Avira Phantom VPN is a VPN service from Avira Operations GmbH & Co, the globally renowned anti-virus software company based in Tettnang, Germany. The VPN is designed to help you use the Internet securely through a private portal. It also helps you to access geo-restricted content in all parts of the world. The Avira anti-virus software is known for its high levels of security but is its Avira Phantom VPN safe?
Based on experience, we found the VPN relatively safe but would not recommend it for the following reasons:
Table of Contents
Jurisdiction
Avira Phantom VPN is a reliable VPN service but has a major drawback when it comes to the jurisdiction it falls under. Avira is based in Germany which is not a secure privacy jurisdiction for two reasons.
First, Germany is known for its strict data retention laws which Avira must comply with. Secondly, Germany is a member of the Fourteen Eyes alliance of countries that have the treaty to share surveillance data with other member states’ intelligence agencies including the US NSA.
Germany has already joined the 14-Eyes Alliance together with other European countries including Sweden, Belgium, Italy, and Spain. A court order from any member of the alliance will force the VPN provider to disclose information they have on their users.
However, all is not lost because Avira Phantom doesn’t collect and store a lot of information from you. They have a comparatively more transparent logging policy that ensures your personal data stays with you as we shall see shortly.
Avira Phantom VPN Logging Policy
One good thing about the Avira VPN is its short, clear, and transparent policy when it comes to the data it tracks. Their privacy policy indicates what they track and what they don’t monitor.
For example, they collect diagnostic information to help them handle potential bugs in their system and any other problem their products may run into. The data they track includes minor bandwidth logs such as the data you’ve used if you are a free or paid VPN user and other forms of purely diagnostic data.
They don’t log your personal information, IP address, and browsing history. The VPN also doesn’t keep logs on the websites you visit or the files you download. It is not a true no-log VPN service but it’s better and more transparent than most.
Avira Phantom VPN Security Features
To bolster security, Avira Phantom VPN comes with the following features:
256-Bit Encryption and OpenVPN
Avira’s VPN is pretty solid when it comes to encryption. They have a perfect combination of 256-bit encryption and OpenVPN protocol. However, the VPN doesn’t offer you much choice in their OpenVPN features.
There’s no option to switch between different OpenVPN options such as UDP and TCP. They also don’t give you access to OpenVPN configuration files to run your own manual setup or tweak things to suit your security needs.
Reliable Protection From IP, DNS, and WebRTC Leaks
DNS leaks can potentially reveal your actual location to prying eyes but thankfully tests done on Avira Phantom VPN showed no DNS, IP, or WebRTC leaks, which means their connections and tunneling have rock-solid protection from data leaks.
Avira Phantom VPN Alternatives
The Avira VPN is relatively safe given that it has solid encryption and doesn’t leak IP addresses and DNS information. However, its jurisdiction and the fact that they do collect some data for diagnostic purposes raises a few red flags.
If you want a truly secure VPN service, we recommend the following VPN providers:
- Provider
- User Rating
- Our Review
- Price
PureVPN- 4807 Votes
- $3.24 / month
ExpressVPN- 3795 Votes
- $6.67 / month
Conclusion
Avira Phantom VPN is a relatively safe VPN service but in our informed opinion, it is not worth it. The VPN is okay if you are looking for a basic VPN. But if privacy and security are a major concern, we highly advise you to choose one of the alternative VPNs.