New user questions on server selection

[sinthome 0]

Hi, I've been using AirVPN for about an hour and so far I love it, huge improvement over my previous VPN. I mostly use it for torrenting with Qbittorrent. I enabled port forwarding and am getting really good speeds so far. However, I am confused by the server selection. I live in the midwest US and it automatically chooses a server in Canada every time I connect. Should I just trust that this is the best option? I don't understand the ratings or how to sort by fastest bandwidth. I would prefer to just use auto select, set and forget, but am I missing out on a faster server closer to me?

Also, random other question-- why is the client called Eddie?

Thanks! I'm really happy to have found a decent VPN, hopefully I'll be with AirVPN for a long time!

Edited ... by sinthome

[Staff 9973]

10 hours ago, sinthome said:

I would prefer to just use auto select, set and forget, but am I missing out on a faster server closer to me?

Hello!

If you prefer that Eddie picks always a server in the USA please open the "Countries" window, select the United States and click the green check-mark on the right. USA servers will be added to the countries' white list. Eddie chooses, at each session, the highest rated server among those included in a white list.
 

10 hours ago, sinthome said:

why is the client called Eddie?

It is a tribute to Douglas Adams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_characters#Eddie
 

10 hours ago, sinthome said:

Thanks! I'm really happy to have found a decent VPN, hopefully I'll be with AirVPN for a long time! 

That's great. Welcome aboard!

Kind regards
 

[sinthome 0]

Ohhh that's sweet, I love Eddie and Douglas Adams!

Ok, I see that if no countries are in the whitelist it will select the highest rated server from out of all available. But can you explain how much weight is given to bandwidth speed vs ping time etc in the server ratings? Is there ever a time that manually choosing a server would give me better torrent performance instead of letting the choice happen automatically?

Thanks!

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

4 hours ago, sinthome said:

But can you explain how much weight is given to bandwidth speed vs ping time etc in the server ratings?

  

4 hours ago, sinthome said:

Is there ever a time that manually choosing a server would give me better torrent performance instead of letting the choice happen automatically?

Your own tests are a necessity, so it's 100% of the time. Eddie (or rather OpenVPN/Wireguard) does not consider what you want to do over a VPN connection, so there is no automagical optimization happening in the background. But once you have a selection of servers which showed you good results and you put them on the allowlist, letting Eddie choose one automatically would be okay, of course.

[sinthome 0]

FWIW I am getting perfectly acceptable torrenting speeds from the auto selected server, so far. I probably won't feel the need to tinker with it unless that stops being the case. Honestly, the simple addition of port forwarding makes it a night and day comparison vs my previous vpn experiences.