AirVPN for Android
Editors' Review
by
Clifford Colby
/ June 14, 2016
AirVPN offers a wide range of user-controlled options for establishing an encrypted tunnel, and the publisher takes a impassioned stance on privacy and censorship.
Pros
Low cost, lots of payment options: AirVPN offers a broad range of subscription periods, from 3 days ($1.13) to one year ($61.28). In between, a one-month subscription is $7.94, three months costs $17.02, and six months goes for $34.04. AirVPN accepts credit cards, PayPal, and Bitcoin. A subscription allows for three simultaneous connections per account.
Many configuration choices: If you want control over your private network, AirVPN offers options for mobile apps, servers, protocols, and more, and it provides a wealth of server statistics.
Locations: Based on your networking needs, you can choose from a wide array of exit spots, from 3 continents, 18 regions, and more than 150 cities.
Speed: During informal tests of ping and throughput on Wi-Fi and cellular connections, we found our network performance took a bit of a hit, but media still streamed with few glitches.
Takes privacy seriously: AirVPN says it doesn't monitor or log any of its subscribers' online activities. In a strongly worded mission statement, the service says it supports the right to privacy and Net neutrality.
Security: As you'd expect from a company founded by "activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship," AirVPN uses industry-standard AES-256 for data encryption and uses OpenVPN to create a private network.
SEE: The 9 Best Paid and Free Android VPNs You Can Trust
Cons
Mulitple-step process: With many other Android VPN services, you don't do much besides download the app and tap Connect. With AirVPN, you need to take a few more steps that require a bit more know-how: You must subscribe to its VPN service, pick a companion app [https://airvpn.org/android/] from the Google Play Store, and then generate an OpenVPN configuration file for each server you want to connect to. For our review, we used OpenVPN for Android, the only Android app AirVPN recommends.
Subscription only: To try the service for free, submit a request via the AirVPN website. Otherwise, purchase a subscription to use the service.
Bottom line
If you like control over your VPN settings -- down to choosing your own app for the service -- AirVPN is a great choice. Using AirVPN is not a one-step process, however, and requires you to sign up for the service, choose an app, and generate configuration files. But if you want to support a company that takes a stand on privacy and censorship, AirVPN may be the one you want.
