AirVPN Vs ZenMate Comparison – 7 Pros & Cons You Should Know In 2022

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

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

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing 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 anybody can declare to be distinct nowadays, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of two lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium previously ran it, however 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 larger business either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and information 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong personal privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

Most servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the absence of variety of servers lowers the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to provide a precise 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 utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most trusted and secure way to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

Various ports and protocols are readily available; 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. Forget about PPTP and other hazardous protocols.

No choice is given to any service, protocol, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can get rid of internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. The lack of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol totally in place till a few of its technical and privacy issues are resolved.

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

Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily change servers as often as you like.

You can keep track of the current 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 comprehensive specifications 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 considering that there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A great thing about this is that you can see what other people state about the service before signing up. You do not 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 extremely clear. Online privacy and security are the outright priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no individual information 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 gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request this info to be deleted at any time. This makes it one of the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

As a result, nobody can identify you online; not even your ISP can tell what type of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi 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 strategies will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They likewise state they abide by EU personal privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can use it to find out who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level security provided.

If your ISP or country obstructs OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.

Open-source clients and a lively community forum enable 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 big plus. This means 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 actually been checked by a third party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best offered. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via 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 terrific considering that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However understand 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 countries that share intelligence information). Even if the government asked for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to give them.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those providers who utilize it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Regrettably, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a lot of download alternatives. There are builds for different operating 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 work on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You simply click Disconnect when you’re ended up. Simple enough for anybody, but Eddie can do a lot more given that AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system launches, but you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Although it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. A lot 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 design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview just 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 offered servers in the network, in addition to in-depth info about each one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your place, and current users and server load. Outstanding stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the variety of servers readily available in each nation at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise 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 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 select as numerous nations as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that nation will be eliminated, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate 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 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 display your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows 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 downloaded and uploaded, and much more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to utilize a VPN with all the info they could ever want about the different locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s an invaluable resource.

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

This allows you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it needs to always connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The truly experienced user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, 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 expert, it might be difficult to determine what specific settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to customization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Remember that the program generally operates fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings till you look for them. Nevertheless, if you sometimes yearn for power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t 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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software supplies the same extensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and valuable 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 select a particular city on the exact same page. Some helpful text additions make the info more reasonable, however it’s still rather tough to understand in some spots.

Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still a lot more than many people will ever need. The software application likewise tries a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN usually connects rapidly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.

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

In regards to 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.

It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition because AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.

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

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

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive number of server areas. This may restrict the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for many people in the United States and Europe, but maybe less so for other areas.

Streaming

Streaming the big 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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix seldom work, and when they do, finding the ideal server requires lengthy experimentation. This is most likely because, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

The good news is, 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, merely since 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. Merely connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.

Plus, you can use port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.

File sharing has good 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 deals with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your device 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 extremely practical, 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 concerns whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN offers a larger range of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets at the same time, 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 individuals who live in a household home or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN suppliers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Rates varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. Most plans use good value; however, longer memberships use the best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they use the European Central Bank to offer real-time currency exchange rate for those overseas, so it can be easily 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 choices are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and using the discount 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 Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than numerous other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it offers e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a really active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out 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 useful and friendly, but the thorough answers can be pretty technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a lot of details, consisting of a big Frequently asked questions section that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various subjects, however newbies will have the exact same problems comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited P2P enabled 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 Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Good rates, particularly for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or attractive like other services.

Client app may 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.

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, reputable, and safe VPN service with excellent pricing. It’s clearly geared 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. Even 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 a lot of its rival VPN rivals.

This VPN service is more focused on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.

Although it might not guarantee the exact 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 a great 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 best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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