JasonBourne

Happy birthday AirVPN. Everyone at AirVPN Staff, big thumbs up for your stellar achievement! Best VPN there is 💯

Hello!

Today we're starting AirVPN eleventh birthday celebrations offering special discounts on longer term plans.

It seems like it was only yesterday that we celebrated the 10th milestone birthday, and here we are, one year later already.
 
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 four continents, providing now 240,000+ Mbit/s to tens of thousands of people around the world.

We still define it as a "baby", but AirVPN is now the oldest VPN in the market which never changed ownership, and it's one of the last that still puts ethics well over profit, a philosophy which has been rewarded by customers and users.

2020 (and 2021 so far) have been harsh years for the mankind but we have no rights to complain too much because AirVPN was only marginally touched by those terrible repercussions which affected many other business sectors in general.

In spite of that, we could not maintain our promise to deliver native software for FreeBSD and we apologize for the failure. However, releasing software for FreeBSD, specifically AirVPN Suite, remains one of our goals, so stay tuned.

On the other hand, Eddie desktop edition, AirVPN Suite for Linux, Hummingbird for Linux and macOS, and OpenVPN 3 AirVPN library were updated substantially and swiftly.  Moreover, Eddie Android edition development has been recently re-opened to provide a new version updated to new requirements and specifications of Android 11 during 2021. Hummingbird was natively released for M1 based Apple Mac systems too, allowing a dramatic performance boost (up to +100% in >100 Mbit/s lines).

Behind the scenes, infrastructure had some paramount improvements.

The whole network in the Netherlands has been enlarged with additional redundancy and several servers around the world have had hardware upgrades. In Sweden and Switzerland we started operating servers connected to exclusive 10 Gbit/s lines and ports, and we optimized the environment to obtain more bandwidth from the OpenVPN processes. We managed to beat the previous 1.7 Gbit/s barrier. The performance on the customer side has improved and reached new peaks of excellence, as you can see here: https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/48234-speedtest-comparison/?do=findComment&comment=130191

Furthermore, the infrastructure has become fully Wireguard capable and throughout 2021 we will start offering Wireguard connections, in addition to OpenVPN ones, in an hardened environment which mitigates the numerous privacy problems posed by Wireguard.

Last but not least we re-started operations in a fourth continent, Oceania, with a new server in New Zealand.

All AirVPN applications and libraries are free and open source software released under GPLv3.

It's worth quoting literally what we wrote last year for AirVPN birthday:
 

Kind regards and datalove
AirVPN Staff

I ❤️ AIRVPN!
Added three more years to my subscrition!

🎃 Happy Halloween to all AirVPN staff and its subscribers!
You guys and gals rock 😍

I ❤️ AIRVPN!
Added three more years to my subscrition!

🎃 Happy Halloween to all AirVPN staff and its subscribers!
You guys and gals rock 😍

Hello!

We reluctantly have to announce gloomy news to you all: Spooky Halloween Deals are now available in AirVPN...
 

 
Save up to 74% on AirVPN longer plans (*)
(*) When compared to 1 month plan price
 
Check all plans and discounts here: https://airvpn.org/plans

If you're already our customer and you wish to jump aboard for a longer period any additional plan will be added on top of already existing subscriptions and you will not lose any day.

Every plan gives you all the features that made AirVPN a nightmare for snoopers and a scary service for competitors:
active OpenVPN 3 open source development ChaCha20 cipher on OpenVPN Data Channel for higher performance and longer battery life on tablets and smart phones IPv6 support, including IPv6 over IPv4 configurable remote port forwarding refined load balancing to squeeze every last bit per second from VPN servers free and open source software for Android, Linux, Mac and Windows easy "Configuration Generator" web interface for access through third party software guaranteed minimum bandwidth allocation GDPR compliance and very high standards for privacy protection no log and/or inspection of clients' traffic effective traffic leaks prevention by AirVPN software Tor support via AirVPN software on Linux, Mac and Windows various cryptocurrencies accepted without any intermediary crystal clear, easy to read Privacy Notice and Terms https://airvpn.org/privacy
No tricks, only treats!

Grim regards & datathrills
AirVPN Staff
 

And you are supposed to be Jason Bourne?

Hello!
 
