

The Speed tab shows a simple throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be altered, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.

While many apps show your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained information, such as the server’s location, load, existing user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data uploaded and downloaded, and far more.

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

Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other information.

This enables 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. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the large function list appears scary, 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 personalization.

However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program normally works fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you try to find them. However, if you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will supply 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 out 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 utilize an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software provides the very same extensive setup options as its desktop sibling and handy status info.

Different pages for country and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and pick a specific city on the exact same page. Some practical 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 a lot more than many people will ever need. The software likewise attempts a bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of personal privacy, leak tests showed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which reveals that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.

Now let’s get to those speeds.

Because AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. Indeed, 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 quite at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for most people, and scenarios like HD streaming, video, and video gaming conferencing absolutely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a wider number of server places. This may restrict the availability of nearby servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for most 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 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. Nevertheless, it appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the best server requires prolonged trial and error. This is most likely since, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

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

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to improve 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 Web.

File sharing has good speeds on regional servers, allows port forwarding for up to 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from leaving your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN uses a larger variety of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets all at once, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.

This makes it an outstanding choice for people who reside in a household home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing varies based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. A lot of plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions offer the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, they use the European Central Bank to supply real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly converted to and spent for in the currency of your choice.

The existing 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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global choices 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it uses e-mail support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced however 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 comprehensive answers can be quite technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a great deal of information, consisting of a large FAQs area that is broken up by topic.

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

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted 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 setup and use.

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

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good prices, especially for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists protect you from ads, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t really user-friendly or attractive like other services.

Client app might overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with great rates. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. However even new users might do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and much better results than a number of its competing 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 guarantee the 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 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 very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an exceptional option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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