AirVPN Vs VPNSecure In 2022 – Our Verdict

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Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the perfect solution for you.

While anybody can declare to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website begins 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 special nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications supplier Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently 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 organization either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is explained and information 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by offering a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up versus its competitors with such strong personal privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

Many servers are in Europe (aside from those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the absence of variety of servers minimizes the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while preserving their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to offer an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, without any 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 secure and trusted method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

Various ports and protocols are 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 forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.

No choice is given to any application, protocol, or service when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically enhances users’ privacy and security and is extremely dependable. However, the absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol completely in place up until some of its technical and privacy problems are dealt with.

AirVPN has actually 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 often as you like.

You can monitor the present load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous issues on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).

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

All of it is nice, but because there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being offered will work. However looking at the active community 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 say about the service before 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?

The company is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade 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 just gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can request this info to be erased 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 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 versus AirVPN due to the fact that your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

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

You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can use it to learn 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 online forum allow you to get a sense of what existing users are stating about the service before registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This means that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a 3rd party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the very best readily available. It’s similar to that of some other service providers, 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 reduce this value. The primary data channel employs AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal info, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s fantastic since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However know that you will not have the ability to alter 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 countries that share intelligence data). Even if the 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, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as great as those suppliers who utilize it as standard.

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 direct you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use interface, so it may be a more challenging learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download options. There are builds for various running 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 describe what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t operate on your setup.

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, however Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system starts up, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.

Despite the fact that 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 secure tunnel. A lot of standard kill switches only 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 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 readily available servers in the network, together with comprehensive info about every one, such as the server’s label, place, latency in milliseconds from your area, and present users and server load. Remarkable stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the variety of servers available in each country at a look, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. Lots of 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 nation, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you may choose as numerous nations as you like.

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

By selecting a nation, you are not right away 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 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 show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, existing user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information downloaded and uploaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the details they could ever desire about the different locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a valuable resource.

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 allows you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it should always connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to attempt an SSH tunnel through more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The really proficient user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface by means of 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 particular settings do and how to get the wanted results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.

Nevertheless, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Keep in mind that the program usually operates fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. If you occasionally long for power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t 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 use a very feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application offers the exact same substantial configuration choices as its desktop sibling and handy status info.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and pick a particular city on the exact same page. Some practical text additions make the info more reasonable, but it’s still quite tough to comprehend in some spots.

Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than most people will ever need. The software also tries a bit more to assist you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each choice does.

Speeds/Performance

Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN typically 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 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.

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

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

While it wasn’t quite at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and situations like HD streaming, video gaming, and video conferencing definitely will not slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive variety of server areas. This might limit the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however maybe less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, 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 used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Indeed, some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t 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 states services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the right server needs prolonged experimentation. This is probably due to the fact that, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t offer servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

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

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

Yes, it does; every web protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Certainly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to leap through. Simply connect to the VPN server of your option and start.

Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. Several 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 decent speeds on local servers, enables port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (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, activated by default, will block all traffic from leaving your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have shown torrenting to be impressive, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no concerns whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN offers a wider variety of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five 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 exceptional choice for people who reside in a family home or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for most people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans provide good value; nevertheless, longer memberships provide the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to supply 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, 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 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 haven’t broken the terms of service or used 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 provides email assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has an extremely active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t contracted out but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a reaction. That said, the email assistance is high quality, and the agents are handy and friendly, however the thorough answers can be quite technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a great deal of details, consisting of a large FAQs section that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, but newbies will have the very same problems understanding a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted P2P allowed with Port Forwarding.

Strong security on servers and apps 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 Customer Support.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Great prices, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t very user-friendly or pretty like other services.

Client app might overwhelm more recent users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are a lot of advanced options.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, 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 company. However even brand-new users could do much, much worse.

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

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

Although it may 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 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 option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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