AirVPN Vs ZenMate: Who Wins In 2022?

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

While anyone can claim to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting user privacy. From the start, the AirVPN website starts 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 declare to be special nowadays, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it really is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of two lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications provider Iridium previously ran it, but 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 larger business either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

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

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than a lot of, with only 246 servers spread out across 23 nations.

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

AirVPN Servers

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

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to provide a precise 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 use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and secure and trustworthy method to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

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

When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any protocol, application, or service. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, you can get rid of web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The usage is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard may show Air isn’t rather staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it won’t put the more recent protocol fully in place up until some of its technical and personal privacy concerns are resolved.

AirVPN has actually likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people 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 issues, and a history of previous issues on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).

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

A great aspect of this is that you can see what other people say about the service prior to 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 company is extremely clear. Online privacy and security are the outright concern, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal privacy. There is no individual 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 collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can ask for this information 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 figure out what sort 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 strategies will fail against AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They likewise say they adhere to EU privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or higher levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.

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

You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or nation obstructs OpenVPN.

Open-source clients and a lively community forum allow 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 big plus. This implies that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.

Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best readily available. It’s similar to that of some other companies, but still worth mentioning. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying occurs every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The primary data channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal info, not even your real e-mail address. That’s fantastic because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be mindful that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t use one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). But even if the federal government requested for user details, 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, offered on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as great as those companies who utilize it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Establishing 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 assist you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly user interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a heap of download options. There are builds for numerous 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 brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most present doesn’t function on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re completed, you just click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, but Eddie can do so much more because AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two essential AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer launches, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.

Although it defines “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. Most basic kill switches just 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 comprehensive information about every one, such as the server’s nickname, place, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Impressive stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the variety 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 shown. Lots of 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 country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that nation will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you might pick as many nations as you like.

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

By selecting a nation, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and select the server you desire in a particular nation. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “indication out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket). There are likewise a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s also a “refresh” button to get updated info on ping times and load times.

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 many apps display your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, 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 ability to use a VPN with all the info they could ever desire about the numerous locations, down to the number of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.

Lastly, 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 permits you to tweak the setup, such as whether it should always connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to attempt an SSH tunnel by means of more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The genuinely knowledgeable user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.

If the huge 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 results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to customization.

Nevertheless, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Remember that the program typically operates fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you try to find them. Nevertheless, if you sometimes yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not want 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 an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application provides the very same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status info.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and pick a particular city on the exact same page. Some useful text additions make the info more understandable, but it’s still quite difficult to understand in some spots.

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

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notice, 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.

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

Nevertheless, reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. Undoubtedly, one stated there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain 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 the majority of people, and circumstances like HD video gaming, streaming, and video conferencing certainly will not slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a wider variety of server places. This might restrict the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding option for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps less so for other areas.

Streaming

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

Some report that Air is pretty bad for streaming and does not 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 states services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the best server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other providers, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

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

Streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN excels, simply because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit P2P?

Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Simply connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.

Plus, you can use port forwarding to improve 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 Web.

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, allows port forwarding for up to 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, triggered by default, will obstruct 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 convenient, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN offers a broader range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 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 option for individuals who live in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for most people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Pricing differs based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. The majority of plans provide good value; nevertheless, longer memberships offer the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. Nevertheless, they utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly transformed 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 worldwide alternatives are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary 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 Support

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

Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a response. That stated, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and helpful, however the thorough responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s site has a great deal of details, consisting of a big Frequently asked questions area that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, but novices will have the very same troubles understanding a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with very little loss.

Unlimited P2P allowed with Port Forwarding.

Strong security on servers and apps alike, with advanced protocols and encryption.

Network Lock/Kill Switch.

Split tunneling.

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and routers.

Supports Tor over VPN.

Easy app installation and usage.

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

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent costs, particularly for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app might overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Possibly there are a lot of advanced choices.

Found in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are relatively low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with good prices. It’s plainly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN service provider. However even new users could do much, much worse.

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

This VPN service is more focused on safeguarding 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 good choice for customers who value their privacy.

While it doesn’t 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 option for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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