AirVPN 9th birthday celebrations and reflections

[Staff 9972]

Hello!

Today we're starting AirVPN ninth birthday celebrations!
 
From a two servers service located in a single country providing a handful of Mbit/s, the baby has grown up to a wide infrastructure in 22 countries in three continents, providing now 230,000+ Mbit/s to tens of thousands of people around the world.

Software related development has also been powered up. Eddie Android edition is now a fully mature application which features an exclusive best effort method to prevent traffic leaks and a complete integration with AirVPN.
 

In 2019 AirVPN has also started operating in South America, on top of Asia, Europe and North America, and the infrastructure has grown significantly, counting now on more than 260 bare metal servers, whose traffic is mainly powered by tier1 and tier2 transit providers. AirVPN has also become recently an EFF "Super Major Donor" member.

Furthermore, and we're very glad to announce it here publicly for the first time, development for OpenBSD and FreeBSD has started. We are also integrating OpenVPN 3 on new software which will couple Eddie on UNIX-like systems, including Linux, during the second half of 2019.

GDPR compliance was already a de facto standard for AirVPN way before the Regulation entered into force, mainly because we don't collect personal data, period. By the way the compliance is now fully formalized (check details in our Privacy Notice and Terms https://airvpn.org/privacy ). AirVPN provides probably the strongest protection to your data, not only personal data but all data, you can find on any service.


If you are an AirVPN customer or user, you are probably aware that our service is radically different than any other VPN service you might have met anywhere. No whistles and bells, no marketing fluff, no fake locations, no advertising on mainstream media, a transparent privacy policy, no trackers on the web site or in mobile applications, no bullshit of any kind in our infrastructure to sell your personal data to any personal data merchant, and above all a clear mission which is the very reason which AirVPN operates for. https://airvpn.org/mission

Many of you know that when you buy AirVPN service, you not only support yourself and improve your ability to exercise your fundamental rights, but you also support AirVPN mission.

However, while AirVPN in itself has flourished, AirVPN mission aims and values related to fundamental rights have experienced, in 2018 and 2019, a grim time.
 

• Australia "encryption-busting" monstrous law is fully in force;
• the European Union has definitively approved the bad Copyright Directive, mandating automated filters, which will unavoidably limit freedom of expression on big boards, and making the first step to undermine the liability exemptions of mere conduits and web publishers alike;
• new threats to citizens' privacy are becoming real through plans of wide face recognition deployment, indiscriminate DNA databases proposals, more pervasive and efficient profiling (possibly even through AI), and strict cooperation between Internet tech giants and intelligence agencies;
• the persecution of journalists, publishers and whistleblowers all around the world has reached unprecedented levels, revealing a widespread plan to suppress freedom of the press and freedom of expression even in so called "Western democracies".

One of the greatest journalists and publishers of all times, Julian Assange, nominated seven times for the Nobel Peace prize and winner of many journalistic prizes and awards, has been and is prosecuted and persecuted for having merely published the truth about war crimes, corruption, torture and more, with a 100% accuracy, and for having protected his sources as any good investigative journalist does.

He has been detained arbitrarily and illegally, as widely ascertained and recognized by the UN. He has been victim of an abominable smear campaign based on ignominious lies and defamation, a campaign aimed to turn the public opinion against him and distract from WikiLeaks publications content exposing war criminals in governments key positions, warmongers, torture maniacs, systematic illegal surveillance, endemic privacy violations and plots to limit and reduce fundamental rights. He is currently detained in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, with no access to books, maximum two visits per month, forbidden in practice to coordinate a defense with his lawyers, in a tiny cell of a maximum security UK prison which has been designed for dangerous murderers and terrorists, while UK will decide whether to extradite him to the USA to face a potential 175 years imprisonment.

Whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, who should be regarded as a hero, as Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Daniel Ellsberg and other titans of our times pointed out, have been tortured and are still persecuted by the very same criminals whose crimes were exposed.

Privacy activists and software developers, like Ola Bini in Ecuador, are imprisoned without charges, simply for having showed friendship to Assange or WikiLeaks, or for having developed software aimed to protect privacy through encryption.

And the list can go on and on and on.

