Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? AirVPN might be the perfect service for you if yes.
While anyone can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it concerns VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it really is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing user privacy. Right 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 anybody can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.
They have actually been around a long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the help of 2 lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications supplier Iridium formerly ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is presently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).
During the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger organization either.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is discussed and information the personal privacy projects that AirVPN has actually 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 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 than the majority of, with just 246 servers spread across 23 nations.
Most servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor issue here is that the lack of diversity of servers minimizes the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their personal privacy.
That said, Air is popular for its outstanding performance across its server network, with lots of countries having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to supply an accurate evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, with no 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 secure and dependable way to create encrypted tunnels. It provides more security than the military.
Numerous ports and protocols are offered; 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. So forget about PPTP and other hazardous protocols.
No preference is given to any application, protocol, or service when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is upheld. Notably, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical limitations, and traffic shaping.
The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it instantly enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly reliable. Nevertheless, the absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol fully in place until a few of its technical and privacy problems are dealt with.
AirVPN has likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily change servers as often as you like.
You can keep an eye on the existing load on each server, any existing issues, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is a detailed specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with information like the offered ports, protocols, DNS server info (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.
All of it is nice, but considering that there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being offered will work. But taking a look 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 people say about the service before signing up. You do not have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.
Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?
The company is very clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the outright top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal privacy. There is no individual 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 collects non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can request for this info to be erased 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 determine what kind of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wi-fi network without stressing over your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
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 abide by EU personal privacy regulations which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can use it to find out who you are. You’ll stay safe with the high-level protection provided.
If your ISP or nation obstructs 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 enable you to get a sense of what existing users are stating about the service prior to registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This suggests that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but only ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been examined by a 3rd party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the very best available. It resembles that of some other providers, however still worth pointing out. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to accomplish 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 main information channel utilizes AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your genuine email address. That’s great considering that it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. However understand that you will not be able to change your account’s password if you do not use one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of 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 nothing to offer them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, available on all major platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. In spite of Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as excellent as those companies who use it as standard.
Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the info you need to connect to a VPN.
There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to direct 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 tough learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a lot of download alternatives. There are builds for different running 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 discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most current doesn’t function on your setup.
After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re finished, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more since AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we have actually seen.
2 key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN enables 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 chosen last.
Despite the fact that it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. The majority of basic kill switches only 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 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview just 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, in addition to comprehensive details about each one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and present users and server load. Excellent 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 readily available in each nation at a look, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. As with the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also shown. Many 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 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 might choose as numerous countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be gotten rid of, effectively making it a blocklist/denylist. To eliminate the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By choosing a nation, you are not right away connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and pick the server you want in a particular nation. Then, 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 likewise a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s likewise a “refresh” button to get updated details on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab shows an easy 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 most apps show 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 far more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the information they might ever desire about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a specific server. It’s a priceless resource.
Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other information.
This allows you to tweak the setup, such as whether it ought to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to use between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made 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 via the Logs pane.
If the large function list appears frightening, 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 differs from any other service in regards to personalization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply due to the fact that of its intricacy. Keep in mind that the program normally functions fine on its own, and you’ll never ever see the settings until you look for them. However, if you occasionally long for power or configurability, the app will supply 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 instead. This software offers the very same substantial setup options 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 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 challenging to understand in some spots.
Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still a lot more than many people will ever require. The software also tries a little more to help you, with additional text subtitles to discuss what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Using 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 good, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In regards to personal privacy, leak tests showed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which reveals that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.
Now let’s get to those speeds.
Because AirVPN only supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Reviewers have reported speeds to be excellent. Undoubtedly, one stated there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was actually remarkable overall.
While it wasn’t quite at the top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and scenarios like HD video, video gaming, and streaming conferencing definitely won’t slow you down.
What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive number of server locations. This may restrict the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will always result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional option for many people in the United States and Europe, however maybe less so for other regions.
Streaming
Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple 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 USA, whereas others do not.
Some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and does not work with any of the major streaming services. However, 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 seldom work, and when they do, discovering the ideal server requires lengthy experimentation. This is probably since, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Luckily, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can inspect to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
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 Torrenting?
Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Just connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.
Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Several 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 good speeds on regional servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, triggered by default, will 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 Web. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is very convenient, specifically 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 problems whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Pricing
AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than the majority of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as 5 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 option for individuals who live in a family house or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While five really should be enough for most people, other VPN providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Pricing varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. The majority of plans use good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions use the best offer.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed to and paid for in the currency of your option.
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 global options are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day free trial, which can be obtained by sending out a message to the support team and using the coupon code they send you.
There’s likewise a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they have not broken the terms of service or used 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 uses e-mail support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a very active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Notably, AirVPN’s e-mail support isn’t outsourced but can be a little inconsistent with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the representatives are friendly and useful, but the extensive answers can be quite technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a lot of information, including a big FAQs section that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover several topics, however newbies will have the exact same troubles comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Outstanding speeds with very little loss.
Unrestricted 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 use.
Many, many advanced settings and customization options in the client app.
Strong Client Service.
Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.
Great prices, especially for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t extremely user-friendly or attractive like other services.
Client app may overwhelm newer users.
It is very hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Maybe there are a lot of advanced choices.
Located in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are reasonably 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 supplier. Even new users might do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and much better results than many of its rival VPN competitors.
When it boils down to it, this VPN service is more focused on safeguarding your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Although it may not guarantee the very 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 great choice for customers who value their personal 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 exceptional option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
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