Answered here.
 
I'm pinning this, as it's a slightly recurring issue, which there's no need to make many threads about :).

Solved recently with 2.18.6 version.

 

Eddie-ui for linux 2.18.5 beta no showing the icons for the country flags nor in servers locations.
I'have Linux Mint 19.3, mono-complete 6.8.0.96-0xamarin4+ubuntu1804b1 . Two screenshots attached to better understanding the problem.

Thank you very much for your coments.
 

Hello!

The datacenter operations might be impaired by the charges against the datacenter management issued on last June and related to crimes allegedly committed in 2012:
https://www.cp24.com/news/owners-of-toronto-web-hosting-company-charged-in-massive-child-pornography-bust-1.4474497

Although our VPN servers in that datacenter have still IPv4 connectivity, only on some IP addresses, we can't of course count on them reliably. We are therefore shutting them down. Infrastructure in Canada remains with 31 servers capable of 1 Gbit/s bandwidth each, which provide wide redundancy, and we will anyway enlarge it whenever necessary.

Kind regards
 

@laowai

 
Hello!

We're very glad you can confirm the outcome of our tests as well as reports by AirVPN users, also published in this thread. Great!
 
Our roadmap includes availability of OpenVPN 3.3 AirVPN binary, with some client side nice additions to make the experience more comfortable. in the following systems: Linux (binaries for both x86 and ARM processors) during August 2019 FreeBSD OpenBSD in the above order.

Desktop systems with AES-NI full support decrease performance with ChaCha20 encryption/decryption when compared to AES-GCM, so ChaCha20 will not be a favorite choice by those users who already enjoy AES-NI.

Therefore: our priority is releasing binaries which will be particularly useful in ARM based devices, which typically run on Linux or *BSD. ChaCha20 might perhaps provide higher performance (than AES-GCM with AES-NI), with coming (in the near future) CPUs featuring AVX512, it will be interesting to test.

Additionally, in desktop systems you can already run OpenVPN 2.5 beta which supports ChaCha20 on the Data Channel, while on some embedded devices building OpenVPN 2.5 may be out of the ability of the average user. You can even integrate OpenVPN 2.5 beta in Eddie desktop editions, as Eddie can be configured to use any OpenVPN binary file in "Preferences" > "Advanced" > "OpenVPN Custom Path". You then need to add the following custom directives: ncp-disable cipher CHACHA20-POLY1305 in "Preferences" > "OVPN directives", and finally connect to one of our experimental servers.
 
By using Wireguard on Android devices, you already have roughly the same battery life you experience with Eddie Android edition which uses OpenVPN 3.3 AirVPN linked against mbedTLS, on equal terms (same bandwidth, traffic, etc.). Please feel free to report back if you experience some discrepancy, i.e. if you see longer battery life with Wireguard.

Anyway we are following Wireguard closely. Currently we need a couple of new, key features, which will probably be implemented before a stable version is released, as developers told us. Without them, implementation in our systems is too problematic. For example, linking static IP addresses to client keys is a heavy threat to privacy, for the reasons we explained in another thread; and lack of TCP support would cut out a remarkable amount of our customers, whose ISPs disrupt UDP.

Kind regards
 

Very interesting read, if true.
https://vpnpro.com/blog/hidden-vpn-owners-unveiled-97-vpns-23-companies/

Hello!

We're very glad to inform you that AirVPN has begun to actively contribute to OpenVPN 3 development.

Our first goal has been adding support for ChaCha20 cipher with Poly1305 as authenticator on OpenVPN 3 Data Channel.

ChaCha20 is a stream cipher developed by Daniel J. Bernstein which combines strength and remarkable performance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salsa20#ChaCha20_adoption

When compared with AES-GCM, ChaCha20 offers significant computational relief to all AES-NI non supporting processors, such as ARM processors.

ARM processors, routinely used on very many tablets, smart phones, media centers, smart TVs and routers, will get great benefits from OpenVPN with ChaCha20. Our tests show that CPU load caused by ChaCha20 on recent ARM 64 bit processors is at least 50% less than AES-256-GCM, on equal terms, which translates into dramatic performance boost and longer battery life (if you have ever tested Wireguard on an ARM based device you know what we mean).

