Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the perfect solution for you if yes.
While anyone can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to safeguarding user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site begins 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 claim to be special nowadays, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it really is.
They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of two lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium previously 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).
During the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger company either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and details the personal 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by offering a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up versus its rivals 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 countries.
Many servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the lack of diversity of servers lowers the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their personal privacy.
That stated, Air is well known for its exceptional performance across its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to supply a precise assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally 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 secure and trusted way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers 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. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So ignore PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
No preference is given to any protocol, application, or service when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can get rid of internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic constraints, and traffic shaping.
The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately improves users’ privacy and security and is highly reputable. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place till some of its technical and personal privacy issues are resolved.
AirVPN has also included a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to try out things.
Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can easily change servers as frequently as you like.
You can monitor the present load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous issues on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is an in-depth specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with info 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, however given that there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being used will work. But taking a look at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A good feature of this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to registering. You don’t need 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 outright priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack privacy. There is no individual info 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 just gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can ask 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 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 worrying about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping techniques will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They likewise say they adhere to EU privacy guidelines which 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 brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection offered.
You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or country obstructs OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum allow you to get a sense of what existing 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, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been examined by a third party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the very best offered. It resembles that of some other suppliers, however still worth pointing out. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying happens every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The primary information channel employs AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s terrific because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However understand that you won’t have the ability to change your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). Even if the 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 primary open-source application, offered on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, regardless of Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who use it as requirement.
Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the details you need to connect to a VPN.
There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not difficult 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 load of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous running 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 new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing does not function on your setup.
After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. 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 have actually seen.
2 essential AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows 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 selected last.
Even though it defines “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has 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 safe tunnel. The majority of standard kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, however 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 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 displays all available servers in the network, along with in-depth details about each one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your place, and current users and server load. Impressive stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is suggested for you.
The Countries page shows the variety of servers readily available in each nation at a look, together with an indicator 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 country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you may select as many countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be removed, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a country, click the empty box.
By choosing a country, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and pick the server you want in a specific nation. 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 info on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab shows an easy 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 the majority of apps display 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 much more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the info they might ever want about the different locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a valuable resource.
Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.
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 use 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 truly experienced user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface via the Logs pane.
If the huge function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to personalization.
Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program usually works fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings until you look for them. If you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will offer it.
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?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software offers the very same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and handy status info.
Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and choose a specific city on the very same page. Some valuable text additions make the details more understandable, however it’s still rather challenging to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as many settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than the majority of people will ever need. The software likewise tries a bit more to help you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each option 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 good, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of privacy, leak tests revealed 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.
It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition due to the fact that AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.
Reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. One said 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 at the top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and circumstances like HD gaming, video, and streaming conferencing definitely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive number of server areas. This might restrict the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional option for many people in the United States and Europe, however 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 powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.
Certainly, 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 United States Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, discovering the best server needs prolonged trial and error. This is probably since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Fortunately, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
Streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, simply since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?
Yes, it does; every web protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to set up, no hoops to jump through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.
Plus, you can use 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 system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for up to 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will obstruct 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, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have shown torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Prices
AirVPN offers a larger range of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five devices concurrently, 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 live in a household home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should be enough for many people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Rates varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans use good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions provide the very best deal.
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 converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The existing 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, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of global options are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and utilizing the coupon code they send you.
There’s likewise 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 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 provides e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very 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 irregular with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are handy and friendly, but the detailed responses can be quite technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a lot of info, consisting of a big Frequently asked questions area that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however beginners will have the exact same difficulties understanding a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with minimal loss.
Unrestricted P2P allowed 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 use.
Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.
Strong Customer 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 really user-friendly or pretty like other services.
Client app might overwhelm newer users.
It is very 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 Best Option?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with excellent rates. It’s clearly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. But even brand-new users might 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 much better results than many of its competing VPN rivals.
This VPN service is more focused on safeguarding your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
It may not guarantee the very same level of privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which designates you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent alternative for consumers who value their personal privacy.
While it does not 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 choice for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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