Do you wish to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the ideal solution for you.
While anyone can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it really is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. 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 anybody can claim to be unique nowadays, when it pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it really is.
They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications supplier 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).
Throughout the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger business either.
Across their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is described and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually 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 unconventional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong personal privacy qualifications?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with only 246 servers spread out across 23 countries.
A lot of servers are in Europe (besides those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small problem here is that the absence of diversity of servers decreases the number of global AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its impressive performance throughout its server network, with lots of countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation methods to provide 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 use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and secure and trustworthy method to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.
Numerous 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. Forget about PPTP and other unsafe protocols.
When it comes down to it, no preference is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can get rid of web restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly reliable. The absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, but it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place up until a few of its technical and personal privacy issues are attended to.
AirVPN has actually also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily switch servers as often as you like.
You can keep an eye on 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 a comprehensive specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server details (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 since there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A nice feature of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service before registering. You don’t 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 very clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack 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 just gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, however you can ask for this details to be erased 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 determine what kind of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
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 methods will fail against AirVPN since your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They likewise say they stick to EU personal privacy guidelines which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the same or greater levels of privacy and information protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection offered.
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 online forum allow you to get a sense of what present users are stating about the service prior to registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This means that anybody can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a 3rd party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best offered. It resembles that of some other suppliers, however still worth discussing. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying happens every 60 minutes, and the user can minimize this value. The primary data channel employs AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal info, not even your real email address. That’s great considering 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 do not use 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 government requested for user information, 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, readily available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regrettably, regardless of Eddie’s significant capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who use it as standard.
Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the info you require to connect to a VPN.
Sadly, 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 interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a load of download alternatives. There are builds for numerous 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 explain what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present does not function on your setup.
After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. You just click Disconnect when you’re finished. Simple enough for anybody, however Eddie can do a lot more considering that AirVPN provides 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, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.
Although it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. A lot of basic 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 layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview merely shows the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page shows all offered servers in the network, along with comprehensive details about every one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and existing users and server load. Excellent stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page displays the number of servers offered in each country at a look, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green sign 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 found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a country, 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 pick as numerous nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be removed, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a country, click the empty box.
By picking a nation, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and select the server you want in a specific nation. 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). There are also 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 a simple 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 a lot of apps show your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, current user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information downloaded and uploaded, and far more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the details they could ever desire about the different locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other information.
A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This allows 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 attempt an SSH tunnel by means of more flexible ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The truly knowledgeable user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface by means of the Logs pane.
If the vast feature list appears scary, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be hard to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the wanted outcomes. In addition, it is unlike any other service in terms of customization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply due to the fact that of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program usually operates fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you search for them. Nevertheless, if you occasionally yearn for power or configurability, the app will provide it.
Suppose you don’t wish to use 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 extremely feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software supplies the exact same substantial setup choices 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 select a specific city on the same page. Some helpful text additions make the info more reasonable, however it’s still rather difficult to understand 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 many people will ever require. The software also attempts a little more to assist you, with additional text subtitles to explain what each option does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN typically connects rapidly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was great, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In regards to privacy, leak tests revealed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which reveals that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.
Now let’s get to those speeds.
It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competition since AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.
Reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. One said there wasn’t a single country where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually remarkable overall.
While it wasn’t rather at the top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and scenarios like HD gaming, streaming, and video conferencing certainly will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive variety of server areas. This may limit the accessibility of close-by servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional option for the majority of people in the United States and Europe, but possibly 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 USA, whereas others do not.
Indeed, some report that Air is pretty poor for streaming and does not work with any of the significant 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 United States Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, discovering the best server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN doesn’t use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
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 websites ever changes.
Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, merely because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow P2P?
Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Just connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.
Plus, you can use port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. A number of applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.
File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, allows port forwarding for up to 20 ports at the same time (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, triggered by default, will block all traffic from leaving your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely convenient, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with fast download and upload speeds, and without any issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Prices
AirVPN provides a larger variety of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 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 excellent option for people who live in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN suppliers offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.
Pricing differs based upon the subscription length, and each plan consists of the same features. A lot of plans provide good value; however, longer memberships use the best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to supply real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.
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 international choices are also 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 voucher code they send you.
There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they have not broken the terms of service or utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it offers email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active support online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Significantly, AirVPN’s e-mail assistance isn’t outsourced however can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a response. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the agents are practical and friendly, however the extensive answers can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a lot of details, consisting of a big FAQs section that is broken up by subject.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, but novices will have the same problems understanding a great deal 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 apps and servers 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 options in the client app.
Solid Customer Care.
Active Community Online Forums and Comprehensive Guides.
Excellent costs, especially 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 extremely user-friendly or pretty like other services.
Client app may overwhelm more recent users.
It is really hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Possibly there are too many advanced alternatives.
Located in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with excellent pricing. It’s plainly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN provider. 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 much 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.
It might not ensure the exact same level of personal privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great option for customers who value their privacy.
While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s definitely the best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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