OpenVPN 3 is a client library. However, OpenVPN 2.5, which is currently in beta testing and includes all the necessary servers features, supports ChaCha20 on the Data Channel. Therefore, making OpenVPN 3 with ChaCha20 available to our users and allowing a real life test will be a matter of days. We will progressively release beta clients for Android, Linux, OpenBSD and FreeBSD, in this order. We are considering a porting to OpenIndiana as well.

Internal alpha testing has concluded successfully. We have already pulled a merge request to OpenVPN 3 main branch, to let the whole community take advantages from our code, and let OpenVPN developers merge the new code into the main branch if they wish so. https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn3/pull/78

Implementation has been designed, developed and programmed for AirVPN by ProMIND, who is also Eddie Android edition developer.

Stay tuned, more will come!

UPDATE: https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/44069-openvpn-3-development-by-airvpn/

The above linked topic is now the central thread to discuss anything related to OpenVPN 3 development and testing.

Kind regards and datalove
AirVPN Staff

Sao Paulo is as cental America as you can get. "Lite South" America would be something like Mexico/Panama in where it would be better getting a server in Miami instead,
for both ping and bandwidth related performance.
Geographical center:
Panama/Mexico/Costa Rica - Most providers are limited to lease a shared 100mbit connection per customer. This is because they have max 5-10Gbit per datacenter or less.
Because of that, their main peering happens to be with U.S. providers, so see the sentence above.
 
"Southern South":
Rest of the countries are not going to happen - Peru, Chile, Argentina. No sufficient datacenters to offer quality bandwidth for a reasonable price. Wholesale of 1Gbit almost unspoken of.
Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay - the same reasons as above, + add at least 5 more years for their availability after the countries above.
Most providers in those areas offer only shaped 10Mbit traffic (yes, in 2019) with a burstable option to 100Mbit with a very high premium.
Those providers mostly offer local data as well as CDN to companies like Akamai, Cloudflare, Google which is their most profitable way of operation.
 
Other Caribbean islands or countries with less than 5M residents - can be totally dismissed. Not a valid option even for large "Big 10" companies to operate. 
An exotic new location will not give you the privacy/performance you would probably assume from a service like Air. So this is a strategic point which is totally
transparent and provable. Don't make other providers who sell fake GeoIP locations (this is possible and actually much cheaper) or sell VPS/Cloud connectivity
with limited 100Mbit b/w make your decision here, test your own locations with your maximum speed before you buy a VPN service. And always remember:
If AirVPN ever wanted to cross that grey area, there would probably be 50 available countries now. Or maybe 100. This is not an ethical way to do (VPN) business.
Not flagging any competitors here since we all know who they are.
 
 
//
Finding even a single provider in South America with apparently enough bandwidth and acceptable prices (probably because they have more than utilized) is not an easy task
by it's own. Right now no other country can probably overcome Brazil by price/performance, where even 3 years ago the situation was nearly as same as above.
Same things happen is East Asia as well, where I am more native, and is directly linked to the country GDP.
(The case has some exceptions in countries like Ukraine, Romania) because they are strategically and historically big EU transit points where AirVPN operates. But largely if it costs more
than an average monthly salary to get a 100mbit connectivity, this country cannot be generally considered as a valid location.

I'm an Apple system admin for a living. This is NOT a problem, it's actually a security feature keeping you safe.

That username/password prompt is asking you for temporary admin rights so that the Eddie client can do the OS changes it needs to do. Routing table stuff, new network interface creation etc.

Any of the workarounds to prevent this is a major security issue as essentially you're force running the client as the root admin user.

It is nice to know and see that community suggested features can make it into new releases. I, in particular, am very satisfied that the app is now aware of concurrent VPN use.
 
I have tested with OpenVPN for Android and Adguard and the OS correctly revokes from any already running VPN application the permission to operate the VPN connection. The developers had considered this for a future Eddie version since 2.0 and have now delivered with 2.1. Bravo. Well done!

