How To Use AirVPN Linux

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Do you want to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN could be the ideal option for you if yes.

While anybody can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website begins 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 pertains to VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a long period of time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of two lawyers and a small group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications company Iridium formerly 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 business’s history is discussed and details the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has developed or supported. These consist of an online encryption tool, a net neutrality monitor, and other projects such as Tor, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and WikiLeaks.

AirVPN takes the unconventional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN compare to its competitors with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

The majority of servers are in Europe (aside from those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small issue here is that the absence of variety of servers minimizes the number of international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is well known for its exceptional performance throughout its server network, with numerous nations having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply a precise assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, without any speed constraints 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 secure method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.

Numerous ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Furthermore, 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, protocol, or application when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is maintained. Significantly, you can overcome internet constraints 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 trusted. The lack of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That stated, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the more recent protocol completely in place up until some of its technical and personal privacy problems are attended to.

AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.

Switching is limitless, so if you do not like one server, you can quickly change servers as frequently as you like.

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

There is a detailed specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details 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 considering that 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 detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A great feature of this is that you can see what other people say about the service before signing up. You don’t need 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 business is really clear. Online privacy and security are the absolute priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade privacy. There is no personal information logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.

AirVPN doesn’t track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It only gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and improve services, but you can ask for this information 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 determine what sort 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 and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.

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

They also say they comply with EU privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the exact same or higher levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

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

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 enable 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 implies 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 examined by a third party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the very best readily available. It’s similar to that of some other providers, however still worth discussing. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can reduce this value. The primary information channel employs AES-256-CBC encryption.

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

Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence information). Even if the federal government asked for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to offer them.

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, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s substantial ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those providers who use it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Establishing the app is simple, and it has all the details you need to connect to a VPN.

Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface, so it may be a more challenging learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a load of download options. There are builds for various running 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 discuss what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t operate on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. When you’re completed, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anybody, however Eddie can do a lot more because AirVPN uses more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables you to connect when your computer starts up, but you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you picked last.

Even though it defines “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. The majority of standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, however you can establish the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.

Eddie’s design is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview simply 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 displays all readily available servers in the network, together with comprehensive details about every one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your place, and present users and server load. Remarkable stuff!

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

The Countries page displays the variety of servers available in each country at a glimpse, together with an indicator of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green sign is also shown. 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 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 may select as numerous nations as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that nation will be gotten rid of, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.

By picking a country, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and select the server you desire in a particular 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 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 show your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows 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, data uploaded and downloaded, and far more.

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

Finally, Logs is a comprehensive record of connections, routes, and other data.

A million and one other settings are hidden in the app’s Settings menu. This enables you to fine-tune 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 really skilled user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface through the Logs pane.

If the large function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be tough to find out what particular settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of customization.

Nevertheless, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Remember that the program typically operates fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you look for them. If you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

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?

There isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an incredibly feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software provides the same comprehensive configuration choices as its desktop sibling and helpful status details.

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 select a particular city on the very same page. Some useful text additions make the details more reasonable, but it’s still quite challenging to comprehend in some spots.

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

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was good, with the app finding when the VPN tunnel drops, alerting us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In terms of 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.

Since AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.

However, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. One said there wasn’t a single nation where they might complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was really remarkable overall.

While it wasn’t quite at the top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and circumstances like HD video gaming, streaming, and video conferencing definitely won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a wider number of server areas. This may limit the ease of access of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional option for most people in the United States and Europe, but 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 effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks utilized by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Certainly, some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and does not work with any of the significant streaming services. It appears to work 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 best server needs lengthy trial and error. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not 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 check to see if the situation with these streaming websites ever changes.

Streaming is definitely not an area in which AirVPN stands out, merely because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal 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 choice and get going.

Plus, you can use port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.

File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for up to 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will 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 very convenient, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

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

AirVPN Plans & Prices

AirVPN uses a broader range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five gadgets at the same time, 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 family home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN companies provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Prices varies based on the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. A lot of plans use good value; however, longer subscriptions use the best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to offer 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, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of international alternatives are likewise accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending out 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 haven’t broken the terms of service or used more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it uses email support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a very active support online 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 requires to get a reaction. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and useful, but the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those new to VPNs.

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

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, but novices will have the same difficulties comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with minimal 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 setup and usage.

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

Strong Client Service.

Active Community Online Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent rates, especially for longer-term plans.

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

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

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

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are too many advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are reasonably low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Option?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reliable, and safe VPN service with good pricing. It’s clearly geared 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 supplier. But even brand-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 much of its competing VPN rivals.

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

It may not ensure the very same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which designates you a random account number and permits you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good option for consumers who value their personal privacy.

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

Highly recommended!

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