Do you want to remain 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 pertains to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.
AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its dedication to safeguarding user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website begins with an appeal for your trust, mentioning, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anybody can declare to be distinct nowadays, when it concerns VPN companies, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.
They’ve been around a long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of two lawyers and a little group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications supplier Iridium formerly ran it, however 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN developed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
How does AirVPN stack up against its rivals with such strong privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller than many, with only 246 servers spread out throughout 23 countries.
Many servers are in Europe (other than those in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small issue here is that the absence of variety of servers reduces the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home nation while maintaining their privacy.
That stated, Air is popular for its outstanding performance across its server network, with lots of nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They use transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to offer a precise evaluation of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally 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 safe and reputable method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.
Various ports and protocols are available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Moreover, 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 choice is given to any protocol, service, or application. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic restrictions, and traffic shaping.
The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly dependable. However, the lack of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t quite staying up to date with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN says it is evaluating WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol completely in place up until a few of its technical and privacy concerns are attended to.
AirVPN has actually likewise included a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals 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 monitor the existing load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is an in-depth specs page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the available ports, protocols, DNS server information (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s gain access to points.
All of it is nice, but considering that there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A great aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service 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?
The business is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute concern, 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 does not 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 enhance services, but you can request for this info to be erased at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.
As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can tell what type of traffic or protocol you’re using.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without worrying about your computer system and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping techniques will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They also state they stick to EU privacy policies and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or greater levels of personal privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that no one can use it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection offered.
If your ISP or nation blocks OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum allow you to get a sense of what present users are stating about the service prior to signing up.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This suggests 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 third party.
Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best available. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) by means of Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal details, not even your real email address. That’s excellent considering that it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be conscious that you won’t be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t use one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). But even if the federal government requested user information, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to provide.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s main open-source application, readily available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Regardless of Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as excellent as those service providers who utilize it as requirement.
Setting up the app is simple, and it has all the information you require to connect to a VPN.
There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not tough to get things working, it doesn’t have the most easy to use user 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 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 discuss what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present doesn’t work on your setup.
After launching it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest place. When you’re completed, you just click Disconnect. Simple enough for anybody, however Eddie can do so much more considering that AirVPN offers more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
2 crucial AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system starts up, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.
Although it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its protected tunnel. A lot of standard kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but 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 just displays the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page shows all available servers in the network, together with detailed information about every one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your place, and present users and server load. Remarkable stuff!
This tab also has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page shows the number of servers offered in each country at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like 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 discovered 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 choose as lots of countries as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that country will be gotten rid of, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By selecting a country, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, return to the Servers page and pick 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 likewise a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s also a “refresh” button to get updated information on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab shows a basic 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 most apps show your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also reveals fine-grained info, such as the server’s location, load, current 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 information they could ever want about the different locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a valuable resource.
Logs is a detailed record of connections, routes, and other information.
This permits you to tweak the setup, such as whether it ought to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom-made DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really experienced user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, to name a few things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.
If the large feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN professional, it might be hard to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the preferred results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to customization.
Do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just since of its intricacy. Bear in mind that the program normally operates fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. If you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will offer it.
Suppose you don’t wish 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 use a very feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software offers the exact same extensive setup choices as its desktop sibling and valuable status information.
Separate pages for country and server lists are what the Android app lacks that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and select a specific city on the very same page. Some handy text additions make the info more easy to understand, however it’s still rather tough to comprehend in some spots.
Android does not have as numerous settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still a lot more than the majority of people will ever require. The software also attempts a little more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each alternative does.
Speeds/Performance
Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN usually 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, notifying 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.
Due to the fact that AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.
Nevertheless, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be outstanding. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was truly outstanding overall.
While it wasn’t quite on top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for most people, and circumstances like HD video, streaming, and gaming conferencing certainly will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a wider number of server areas. This might restrict the availability of neighboring servers for some users (which will constantly lead to much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an outstanding choice 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 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 pretty bad for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the significant streaming services. It appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.
Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, discovering the ideal server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other suppliers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
Thankfully, 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 stands out, simply 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. Merely connect to the VPN server of your option and get going.
Plus, you can utilize port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. Numerous applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Internet.
File sharing has good speeds on local servers, enables port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s built-in kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from exiting your device 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 practical, particularly if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have actually revealed torrenting to be outstanding, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no concerns whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Pricing
AirVPN offers a wider variety 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 excellent choice for individuals who reside in a family house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While five should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Pricing varies based on the membership length, and each plan includes the same features. A lot of plans provide good value; however, longer subscriptions offer the best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The existing plans readily 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 international alternatives 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 utilizing 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 used more than 5 GB of data during that time.
AirVPN Customer Assistance
AirVPN has a different customer assistance offering than many other VPNs. While it doesn’t have live chat, it uses email support and frequently asked questions (Frequently asked questions) and has a really active assistance online forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Significantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little inconsistent with the time it takes to get an action. That said, the e-mail assistance is high quality, and the agents are practical and friendly, however the extensive responses can be pretty technical, which might put off those brand-new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a lot of details, including a large FAQs area that is separated by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover various topics, however beginners will have the very same problems understanding a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Outstanding 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.
Good costs, particularly for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and damaging sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t really user-friendly or pretty like other services.
Client app might overwhelm newer users.
It is very hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Possibly there are a lot of advanced options.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are reasonably low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Best Choice?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with good pricing. It’s clearly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those new to VPNs will be much 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 receive much quicker speeds and much better results than many of its competing VPN rivals.
This VPN service is more focused on protecting your privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
Although it might not guarantee the very 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 good alternative for customers who value their 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!
Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!
AirVPN Reviews (2022): “A Bad Or Excellent VPN Service?”
