It's easy to make sure no one is actually looking over your shoulder, but on the web, it's much harder to make sure you're not being spied on.
With a virtual private network, such as Avira Phantom VPN, you're protected against a host of network threats.
This subscription service is priced affordably and allows an unlimited number of devices to be connected at once, but it's not best suited for international travelers or those looking to spoof their location, as it offers comparatively few servers.
What Is a VPN?
When a VPN is active, it creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and a server operated by the VPN company.
Your data flows through the tunnel, protecting you from hackers on the network and shielding your activities from ISPs' prying eyes.
Because your web traffic appears to be emanating from the VPN server, anyone watching sees the server's IP address instead of your own.
Since a rough position on Earth can be divined from your IP address, this effectively hides your true location.
Journalists and activists have long used VPNs to circumvent restrictive internet policies.
By connecting to a VPN server outside of the country in which they are operating, they can effectively tunnel beneath censorship.
A VPN, however, is not true anonymity.
For that, you need a more heavy-duty solution, such as Tor.
Pricing and Features
Avira subscriptions start at $10 per month, which is a smidge below average for the industry.
Alternatively, you can fork over $78 once a year for a subscription, which is a good value.
Editors' Choice winner KeepSolid VPN Unlimited slides in at just $6.99 per month, however.
Avira is also one of the few VPN companies that offers a mobile-specific plan, charging just $5.99 per month to protect a single Android or iOS device, if you're convinced you need nothing else.
Among antivirus companies, Avira is one of the big names.
As such, I expected there to be a bundle deal available with its VPN product, but that's not the case.
Norton offers its Secure VPN product at a reduced price when you also sign up for antivirus protection.
You don't necessarily have to pay for VPN protection, as there are many free VPN services available.
Avira is one of the few VPNs that offers a fully fledged free subscription option.
Free subscribers are limited to just 500MB per month—the same data restriction as TunnelBear's free plan—and also do not have access to Avira tech support or the app's Kill Switch feature.
Avira does, however, provide access to all its VPN servers to free subscribers and places no limit on the number of simultaneous connections for free subscribers.
ProtonVPN, on the other hand, places no data restrictions on its free subscribers, making it the only true free VPN.
As with free subscriptions, a paid Avira subscription lets you protect as many devices as you like.
That alone makes Avira a remarkable value and an excellent value for any home with numerous devices.
The industry average is five devices, although NordVPN ($89 for Two-Year Plan With Bonus Gift at NordVPN) offers six and CyberGhost offers seven.
Windscribe is the only other VPN I've yet seen that places no limit on the number of devices.
No matter how many licenses you have, smart devices, such as your smart fridge and garage door opener, can't run a VPN on their own, yet they still communicate with the internet.
To protect these devices, consider adding a VPN at the router level.
Some companies, like TorGuard, offer routers with their software preinstalled, while others provide instructions to install it yourself.
A company representative told me that Avira does not differentiate between types of traffic.
That's great for privacy, and it also means that you can use BitTorrent and P2P file-sharing services to your heart's content.
Most other VPN services only allow this kind of traffic on specific servers.
TorGuard, on the other hand, is all about BitTorrent, offering access to high-bandwidth connections and static IP addresses for improved performance.
In addition to the basic VPN protection, Avira includes the aforementioned Kill Switch along with DNS protections.
DNS is basically a phonebook for the internet, turning human-understandable URLs into machine-understandable IP addresses.
By maintaining its own DNS service, Avira ensures that no one can monitor your DNS requests to send you to phishing sites or infer your web activity.
VPN Protocols
As a mature technology, there are several ways to create a VPN connection.
I prefer services that use the OpenVPN protocol, which has a reputation for speed and reliability.
It's also open-source and has been picked over for vulnerabilities.
Avira Phantom VPN uses OpenVPN for its Windows and Android clients.
The company uses the older and less secure IPSec for its MacOS and iOS apps.
This isn't too surprising, as Apple requires developers to jump through more hoops if they want to use OpenVPN on iOS.
Still, I'd like to see Avira make the effort.
One exciting tidbit is that Avira is working to implement WireGuard, the new hotness in VPN protocols.
Avira's implementation is not currently available to the public, but it shows the company is looking forward and embracing new technologies.
Servers and Server Locations
More server locations not only means more opportunities for location spoofing, but also generally means better speeds—because you'll be more likely to connect to nearby servers.
The more server locations there are, the more likely you are to find one nearby, wherever you go.
The number of servers is often a function of the number of subscribers a VPN service has, but more is usually better here, too.
The more servers are available, the fewer people will be in each server, giving you more bandwidth.
For the price of your subscription, you get access to Avira's 100 servers across 28 countries in 39 locations.
In general, Avira covers the US and Europe heavily, with light coverage through Asia.
I'm happy to see the inclusion of India and Mexico on the list, but Avira completely ignores Africa and South America.
I'd like to see it expand in these areas.
While it offers servers in Hong Kong, Avira doesn't cover areas with repressive internet policies, such as Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam.
ExpressVPN does an excellent job of covering the globe, supporting servers in 94 countries.
As for server fleets, CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, Private Internet Access ($69.95 for Two-Year Plan + Two-Months Free at Private Internet Access) , and TorGuard all boast more than 3,000.
NordVPN, however, leads the pack with over 5,200 servers—vastly more than Avira's 100.
Some readers have expressed concern over virtual servers.
These are software-defined servers, meaning that a single physical server can host several virtual servers.
Virtual servers can also be configured to appear as if they are somewhere other than their true location.
That can be an issue if you are concerned about where your data is flowing, but is a useful way to provide coverage for dangerous countries without putting servers at risk.
Avira does use virtual servers, but all virtual servers are in the same location as their physical hosts.
