Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the best solution for you if yes.
While anybody can declare to be special these days, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to safeguarding user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website 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 unique nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely 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 supplier Iridium previously ran it, however 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 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 business’s history is discussed and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually developed 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up versus its competitors with such strong privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than many, with just 246 servers spread out across 23 countries.
The majority of servers are in Europe (aside from those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the lack of diversity of servers decreases the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.
That said, Air is popular for its impressive performance across its server network, with numerous nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer an accurate assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, with no speed restrictions or time limits.
To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most reputable and secure method 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 risky protocols.
When it boils down to it, no preference is given to any application, service, or protocol. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, you can get rid of web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.
The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. The lack of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol completely in place till a few of its technical and privacy problems are resolved.
AirVPN has likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to try out things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily switch servers as often as you like.
You can keep track of the present load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).
There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the offered 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 because there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A great aspect of this is that you can see what other people state about the service before registering. 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 pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is extremely clear. Online privacy and security are the outright top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade 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 only gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve 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, nobody 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 fretting about your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
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 also state they adhere to EU personal privacy guidelines 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 brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can use it to discover who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level security provided.
You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or country blocks OpenVPN.
Open-source clients and a lively community forum enable you to get a sense of what existing users are saying about the service prior to registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This indicates that anyone can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a 3rd party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best readily available. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s great since 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 don’t use 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 information, 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, offered on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, regardless of Eddie’s considerable capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those service providers who utilize it as requirement.
Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the info you require to connect to a VPN.
Sadly, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use 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 numerous 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 explain what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing does not work on your setup.
After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
2 key 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 select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.
Even though it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually 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 basic kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, but 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 merely 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, in addition to detailed information about each one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and existing users and server load. Outstanding stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is suggested for you.
The Countries page shows the variety of servers readily available in each nation at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator 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 country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you might choose as numerous 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 country, click the empty box.
By choosing a country, 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 displays a basic 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 most apps show your present 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 details they might ever want about the different locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Lastly, Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.
A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This enables 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 attempt an SSH tunnel through more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really skilled user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.
If the vast function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be tough to determine what particular settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.
However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program usually works fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you try to find them. If you occasionally long for power or configurability, the app will offer it.
Suppose you don’t 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 use an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application provides the very same comprehensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and valuable status details.
Separate pages for nation 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 handy text additions make the info more reasonable, but it’s still quite tough to understand 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 require. The software also tries a little more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each choice does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN typically connects quickly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of personal 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.
Because AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Nevertheless, reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. One stated there wasn’t a single country where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually remarkable overall.
While it wasn’t rather at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and circumstances like HD video gaming, streaming, and video conferencing certainly 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 close-by 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, but possibly less so for other areas.
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 USA, whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and does not work with any of the major streaming services. However, it appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.
Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the best server requires lengthy trial and error. This is most likely because, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine 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 personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?
Yes, it does; every web protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Undoubtedly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to configure, no hoops to leap through. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.
Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to improve 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 good speeds on regional servers, allows 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 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 out unencrypted packets to the Web. 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 outstanding, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Pricing
AirVPN uses a broader range of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 devices simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.
This makes it an outstanding option for people who reside in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five should be enough for most people, other VPN companies offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Pricing varies based on the subscription length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Most plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions provide the very best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly converted to and paid 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 worldwide alternatives are also 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 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data throughout that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a really active assistance 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 stated, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are handy and friendly, but the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of details, including a big Frequently asked questions area that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various 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.
Outstanding speeds with very little 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.
Strong Client Service.
Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.
Good prices, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from ads, adware, trackers, and damaging sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t very easy to use or attractive like other services.
Client app might overwhelm more recent users.
It is very hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Perhaps there are too many advanced options.
Located in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Choice?
So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with great pricing. It’s plainly 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 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.
When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more focused on securing your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Although it might not guarantee the very same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent choice for customers 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!
Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!
AirVPN Reviews: 10 Essential Things To Consider In 2022
