AirVPN in short:
- P2P allowed: Yes
- Business location: Italy
- Number of servers: 240
- Number of nation places: 21
- Cost: $58 (billed yearly)
- VPN protocol: OpenVPN
- Data encryption: AES-256
- Control channel: TLS-DHE-RSA-WITH-AES-256-GCM-SHA384
In the previous few years, we’ve lined a lot of the well-known VPN companies, except for AirVPN. A well-liked alternative amongst privateness advocates, AirVPN was based by “a very small group of activists, hacktivists, hackers in 2010.” While it doesn’t fairly rise to the extent of privateness and anonymity we’ve seen from different companies, AirVPN is an excellent service.
Note: This evaluation is a part of our best VPNs roundup. Go there for particulars about competing merchandise and the way we examined them.
Software, companies, and options
The AirVPN Overview tab with an energetic connection.
AirVPN’s desktop software program known as Eddie, which isn’t as user-friendly as applications from the likes of NordVPN, TunnelBear, or ExpressVPN.
Eddie’s left rail options six menu gadgets: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs. The solely ones that can concern most customers are the primary three. The Overview part is the place you log in to the app and disconnect from the VPN community.
Before we get to the Servers tabs we’ll jump over to Countries. This menu merchandise lists all 21 nation choices that AirVPN gives. It additionally gives some incredible stats polled from the OpenVPN servers together with the variety of servers in every nation, the present load of all servers in that nation, and the variety of customers related to every nation location. To the proper of this are three icons: a inexperienced checkmark, crimson “X”, and a clean field.
AirVPN’s nation record.
Highlight a rustic location, click on the inexperienced checkmark, and solely that nation’s servers will present up within the Servers tab. You can choose a number of nations when you like with the intention to favourite the nations you utilize most.
Now we’ll jump over to Servers the place once more we see a bunch of key stats together with town location of every server, its latency expressed in milliseconds, the present server load, and the variety of customers on every server. Then on the proper you’ve bought the identical icons because the Countries tab does, with the addition of a refresh button on the backside, and the join button on the high (that right-pointing arrow and bracket).
The greatest characteristic about AirVPN must be the extent of transparency in regards to the present situations of its community. This data is a giant benefit for energy customers seeking to discover the very best server in a given nation.
We don’t often go into an excessive amount of element a couple of service’s web site, however there are a number of fascinating factors about AirVPN’s web site. The first is its Status page the place you may see some fascinating details about the community reminiscent of the present geographical distribution of customers, the highest person speeds, high session occasions, in addition to any pending points. This web page additionally lists details about each AirVPN server in its community.
There’s additionally the Technical Specs page that lists all the main points about its OpenVPN connections primarily based on the model of OpenVPN you’re utilizing. AirVPN solely makes use of OpenVPN, with no choices for different protocols. We requested the corporate if it plans to introduce WireGuard, and the corporate mentioned it has examined it; nonetheless, AirVPN has some vital privateness considerations that must be addressed earlier than it might open this protocol to customers on its community.
AirVPN’s Servers tab with solely the U.S. servers exhibiting.
AirVPN permits for 5 simultaneous connections directly, which is normal for VPN companies. The firm gives a number of subscription choices together with a three-day path for €2, €7 for one month, €15 for 3 months, €29 for six months, €49 for a single yr, €79 for 2 years, or €99 for 3. At this writing, the single-year pricing transformed to about $58, which is slightly below the usual $60 that many companies cost. If you want AirVPN, the three-year subscription gives wonderful worth.
AirVPN accepts PayPal, bank cards, and a number of cryptocurrencies by way of direct wallet-to-wallet transfers together with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Doge, and Monero.
Performance
In our exams, AirVPN had good speeds. Overall, AirVPN maintained 36.62 % of the bottom pace over three days of testing on a number of places. Those speeds aren’t sufficient to take the “fastest VPN” crown, however we’re assured that AirVPN’s efficiency will likely be enough for many use instances. What stunned us was AirVPN’s consistency. Usually one or two places aren’t fairly as much as snuff, and whereas we did see some weak speeds at occasions, most places confirmed double-digit speeds (or near it) throughout every spherical of testing.
Privacy, anonymity and belief
AirVPN’s Overview tab.
AirVPN’s privateness coverage states that it doesn’t observe your on-line exercise whereas related to the community. Anything it does must preserve, like your IP whereas utilizing the community, is saved solely in RAM and “only for the time being necessary to provide the service.”
AirVPN doesn’t publish details about its workforce. It does, nonetheless, title an official level of contact, Paolo Brini who’s an Italy-based activist. AirVPN’s privateness discover lists an deal with in Perugia, Italy the place you may ship mail or complaints.
To join an account you want the usual e mail, username, and password. Officially, AirVPN says you don’t want an e mail deal with, however in our expertise you wanted a sound e mail deal with to get an account. That’s good for recovering a password, however not one of the best if you wish to maximize anonymity. It all depends upon what you want from a VPN.
Conclusion
AirVPN is nice. It has strong and constant speeds, good pricing, the proper privateness guarantees, and a excessive stage of transparency about its community. AirVPN is a superb alternative except you want your VPN’s desktop software program to carry your hand, otherwise you need additional companies reminiscent of Double VPNs and a “works with Netflix” assure.
Editor’s be aware: Because on-line companies are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this evaluation is topic to vary with the intention to precisely mirror the present state of the service. Any adjustments to textual content or our remaining evaluation verdict will likely be famous on the high of this text.