AirVPN Vs ZenMate Pricing: A Complete Guide For 2022

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Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the ideal solution for you if yes.

While anybody can declare to be special nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it really is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website starts with an appeal for your trust, mentioning, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can claim to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of two lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications provider Iridium previously ran it, however AirVPN took control of 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 bigger organization either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong personal privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than many, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 nations.

The majority of servers are in Europe (besides those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the lack of variety of servers minimizes the number of worldwide AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally 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 reputable method to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.

Many ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Additionally, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.

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

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is extremely dependable. The absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That said, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol completely in place till some of its technical and personal privacy concerns are addressed.

AirVPN has actually likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.

Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly switch servers as frequently as you like.

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

There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the 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, however because there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being offered will work. But looking at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice thing about this is that you can see what other people say about the service before registering. 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 concerns AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the company is really clear. Online personal privacy and security are the outright top priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack 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 collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and enhance services, but 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, nobody 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 wi-fi network without worrying about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

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

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

You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that no one can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level security offered.

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 current users are stating about the service prior to signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This indicates that anybody can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have been examined by a 3rd party.

Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best available. It’s similar to that of some other suppliers, however still worth mentioning. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place 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 great given that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you do not utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence data). But even if the federal government requested user details, AirVPN would have absolutely 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 major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, regardless of Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those service providers who utilize it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the details 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 easy to use interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a ton of download options. There are builds for different operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, 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 existing does not operate on your setup.

After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re ended up, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do a lot more because AirVPN provides 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 permits you to connect when your computer system starts up, however you can’t choose 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” throughout the settings, AirVPN has 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 safe tunnel. Most standard kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but 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 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, along with in-depth information about every one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Excellent stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the number of servers offered in each nation at a look, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green sign is likewise revealed. Numerous 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 country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you might choose as many countries as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that country will be eliminated, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To remove the green checkmark from a country, click the empty box.

By choosing 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 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 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 uploaded and downloaded, and a lot more.

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

Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other data.

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 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 assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

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

If the vast function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be difficult to find out what specific settings do and how to get the wanted outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in regards to personalization.

Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply because of its intricacy. Remember that the program typically operates fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings up until you try to find them. If you occasionally yearn for power or configurability, the app will supply 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 all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.

How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?

There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software provides the exact same extensive configuration options as its desktop sibling and useful status details.

Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and select a particular city on the exact same page. Some useful text additions make the info more easy to understand, however it’s still quite difficult to comprehend in some spots.

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

Speeds/Performance

Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN generally connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app identifying when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, 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 due to the fact that AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. One said there wasn’t a single nation where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly impressive overall.

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

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive number of server places. This might limit the availability of close-by servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for many 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 Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has actually 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.

Indeed, some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. However, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix rarely work, and when they do, finding the right server needs prolonged trial and error. This is most likely because, unlike other service providers, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

The good news is, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming sites 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 focused on personal privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

Yes, it does; every web protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Undoubtedly, Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to set up, no hoops to jump through. Merely 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’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.

File sharing has good speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (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 block all traffic from leaving your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending 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 actually shown torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and with no problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN provides a larger variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets 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 individuals who reside in a household house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five really should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Prices differs based upon the subscription length, and each plan includes the same features. A lot of plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions offer the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.

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 worldwide 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 utilizing the discount coupon code they send you.

There’s likewise 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 Support

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it provides email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are useful and friendly, but the extensive answers can be quite technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, including a big Frequently asked questions section that is broken up by topic.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however beginners will have the same difficulties comprehending a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with very little 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 installation and usage.

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

Strong Customer Support.

Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.

Great prices, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app might overwhelm more recent users.

It is very hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are too many advanced alternatives.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with good prices. It’s plainly 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 provider. But even new users might do much, much worse.

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

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

It might not guarantee the exact same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which appoints you a random account number and permits 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 absolutely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an exceptional choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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