AviraVPN review

We will talk about a world-renowned company that specializes in anti-virus software, a German company founded in 1986 by Tjark Auerbach under the name H+BEDV Daten Technik, later Avira. The company offers many products for digital security and has won many awards from the AV Comparative, an independent laboratory dedicated to testing antivirus software. Avira has won gold and silver awards for its performance, as well as for file detection and malware removal. We won't look at all the products the company offers but focus on a separate one and that is the Avira Phantom VPN.

We will consider the advantages and disadvantages of the service and conduct a series of tests in various areas. To begin with, brief information about the service: the service claims to have no logs, we will talk about this in detail later and find out if this is in fact the case. Avira Phantom VPN uses strong military-grade encryption, meeting today's high standards of data protection, uses Open VPN protocols for Windows and Android applications, L2TP/IPSec for iOS and macOS applications. An unlimited number of devices can be connected at the same time. There is a free version, which implies a number of restrictions and a paid Pro version,

30-day money-back guarantee, built-in protection against DNS leakage and also does a good job of opening access to streaming sites like HBO GO, Hulu+, Amazon Instant Video, Facebook, Youtube. Let's break down all aspects of the service in more detail and each of you can decide at the end whether the service meets your needs.

General highlights

Avira Phantom VPN is registered in Germany, but not everything is so straightforward, US and Canadian users will be subject to US jurisdiction as NortonLifeLock Inc. bought Avira in 2020. The U.S. as we know is a member of the Five Eyes Alliance, which actively exchanges intelligence with other members of the alliance, and thanks to the disclosed evidence of Edward Snowden, the U.S. having the most advanced surveillance system at its disposal, uses it not only as a terrorist detection, but massively monitors the online activity of its citizens and not only, which makes the country a bad choice for the registration of the VPN.

Users who live outside the U.S. and Canada are also not in the best position, because in this case, the jurisdiction is subject to the law of Germany, which is part of the 14 eyes alliance, although Germany shows active support for free access to the network, a number of laws have been passed that worsened this situation with regard to the privacy of citizens, now the government can monitor the online activity of citizens, even if the user is not a suspect. But if the service has a zero-logging policy, so the government will have nothing to provide, but it's not so simple, after studying the privacy policy, there are a couple of interesting points, which states that the service collects information about email addresses, ID number, IP address, location, content, language settings, some geographical information based on location in the GPS / Wi-Fi, although Avira says that these data will be used for diagnostic purposes, this is still a big drawback. Also, the good news is that in the app you can disable the collection of information with a single click.

Now it's worth noting the positives, Canary Witness, the company provides a transparency report every year in the public domain, for 2018 there were 13 requests for user information and 10 requests in 2019, the report says that the company has not granted any requests, which brings back our faith in providing the previously stated privacy.

Avira Phantom VPN does not have a huge server network compared to other premium VPNs, but it has 46 VPN servers distributed worldwide in 38 countries. You will have 2 servers available in Australia, the US has the most - 13 servers, the UK has 2 servers and the rest of the countries have one server each. The server network distributes the load evenly among its users and is well optimized, due to which I have always had acceptable stable speeds.

List of countries:

Turkey, Thailand, Slovakia, Singapore, Sweden, Russia, Serbia, Romania, Portugal, Poland, New Zealand, Norway, Netherlands, Malaysia, Mexico, North Macedonia, Moldova, Latvia, Luxemburg, Lithuania, South Korea, Japan, Italy, India, Israel, Ireland, Indonesia, Hungary, Croatia, Hong Kong, Greece, Great Britain, France, Finland, Spain, Egypt, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil, Bulgaria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Australia, Austria, Argentina, Albania, South Africa, USA, Ukraine, Taiwan

Streaming services limit their content in different regions and here comes to the aid of VPN, which can bypass the firewall streaming services and give you access to the content you want to watch without regard to geographical restrictions, but the VPN is not always able to open access to services and when the streaming sites find the VPN traffic, they immediately block your access. I had no problem bypassing geo-blocking with Avira to such streaming sites as HBO GO, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Youtube, Facebook, BBC iPlayer, but unfortunately, I could not access Netflix.

I would not consider Avira VPN for torrenting, as we mentioned that Avira collects more data than you want, while you will like this VPN service not to collect any data at all, considering the ambiguous jurisdiction of 2 countries, it does not give you an absolute guarantee when downloading torrents, You will not be fully anonymous, and if you also live in strictly censored countries, where laws prohibit torrent downloading and you may even face imprisonment, these facts put you at risk, so be careful.

Unfortunately, Avira Phantom VPN only has apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, not even extensions for browsers, but this situation will undoubtedly be rectified in the future. You can connect an unlimited number of devices at the same time, but in the paid version, in the free version you will be able to have one connection.

Client for Windows is intuitive, easy to use, with a nice user interface, the application is stable, but long establishes a VPN connection to the server, in the settings you can change the options you want, even change the color theme, which will thank your eyes at night. The difference from macOS and iOS clients is the use of the protocol, iOS uses L2TP/IPSec instead of Open VPN. When downloading and installing the client should not have any problems even a beginner, in a pinch there are guides on the site or a section with frequently asked questions, where you can find a solution for your problem.

With the service support, you can only contact via e-mail or ticket system, unfortunately, the live chat will not be available to you, which is a disadvantage, as there are questions or problems that require immediate solutions. Support is available year-round, 7 days a week, but you have to wait a very long time for an answer. The website is well designed, but as I said not enough information about the product itself, everything is laid out in general terms without any specifics, there is a section with frequently asked questions where you can find an answer to your question. All things considered, the support service is not up to the premium service, given the shortcomings, but if you manage them, this product has a lot of potentials.

Pros

✓ Unlimited number of simultaneous connections
✓ Free version
✓ Strong encryption
✓ Built-in protection against DNS leakage
✓ Unlocks BBC iPlayer, HBO GO, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video

Cons

✘ Germany is part of the 14 Eyes Alliance
✘ Partial log saving
✘ Little functionality
✘ Can't unlock Netflix
✘ Small server fleet