Just How Does AirVPN Match Up To ExpressVPN?

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Do you want to remain anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the ideal solution for you.

While anybody can claim to be special these days, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its commitment to securing 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 claim to be unique nowadays, when it concerns VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was begun with the aid of two lawyers and a little group of activists and hackers. The satellite communications supplier Iridium previously ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 business either.

Throughout 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 offering a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

So how does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with just 246 servers spread throughout 23 nations.

Many servers are in Europe (besides those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the lack of diversity of servers decreases the number of global AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while keeping their privacy.

AirVPN Servers

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

They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer an accurate assessment of performance, with no 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 reliable and safe way 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. Additionally, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.

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

The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. However, the absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol completely in place till a few of its technical and privacy concerns are addressed.

AirVPN has actually likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.

Switching is limitless, so if you don’t like one server, you can quickly change servers as frequently as you like.

You can keep an eye on the current load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).

There is a comprehensive specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with details like the available ports, protocols, DNS server information (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

All of it is nice, but since there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being provided will work. However taking a look at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice thing about this is that you can see what other people state about the service prior to signing up. 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?

The business is very clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute top priority, with defense from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal 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 enhance services, however you can request this info 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 figure out what type 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 system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

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

They also state they comply with EU personal privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the 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 remain safe with the high-level protection provided.

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 enable you to get a sense of what present users are stating about the service before registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This implies that anyone can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have been checked by a third party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is probably the best offered. The very first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to achieve Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

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 avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you will not be able 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 nations that share intelligence data). Even if the federal government asked for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely 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 significant platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Unfortunately, despite Eddie’s considerable capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t quite as good as those companies who use it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the details you require 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 easy to use interface, so it might be a more difficult learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a lot of download choices. There are builds for numerous operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit flavors, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to describe what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present does not operate on your setup.

After launching it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Easy enough for anyone, but Eddie can do a lot 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 crucial AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system launches, but you can’t pick which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Even though it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The distinction is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. Many basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, however 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 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 available servers in the network, along with in-depth info about every one, such as the server’s nickname, area, latency in milliseconds from your area, and existing users and server load. Outstanding stuff!

This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is recommended 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 sign is likewise shown. Lots of 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 basically a favorites list; you may select as many countries as you like.

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

By choosing a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and choose the server you desire in a specific 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 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 altered, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.

While the majority of apps show your current 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 downloaded and uploaded, and a lot more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the info they could ever want about the different locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.

Lastly, Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other data.

This allows you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it needs to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor support, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The genuinely proficient user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface by means of the Logs pane.

If the huge function list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be hard to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.

However, don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its complexity. Keep in mind that the program generally functions fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings until you search for them. If you sometimes crave power or configurability, the app will provide it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t want to use 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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can utilize an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software offers the exact same substantial setup options as its desktop sibling and handy status information.

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

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

Speeds/Performance

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

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app detecting when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop alert, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to 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.

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

Reviewers have reported speeds to be exceptional. One said there wasn’t a single country where they could complain about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly outstanding overall.

While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for many people, and situations like HD video, streaming, and gaming conferencing certainly won’t slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive variety of server locations. This might limit the accessibility of nearby servers for some users (which will always result in better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional choice for many people in the United States and Europe, however maybe less so for other areas.

Streaming

Streaming the big 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 powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. However, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix seldom work, and when they do, discovering the best server needs prolonged experimentation. This is probably because, unlike other companies, AirVPN doesn’t provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

Luckily, on AirVPN’s site, 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, simply since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on personal privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

Yes, it does; every web protocol, consisting of peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to jump through. Just connect to the VPN server of your choice and start.

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

File sharing has decent speeds on regional servers, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports at the same time (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your gadget if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really convenient, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN provides a broader variety of plans than many VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to 5 gadgets at the same time, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.

This makes it an excellent choice for individuals who live in a household house or wish to utilize a VPN on a public network. While five really should suffice for many people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Prices varies based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the exact same features. A lot of plans provide good value; however, longer memberships offer the best offer.

The standard pricing is in Euros. However, they utilize the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be quickly converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.

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, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of worldwide alternatives 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 voucher 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 throughout that time.

AirVPN Customer Support

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

Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get a response. That stated, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and helpful, but the detailed responses can be quite technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.

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

AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, however novices will have the same troubles understanding a lot of the tech jargon in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.

Unlimited 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 use.

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

Solid Client Service.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Excellent rates, particularly 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 really 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.

Possibly there are too many advanced choices.

Located in 14-Eyes Nation.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good 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 brand-new users might do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than many of its rival VPN rivals.

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

It might not ensure the same level of privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which appoints you a random account number and allows you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a good 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 very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an exceptional choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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