AirVPN vs NordVPN

What the forum threads show. Forum threads show users repeatedly asking AirVPN for a warrant canary with no confirmation from staff that one exists, which is suggestive but not a primary denial, so P07 stays unknown rather than 'none'.

Counts nobody publishes. Request/data-handover counts are consequently also unknown (P08, P09), and total subscriber count is never disclosed (M08 unknown) — AirVPN publishes only a live concurrently-connected-users counter, not a registered-user or subscriber total, so silence/ignorance carry real weight here.

Builds and pentests. Reproducible builds are not documented on AirVPN's own build-from-source page (eddie.website/support/build/), and no dedicated client/infrastructure pentest could be found (V13, V14 unknown). Kill switch scope and split-tunneling behaviour are sourced to a third-party review rather than AirVPN's own documentation (U08, U09 at confidence C) because the relevant FAQ pages could not be reached directly through the site's routing (they render via JavaScript and returned only a loading shell to a plain fetch).

Coverage outside the affiliates. Press coverage is not affiliate-only: BleepingComputer, a mainstream outlet outside the affiliate-aggregator list, has published an independent review carrying its own affiliate-disclosure notice rather than being confined to affiliate directories (X08=no). Its same review also found AirVPN failed every streaming service it tried — Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, ABC, NBC, CBS — which is why U12b_streaming_works now reads no rather than the addictivetips.com-sourced partial it carried before that host was ruled forbidden.

The yearly price. U04b_price_yearly=4.08 is the EUR effective-monthly rate of the one-year plan (49 EUR/year) on airvpn.org/buy/, flat on renewal like every AirVPN term.

The wordmark. AirVPN serves its wordmark only as PNG (/static/img/logo/web_header.png, logo_horiz.png) and has no press or brand page, so logos/airvpn.svg is left absent per AUDITOR.md §1 rather than tracing a raster.

The canary, and the quarter that replaced it. The same page retired the warrant canary (P07=removed) for quarterly transparency reports; the latest complete quarter (Apr–Jun 2026) shows 85 government inquiries and 0 disclosures, so P08/P09 are that period, not the lifetime figure.

India, and the secret-order regime. P04=withdrew_physical is the June 2022 India exit. P11=none_known rests on the page's statement that NordVPN has received no binding National Security letters or gag orders and on Panama's absence of such a regime.

An assurance level nobody can check. NordVPN describes the Deloitte Lithuania engagement as a reasonable assurance engagement under ISAE 3000 (Revised), which would be the stronger form; PIA's report, which can be read, states a limited assurance conclusion.

Why the stronger form is not credited. The model now prices that difference, and this record does not get the benefit of it: V15_assurance_strength is unknown because the only statement of the level is NordVPN's own, about a report nobody outside a Nord Account can open. A document behind a login is not evidence here at any level, so the engagement is credited at the market norm rather than at the level it is said to have reached.

A report behind a login. The report itself is readable only after signing in to a Nord Account, so nobody outside that relationship has checked its scope, and every audit field here rests on NordVPN's own summary of it rather than on the document. That, and not a finding against the service, is why this record is the thinnest in the catalogue.

The owner fields. M11_owner_jurisdiction and X04_owner_group_history are unknown: nordvpn.com and nordsecurity.com name Nord Security as owner but neither states Nord Security's own jurisdiction of incorporation or any prior record for the group; secondary press ties a 'Cyberspace' holding entity to the Netherlands from the 2022 merger, but that was not confirmed against a primary Nord Security or NordVPN page in the time available.

A notable practice data point: public US federal court transcripts in United States v. Klyushin (D. Mass., docket 61629108, documents #183 and #217, found via CourtListener/RECAP) show a law-enforcement pen register was placed directly at the hosting company (DediPath), not at AirVPN, to monitor an AirVPN server's IP from Jan–Feb 2020; AirVPN's own staff, replying on their forum, confirmed the company had no knowledge of or involvement in the tap and that the device had to be installed outside AirVPN's own systems.

This is recorded in P12_case_history as a court_order/nothing_produced event, sourced to AirVPN's own forum confirmation (not to the PACER PDFs themselves, which returned 403 to automated fetches and were read only via a secondary summary).