Why I Highly Recommend AirVPN Over Other VPN Companies

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

While anybody can declare to be unique nowadays, when it concerns VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN stands out from other VPN services because of its commitment to protecting user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN site 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 anyone can claim to be unique nowadays, when it comes to VPN providers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.

AirVPN Home Page

They have actually been around a long period of 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 control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently 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 larger company either.

Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the business’s history is explained and information the 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 non-traditional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong privacy credentials?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

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

Most servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor problem here is that the absence of diversity of servers decreases the number of international AirVPN users who may access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That said, Air is well known for its exceptional performance across its server network, with numerous countries having high-performance physical individual servers.

They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to provide a precise evaluation of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, with no speed constraints or time limits.

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and secure and reputable method to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Many 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 ignore PPTP and other risky protocols.

When it boils down to it, no preference is given to any protocol, application, or service. Net Neutrality is upheld. Importantly, you can overcome internet restrictions such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it instantly improves users’ privacy and security and is highly reputable. The absence of WireGuard as standard may reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its competitors. That stated, AirVPN states it is testing WireGuard, but it will not put the newer protocol fully in place till a few of its technical and privacy problems are resolved.

AirVPN has 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 track of 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 specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the readily available ports, protocols, DNS server info (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 since there is no third-party audit, you have to rely on that what is being provided will work. Looking at the active community online forum or the detailed open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A great thing about this is that you can see what other individuals say about the service prior to 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 business is really clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute priority, with security from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade 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 only gathers non-identifiable “technical data” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can request this information 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 figure out what sort 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 and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.

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

They likewise state they follow EU privacy guidelines which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or higher 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 discover 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 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 before registering.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This implies that anybody can look into AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however only ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a 3rd party.

Regarding security, AirVPN’s cryptography is arguably the best readily available. The first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to accomplish Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) via 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 terrific because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. But be aware that you will not have the ability 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 countries that share intelligence information). However even if the federal government asked for user info, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to provide.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, available on all significant platforms and OSes, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s considerable ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as great as those providers who use it as requirement.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

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

Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it does not have the most easy to use user interface, so it might be a more tough learning curve for inexperienced users.

With Windows, there are a load of download choices. There are builds for different 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 explain what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing doesn’t work on your setup.

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

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

Two key AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system launches, but you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.

Despite the fact that it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the exact same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe and secure tunnel. A lot 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 layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are six tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview simply 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 displays all readily available servers in the network, in addition to in-depth information about each one, such as the server’s nickname, location, latency in milliseconds from your area, and present users and server load. Remarkable stuff!

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

The Countries page shows the number 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 sign is also shown. Numerous 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 nation, 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 pick as numerous countries as you like.

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

By selecting a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and pick the server you want in a specific nation. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking 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 info 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 the majority of apps display your current VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows 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, data uploaded and downloaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the capability to utilize 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 valuable resource.

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

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 utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Or whether to try an SSH tunnel by means of more versatile ports such as 22, 80, and 443. Proxies, Tor support, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The truly skilled user can go into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which allow, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface through the Logs pane.

If the large feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be difficult to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the desired results. In addition, it differs from any other service in regards to personalization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie even if of its intricacy. Remember that the program usually functions fine by itself, and you’ll never ever see the settings till you search for them. If you periodically crave power or configurability, the app will supply it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you do not 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?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software offers the very same substantial setup choices as its desktop sibling and practical status details.

Different pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a country and select a specific city on the very same page. Some helpful text additions make the information more reasonable, however it’s still rather challenging to understand 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 also attempts a bit more to help you, with extra text subtitles to describe what each option does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally 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, informing us with a desktop notification, 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 competition.

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

While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that utilize WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and circumstances like HD streaming, gaming, and video conferencing certainly will not slow you down.

What AirVPN lacks is a more comprehensive number of server areas. This may restrict the accessibility of neighboring servers for some users (which will always lead to better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for many people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other regions.

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 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 major streaming services. Nevertheless, it appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the right server needs lengthy experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.

Thankfully, on AirVPN’s website, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can check to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.

However, streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN excels, just because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

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

Plus, you can use port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run poorly 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 simultaneously (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from leaving your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely convenient, specifically if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be impressive, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Pricing

AirVPN offers a broader range of plans than many 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 devices all at the same time.

This makes it an excellent choice for individuals who reside in a family home or wish to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN service providers offer 7 or even 10 if you require more.

Pricing differs based upon the membership length, and each plan includes the exact same features. The majority of plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions offer the very best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly transformed 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 global alternatives are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and using the discount 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 utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

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

Importantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out but can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get a response. That stated, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are practical and friendly, however the extensive answers can be quite technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of information, consisting of a big FAQs area that is broken up by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover several subjects, but beginners will have the very same difficulties understanding a lot of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Outstanding speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted P2P permitted 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 installation and usage.

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

Solid Customer Care.

Active Community Forums and In-depth Guides.

Excellent 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 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.

Maybe there are a lot of advanced choices.

Found in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?

So the bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trusted, and safe VPN service with good rates. It’s clearly tailored towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-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 new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and better results than a number of its competing VPN competitors.

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

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

While it doesn’t 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 choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

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