AirVPN

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, extends a private network over the Internet, allowing your device (the “client”) to send and receive data through dedicated nodes (the “VPN servers”) as if they were part of a private network. This is achieved through a point-to-point OpenVPN connection, operating in routing mode. The connection is encrypted, and every packet of data is authenticated by both your device and our servers. As a result, no one—neither your ISP nor any third parties—can see the data you send or receive, nor can they determine its origin or destination. The encryption protocols used meet the latest security standards to protect your information.

Once your client establishes a secure, encrypted connection (often called “the tunnel”), your data is transmitted without revealing your real IP address. Instead, anyone observing the traffic will see it as originating from the VPN server’s exit IP address, ensuring your privacy. This protects you from potential privacy breaches and malicious actors, such as hackers on public Wi-Fi networks, identity thieves, and even copyright enforcers targeting your online activity.

There’s no need to manually configure individual applications to use the VPN tunnel. Our servers handle the process by pushing route and default gateway configurations that your client automatically accepts, meaning your applications are seamlessly tunneled. This makes the process entirely transparent and easy to use.

OpenVPN encapsulates your data packets within either a UDP or TCP stream, allowing all higher-layer protocols to function as normal. This approach makes a VPN a far more secure and versatile solution compared to HTTP or SOCKS proxies, offering superior privacy and security.

Dynamic DNS (DDNS) is a method that updates the Domain Name System (DNS) in real time, pointing to a changing IP address on the Internet. This ensures that a resource can maintain a consistent domain name, even when its location on the network changes. It is particularly useful for services requiring a stable address, like game servers or other hosted software.

Premium members of AirVPN can choose up to five domain names in their forwarded ports section, available through the “Client Area.” Each name can be linked to one or more forwarded ports based on user preferences. When a Premium member connects to an AirVPN server, the DNS record for *.airdns.org is updated with the server’s exit-IP address, reflecting the connection.

If you need a DDNS-based name linked to a specific device, you can associate it with the device and its required forwarded ports. This ensures that the chosen name resolves to the IP address of the VPN server the selected device connects to. This feature is ideal for scenarios where a domain name must consistently resolve correctly across all AirVPN servers. For instance, if you’re hosting a game server, you can share the DNS name and port number with players and easily switch between servers.

Please note that the TTL (Time-To-Live) for DNS records is one hour. After changing VPN servers, it may take up to 30 minutes for other users to correctly resolve your domain name, though some public DNS providers may take longer. DNS records are created or updated when connecting to an AirVPN server and are deleted only if you disable the system (e.g., by removing the name from the forwarded ports panel). The latest IP address remains unchanged during disconnections or reconnections.

A new server location must meet all of AirVPN’s strict criteria. Unlike some competitors, we don’t add server locations simply to add another country to our list. We prioritize service quality and customer security. Each server’s data center must comply with our standards for privacy, bandwidth, traffic, peering, net neutrality, and usage policies. These requirements significantly limit our viable options, as privacy standards alone rule out entire countries. Additionally, some countries are excluded due to their inadequate infrastructure. This careful selection process is essential to maintaining our high security and quality standards.

From a security perspective, choosing a server outside your home country is often a better option. If an adversary can monitor your internet traffic, selecting a server in another jurisdiction complicates their ability to track and monitor your activities, making it more difficult to rebuild your connection paths.

For performance, geographical proximity does not always equate to better network performance. We cannot guarantee 1 Gbit/s speeds for every location. A more effective way to select a high-performance server is by checking our server status page (https://airvpn.org/status/) for servers with the lowest latency and ensuring they aren’t at full capacity.

If you’re trying to bypass geo-location restrictions, check out our forum (https://airvpn.org/forums/forum/10-websites-support/) to see if the service you’re interested in is included in our anti-blocking system. Connecting to the nearest server typically provides better performance, even if it’s in a different region. For example, if you’re in Europe trying to access a U.S.-restricted service, a European server might offer better speeds than a U.S. server. If the service isn’t part of our anti-blocking system or is located in a country without an AirVPN server, feel free to request it. We evaluate such requests without bias, regardless of our usual privacy and legal requirements.

Yes, simply choose “Bitcoin” at checkout to make your payment with Bitcoin. The transaction is direct, with no intermediaries involved—you’ll be paying us directly.

Note: To enhance your privacy even further, consider running your Bitcoin client through Tor for an added layer of anonymity.