AirVPN Vs ZenMate Comparison: Comprehensive Look & Speed Test (2022)

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Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the best solution for you.

While anyone can declare to be special these days, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN stands apart 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, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can declare to be unique 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 begun with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications service provider Iridium formerly 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 decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger organization either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and information the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has 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 supplying 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 a lot of, with only 246 servers spread out across 23 nations.

Many servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, 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 impressive performance across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

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

Numerous ports and protocols are offered; 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 PPTP and other risky protocols.

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

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically improves users’ privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. The absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the more recent protocol completely in place up until some of its technical and privacy concerns are addressed.

AirVPN has likewise included 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 quickly switch servers as often as you like.

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

There is an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server information (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 given that there is no third-party audit, you need to rely on that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A good thing about this is that you can see what other people say about the service before registering. 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?

When it pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the business is really clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute concern, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no personal info 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 only gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request for this details 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 figure out what kind of traffic or protocol you’re using.

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 information.

Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping techniques will fail against AirVPN because your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

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

You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll remain 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 allow you to get a sense of what existing users are stating about the service prior to registering.

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, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been examined by a third party.

Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best offered. It resembles that of some other providers, however still worth discussing. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying happens every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The primary data channel employs 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 terrific given that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. But know that you won’t be able to change your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). But even if the federal government asked for user info, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, available on all significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Unfortunately, despite Eddie’s substantial ability 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 easy, and it has all the information you need to connect to a VPN.

Regrettably, 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 user-friendly user interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced 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 tastes, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present doesn’t function on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re completed, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more since AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits 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.

Despite the fact that it defines “kill switch” throughout 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 and secure tunnel. The majority of standard 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 design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview merely 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, together with detailed information about each one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your area, and current users and server load. Remarkable stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the number of servers offered in each country at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Similar to 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 discovered 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 choose as lots of countries as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that country will be eliminated, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a country, 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 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 a lot of apps show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained information, 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 a lot more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize a VPN with all the details they could ever want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.

Finally, 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 tweak 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 flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The genuinely knowledgeable user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the large feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to find out what specific settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to customization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply due to the fact that of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program generally functions fine by itself, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. If you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize a very feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application supplies the exact same substantial setup options as its desktop sibling and valuable status details.

Separate pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and choose a particular city on the exact same page. Some helpful text additions make the details more easy to understand, but it’s still rather difficult to understand 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 bit more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each choice 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 finding when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of 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.

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

Reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. Indeed, one stated there wasn’t a single nation where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly excellent overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a wider number of server areas. This might restrict the availability of nearby servers for some users (which will constantly lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent choice for most people in the United States and Europe, but maybe less so for other regions.

Streaming

Streaming the big 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 powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized 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. 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 rarely work, and when they do, discovering the ideal server requires prolonged experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

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.

However, streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, simply since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Allow P2P?

Yes, it does; every internet protocol, consisting of 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. Just connect to the VPN server of your option and start.

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 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 leaving 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 extremely practical, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN provides a wider range of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five gadgets concurrently, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an outstanding option for individuals who live in a household house or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for most people, other VPN companies offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Rates differs based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. A lot of plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions use the 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 transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.

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 choices are likewise 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 discount 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 throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it provides e-mail assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Significantly, AirVPN’s email support isn’t outsourced but can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a reaction. That stated, the e-mail support is high quality, and the representatives are valuable and friendly, but the thorough answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, consisting of a large Frequently asked questions area that is separated by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various subjects, but newbies will have the same difficulties comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Excellent speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted 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 use.

Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.

Strong Customer Support.

Active Community Online Forums and In-depth Guides.

Excellent costs, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Maybe there are a lot of advanced options.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, dependable, and safe VPN service with great prices. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. Even brand-new users could do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to use if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and much better results than a number of its competing VPN competitors.

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

Although it might 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 a great option for consumers who value their personal privacy.

While it doesn’t hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s definitely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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AirVPN Review – 9 Pros & 3 Cons You Need To Know In 2022