Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the ideal solution for you if yes.
While anybody can declare to be unique these days, when it comes to VPN companies, AirVPN shows that it really is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website 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 anyone can declare to be unique these days, when it pertains to VPN service providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of 2 lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications 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).
Throughout the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger company either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and information 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 rivals with such strong personal privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with just 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.
Most servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the lack of variety of servers reduces the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their personal privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its exceptional performance across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to provide an accurate assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are entirely 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 dependable and safe and secure method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.
Various 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. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.
When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any service, protocol, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can get rid of web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical constraints, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it automatically improves users’ privacy and security and is extremely trusted. The absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the more recent protocol completely in place up until a few of its technical and privacy issues are attended to.
AirVPN has actually likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to try out things.
Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly change servers as often as you like.
You can keep track of the current load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous issues on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is an in-depth specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the readily 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, but because there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being used will work. Looking at the active community forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A great aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service prior to signing up. You do not need to take their word for it or the word of an audit.
Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?
The company is very clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no individual details 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 information” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can request for this information to be deleted at any time. This makes it one of the most privacy-friendly VPN services.
As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can tell what sort of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi network without fretting about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping techniques will fail against AirVPN due to the fact that your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also say they stick to EU personal privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or higher 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 no one can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level security supplied.
If your ISP or country blocks OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum allow you to get a sense of what current users are saying about the service before signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anyone can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but only ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.
Relating to security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the finest readily available. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s terrific since it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. However know that you will not have the ability to alter your account’s password if you do not use one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). Even if the government asked for user details, AirVPN would have nothing to give them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, offered on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, 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 standard.
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 guide you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly user interface, so it may be a more tough learning curve for inexperienced users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download choices. 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 present doesn’t work on your setup.
After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re finished, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
2 essential AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN permits you to connect when your computer launches, however you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.
Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the same thing. The distinction 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 set up the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.
Eddie’s layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview simply displays the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page displays all available servers in the network, in addition to detailed details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your location, and current users and server load. Excellent 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 number of servers offered in each nation at a glance, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is likewise shown. 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 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 choose as lots of countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be removed, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By selecting a nation, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. Connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “sign out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket).
The Speed tab displays a basic throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be changed, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.
While the majority of apps display your present VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows 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, data uploaded and downloaded, and much more.
Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the info they might ever want about the numerous locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Finally, 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 experienced user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.
If the vast function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be difficult to find out what specific settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.
However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its complexity. Keep in mind that the program normally works fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. If you periodically long for power or configurability, the app will offer it.
Suppose you do not want 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 utilize an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application offers the very same comprehensive setup options as its desktop sibling and helpful status details.
Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a country and select a particular city on the very same page. Some useful text additions make the information more understandable, but it’s still rather difficult to comprehend in some spots.
Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than the majority of people will ever require. The software application also attempts a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to discuss what each choice does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects quickly and is ready to go in less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of privacy, leak tests revealed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which shows that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.
Now let’s get to those speeds.
It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors due to the fact that AirVPN only supports OpenVPN.
Reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. Undoubtedly, one stated there wasn’t a single country where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually remarkable overall.
While it wasn’t rather 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, streaming, and gaming conferencing certainly won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a wider number of server places. This might restrict the accessibility of close-by servers for some users (which will always lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, however perhaps 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 powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Indeed, some report that Air is quite 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 states services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the best server needs prolonged experimentation. This is probably because, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.
Thankfully, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.
Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?
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 utilize 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, enables port forwarding for as much as 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 built-in kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from leaving your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really practical, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no concerns whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Prices
AirVPN uses a wider range of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five gadgets all at once, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.
This makes it an outstanding option for individuals who reside in a household home or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for most people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Prices varies based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Most plans use good value; however, longer memberships provide the 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 choice.
The current 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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of worldwide options are likewise 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 utilizing 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 throughout that time.
AirVPN Customer Support
AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers email assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active assistance forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Importantly, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t contracted out however can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get an action. That stated, the email support is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and helpful, however the thorough responses can be pretty technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a great deal of info, including a large Frequently asked questions section that is separated by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, but novices will have the very same troubles comprehending a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Excellent speeds with very little loss.
Unrestricted 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 Care.
Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.
Great rates, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, 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 might overwhelm newer users.
It is really hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Maybe there are too many advanced choices.
Found in 14-Eyes Nation.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?
So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good rates. 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 new users might do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than many of its competing VPN competitors.
This VPN service is more focused on protecting your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
Although it might not guarantee the same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good alternative for customers who value their privacy.
While it doesn’t hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an outstanding option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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