Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the best service for you if yes.
While anybody can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it comes to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site 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.
They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of two lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. 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 currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).
During the last decade, 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 explained and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up versus its rivals with such strong privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with just 246 servers spread throughout 23 nations.
Many servers are in Europe (besides those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the lack of variety of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its impressive performance across its server network, with numerous nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to supply an accurate assessment of performance, without any 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 dependable way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.
Many ports and protocols are offered; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Furthermore, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget about PPTP and other hazardous protocols.
When it comes down to it, no choice is given to any protocol, application, or service. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can get rid of web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely reliable. The lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol fully in place till some of its technical and privacy concerns are addressed.
AirVPN has actually likewise added 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 quickly switch servers as frequently as you like.
You can keep track of the current load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is a comprehensive specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the available 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 provided will work. Looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A good aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service prior to signing up. You do not need to take their word for it or the word of an audit.
Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?
The business is very clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no individual 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 only gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request this details to be erased 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 determine what kind of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without worrying about your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
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 also say they adhere to EU privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of personal 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 stay safe with the top-level protection provided.
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 existing users are stating about the service before signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This implies 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 actually been checked by a third party.
Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the very best available. It resembles that of some other companies, however still worth pointing out. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying occurs every 60 minutes, and the user can decrease this value. The primary data channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s excellent because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you do not 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). But even if the government requested for user info, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to provide.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Sadly, despite Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those providers who utilize it as requirement.
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 hard to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly user interface, so it may be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.
With Windows, there are a heap of download options. There are builds for various 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 launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
Two crucial AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer system launches, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected 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 safe tunnel. A lot of standard kill switches just 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 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview simply 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 shows all available servers in the network, together with detailed details about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your area, and present users and server load. Excellent stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page displays 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 likewise revealed. Many 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 nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you may pick as lots of nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be gotten rid of, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By selecting a country, you are not immediately 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 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 the majority of apps display your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, current 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 capability to use a VPN with all the info they could ever desire about the different locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a valuable resource.
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 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 by means of more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really experienced user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface through the Logs pane.
If the large function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.
Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Remember that the program normally operates fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you try to find them. If you occasionally crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.
Suppose you do not wish to utilize 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?
There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application supplies the very same comprehensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and practical status info.
Different pages for country 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 specific city on the exact same page. Some practical text additions make the details more reasonable, 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 the majority of people will ever need. The software application also tries a little bit more to help you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN generally connects quickly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, 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 shows that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.
Now let’s get to those speeds.
Since AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition.
Reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. Certainly, one stated there wasn’t a single country where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually impressive overall.
While it wasn’t quite on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and scenarios like HD video, streaming, and video gaming conferencing certainly will not slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive variety of server locations. This may restrict the availability of nearby 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 maybe less so for other regions.
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 USA, whereas others do not.
Certainly, some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. 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, discovering the best server needs lengthy experimentation. This is probably since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Thankfully, 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 absolutely not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?
Yes, it does; every internet protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Certainly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s nothing to set up, no hoops to leap through. Just 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 poorly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.
File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, enables port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at the same time (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, activated 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 Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very practical, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Pricing
AirVPN provides a larger variety of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 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 family home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Prices varies based on the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. A lot of plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer memberships provide the very best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize 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 choice.
The present 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 also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day totally free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and using the voucher 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 numerous other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Notably, AirVPN’s email support isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get an action. That stated, the e-mail support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and valuable, but the detailed answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s website has a great deal of details, including a large FAQs area that is separated by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, but beginners will have the same troubles comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with minimal loss.
Unlimited P2P permitted 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 Client Service.
Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.
Good rates, especially 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 very easy to use or attractive like other services.
Client app may overwhelm more recent users.
It is extremely 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 Best Choice?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with great prices. It’s clearly 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. However even brand-new users could 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 a lot of its rival VPN rivals.
When it comes down to it, this VPN service is more concentrated on safeguarding your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Although it may not ensure the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good option for customers who value their privacy.
While it doesn’t 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 exceptional option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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