But make no mistake: the dark times we are living in, the environment of fear and intimidation that various governments are building against the exercise of those fundamental rights which our mission forces us to protect to the best of our abilities, the mounting attacks against "encryption for everyone" and the awareness that enemies of human rights nestle inside government agencies, have not undermined our determination. Quite the opposite: they have convinced us that our service is even more necessary now and we are resolute to do even more.
 

Our mission has been and will be empowered by the ongoing support to projects and NGOs which aim to the protection of privacy, personal data and freedom of expression, now more than ever. We have confirmed our support to Tor and we will progressively add support to champions of freedom of expression and privacy in any way our capacities and abilities will allow us.
 
If you're curious to know something about a series of fortunate events which gave birth to AirVPN, have a look here:
https://airvpn.org/aboutus

To worthily celebrate AirVPN ninth birthday, we're glad to inform you that starting from now we will offer a 20% discount on all long term plans. Hurry up, this special offer will end on June the 11th, 23:59:59 UTC! Check the new prices here.

Kind regards and datalove
AirVPN Staff

[DarthTokeAlot 2]

Worth the wait (waiting for almost 3 months lol) so thanks very much AirVPN staff, bosses and the whole lotta ya!

Here's to the next and may it be just as awesome!

[benfitita 39]

Happy birthday AirVPN! You’re doing great job, thank you.

[SLASH 6]

Happy Birthday!!!
Keep up the good work
You guys are doing an amazing job

[Username24 1]

Happy Birthday! Been loving the VPN so far, haven't had any issues!

[LZ1 672]

Hello!

I note the change: 
 

Quote

To worthily celebrate AirVPN ninth birthday, we're glad to inform you that starting from now we will offer a 20% discount on all long term plans

So everything below the 1 year plans, do not get the discount anymore. 

It's still weird to me, that the birthday celebrations still aren't the ones with the biggest and widest discounts. Seems more worthy to me . 

Happy birthday. 

[RaineyPass 12]

Happy Birthday!  Nice work!

[bikes02 3]

Happy Birthday AirVPN 🎂 & here's to many more. Been a member here for 5 years now, the time has flown by. Nice work on the discount 😀

[Jefkim666 6]

Happy birthday from us as wel. You've been a great help in keeping us safe from the "bad bad outside" keep on going, doing the good work!

[doomced 1]

We cherish your integrity. Good job, and happy birthday.

[Guest]

Happy Birthday AirVPN 🎂🥂

[WaNNaBEAnoNymoUs 10]

Happy birthday dear AirVPN

[Guest]

Nice discount but it has to be observed it has been cheaper (35 euros for 1 year) during black Friday.

 

[torranaga 1]

Happy Birthday! Just bought a subscription for another 3 years, thanks for the generous discount. Keep up the good work!

[itsmefloraluca 7]

Happy Birthday AirVpn. Wishing you's all the best. Totally forgot about the sale. Wont forget about the others 🎂 🥂

[cambell 17]

thanks Airvpn, but i am good for 2705 day's. See you at the next happy b day.

[GMPSQ 29]

Happy birthday! Been going about 5 years now on the service and have recommended it to many. Will continue to support for the foreseeable future

[Reso 19]

Happy birthday. I signed up nearly three years ago, Can't fault the service.

[MrRoboto 0]

Great work, guys! Where I am, there are rumors of the government soon BANNING vpns. I don't know if it is technically possible to ban vpns, but I witness daily that they can be throttled down or temporarily blocked.
We rely on you guys !
Thanks for the hard work.

[scgt1 3]

Well crap looks like I missed the sale by almost a month. My first 3 years is up in 4 days and was hoping to find a discount somewhere and happened upon the post about this on your Facebook page so here I am just to see I missed the sale deadline. Happy belated anyway. LOL

[frpergflf 8]

On 5/27/2019 at 11:26 PM, Staff said:

development for OpenBSD and FreeBSD has started

What follows is me, unable to type non-quoted text:
Happy 9th, I am very satisfied with your service.
Great news, looking forward to this release. Edited ... by giganerd
tried to tyoe my texe in an unquoted box, no luck | giganerd: fixed :)