Two devices (profiles):
  - Laptop
  - Mobile Phone
 
The Profile drop-down box on QUICK CONNECT -tab is correct: I choose Mobile Phone --> Quick Connect --> Profile: Mobile Phone on CONNECTION -tab
 
BUT
 
The Profile drop-down box under cogwheel on AIRVPN SERVER -tab reverses the values:
I choose Mobile Phone --> Connect Server --> Profile: Laptop on CONNECTION -tab I choose Laptop --> Connect Server --> Profile: Mobile Phone on CONNECTION -tab Minor cosmetic error, perhaps some string parameter(s) got reversed in code.
The behaviour described above is also observed in on-line Client Area of the AirVPN website.

That is a very bad advice and an unnecessary security threat.
The signatures are there for a reason, and that is to ensure the browser won't install malicious
junk addons from various spyware sites, or addons that impersonate others with fake search
engine results and other manipulations, that were quite common in the past.

The solution is to install Firefox 66.0.4, or if you are on other unofficial branches install the hotfix from:
https://storage.googleapis.com/moz-fx-normandy-prod-addons/extensions/hotfix-update-xpi-intermediate%40mozilla.com-1.0.2-signed.xpi

Buy from GL-Inet directly, why do you need to buy from those resellers for €75 when it's $20 directly?
https://store.gl-inet.com/collections/travel-routers/products/gl-mt300n-v2-mini-smart-router
It's the same box.
For that budget, the Slate is a much better product, with a better CPU for encryption:
https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-ar750s/
 
And yes they all support Air out of the box since it comes with OpenWRT preinstalled.

It is nice to know and see that community suggested features can make it into new releases. I, in particular, am very satisfied that the app is now aware of concurrent VPN use.
 
I have tested with OpenVPN for Android and Adguard and the OS correctly revokes from any already running VPN application the permission to operate the VPN connection. The developers had considered this for a future Eddie version since 2.0 and have now delivered with 2.1. Bravo. Well done!

Thank you kindly for listening and your understanding. I greatly anticipate your future Eddie version(s)
 
 
 
Of course, duly noted.
 
Best regards,
JB

Hello!
 
Nowadays, traffic shaping is a common practice. Several ISPs have evaluated that investing in traffic shaping techniques is better than investing in infrastructure expansion. Overselling becomes easier and the devastating congestion impact gets mitigated by enforcing penalties to all protocols which are rarely used by the majority of customers or that are more onerous for the infrastructure.
 
Protocols and traffic types are discovered in real time via SPI and DPI.
 
A VPN impairs traffic shaping techniques because it makes both SPI and DPI impotent. Therefore, ISPs that share the above vision (wild overselling and traffic shaping) need to shape VPN themselves, unconditionally. OpenVPN has a typical fingerprint, so it's easy to identify it with DPI. However, we provide connection modes which make OpenVPN not discernible. The most effective and at the same time efficient is a connection with "tls-crypt" which encrypts the whole OpenVPN Control Channel. It is available on entry-IP addresses 3 and 4 of our VPN servers.
 
Please test the following one (in Eddie desktop edition):
- from Eddie main window select "Preferences" > "Protocols"
- untick "Automatic"
- select the line with entry-IP address 3, port 443, protocol TCP. The row will be highlighted in blue
- click "Save"
 
tls-crypt will circumvent specific OpenVPN shaping, while TCP will get rid of UDP shaping, which is another commonly targeted protocol.
 
UDP might be shaped or not in your line, so it's worth that you try it too.
 
Eddie Android edition 2.0 connects to entry-IP address 3 by default. You might anyway need to change the protocol from UDP to TCP in the "Settings" if UDP is throttled.
 
Kind regards

I concur, thank you to the development team for progress made till date.
Compatibility with AdGuard is an issue as it does not get paused automatically or incorrectly when the 'Connect' -button in Eddie is pressed.
Through some testing of my own AdGuard gets paused
  - when Eddie application opens or takes the focus however
  - when the 'Connect' -button is pressed AdGuard resumes and Eddie reports VPN has been locked.
 
In comparison OpenVPN for Android does not pause AdGuard any earlier than when VPN profile gets selected. I.e. just opening the OpenVPN for Android does not pause AdGuard; selecting a profile for connection does.

For Wlan users this could be interesting:
 
http://html5demos.com/geo
 
 
The test determines your location so well that Mr. Obama could send you a drone although you` re connected with VPN .

In Firefox helps:
 
About: config      geo.enabled.false

About:config       geo.wife.uri.false