Your Privacy With Avira Phantom VPN
When you use a VPN, you're routing all your web traffic through its systems, potentially giving the company enormous insight into your online activities and personal information.
It's important that you can trust your VPN to use that access responsibly.
Avira's privacy policy is very broad and primarily concerned with complying with the GDPR.
It also covers all of the company's products, making it a little less detailed and specific than I would like.
A company representative tells me that Avira Phantom VPN does not track websites you visit, your real IP address, the IP address assigned by Avira, and "any information that can link you to any action." That's excellent, and exactly what I want to hear from a VPN company.
The company does track the volume of data used by customers, which Avira says is necessary for setting prices.
Avira also collects diagnostic information, but this is entirely voluntary.
An Avira representative says that the company only generates revenue from subscriptions, meaning your data won't be mined or sold for profit.
Avira Holding GmbH & Co.
KG is based in Tettnang, Germany, a country which enacted new data retention laws, according to reports from 2016.
This means that the company may be required to hold on to identifiable data in order to comply with local law.
We prefer when companies work under more friendly legal frameworks, such as NordVPN operating out of Panama.
Avira argues that being based in Germany means it's protected by strong privacy rules.
When asked how it would respond to legal requests for information, the Avira representative responded that because the company does not track non-anonymized user behavior, Avira would have nothing to share.
That's great.
As of this writing, Avira has not released third-party audits of its product or practices.
Other companies are moving to release more information to assure customers of their due diligence.
TunnelBear, for example, has committed to releasing annual evaluations of its product.
Avira also has not responded to the Center for Democracy and Technology's VPN questionnaire, but has provided me with much of the same information.
Hands On With Avira Phantom VPN
I tested Avira on a Lenovo ThinkPad T460s laptop running Windows 10.
Happily, Avira no longer automatically installs its former Client Dashboard software; this change streamlines the entire process nicely.
The Avira Phantom VPN app seems designed with novice users in mind.
Light on features and design elements, it's more of a set-and-forget application, rather than something you'd tinker with.
For example, Avira will show you the ping time to different server locations, but not let you drill down to specific servers or see additional stats.
That's fine for most people, but power users will prefer the flexibility of ProtonVPN ($6.63 Per Month for Two Year Plan at ProtonVPN) or NordVPN.
That said, the Avira app isn't particularly friendly.
I like that it has a big and clear means of securing my connection, but that's about as far as the design goes.
NordVPN looks excellent on all platforms and is built around an interactive map.
TunnelBear is my go-to for friendly VPN apps, thanks to its cadre of friendly and powerful bears.
The app does include a Kill Switch, as mentioned earlier.
This shuts down your internet connection in case your VPN connection fails.
The app can also automatically switch on the VPN at system startup or when you connect to specific Wi-Fi networks.
I prefer apps that work in reverse, and let me designate safe networks where the VPN is not needed.
Avira does not include split-tunneling, which lets you route the traffic from specific apps either in or out of the VPN tunnel.
Avira Phantom VPN and Netflix
Netflix and other streaming platforms offer specific content to specific parts of the world.
With a VPN, you can jump those invisible borders to see how the other half lives, or to continue watching your own shows while traveling.
Netflix is wise to this scheme, however, and actively works to block users who connect via VPN.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that Netflix loaded content while connected to an Avira VPN server in the US.
How long Avira will continue to evade them is an open question.
Beyond VPN
In addition to basic VPN protections, Avira Phantom VPN also has, what the company calls Botnet protection.
According to Avira, this means that, when the VPN is active, your computer won't be roped into being part of a botnet and sent off to DDoS a website or send oodles of spam.
NordVPN has a similar feature in its CyberSec package.
Currently, Avira does not offer an ad-blocking service as part of its Phantom VPN offering.
KeepSolid VPN Unlimited, Private Internet Access, HotSpot Shield Elite, and TorGuard do offer this feature.
TunnelBear ($120 for Three-Year Plan at TunnelBear) offers an excellent browser plug-in to handle these issues, as well as its own password manager.
Avira, too, has its Avira Browser Safety plug-in to handle ads.
Speed Test Results
No matter the VPN you choose, odds are that it will have some impact on your web browsing experience—generally, an increase in latency and dips in upload and download speeds.
To get a sense of that impact and to compare VPN services, I run a series of tests using the Ookla Speedtest tool.
Please read my piece on How We Test VPNs for more of these details.
See How We Test VPNs
(Editors' Note: Ookla Speedtest is owned by j2 Global, the parent company of Daxdi's publisher, Ziff Davis.)
In my tests, I found that Avira Phantom VPN increased latency by 66.7 percent.
It also decreased download speeds by 88.9 percent and upload speeds by 82.3 percent.
While the latency score is well below the median average, the upload and download results were equal or slightly higher than the median average.
You can see how Avira Phantom VPN compares in the chart below with the top ten performers among the more than 30 services we tested.
Note that your experience with a VPN will likely differ greatly from mine.
According to my results, HideIPVPN is the fastest VPN I've yet tested.
It had the least impact on upload and download results.
That all being said, I caution strongly against choosing a VPN on speed alone.
Overall value, a commitment to customer privacy, and the technology used by the service are all far more important.
Avira Phantom VPN on Other Platforms
Avira offers clients for Android, iOS, and macOS, in addition to the Windows client reviewed here.
IPVanish, among other services, also provide apps for streaming devices like the Amazon Fire Stick.
The company also includes a plug-in for the Chrome browser.
This plug-in routes your browser traffic, and only your browser traffic, to the location of your choice, but does not use the encryption systems found in VPN protocols to secure the traffic.
Solid Overall, but Not the Best
For $10, Avira offers much of what we're looking for in a VPN, at a reasonable price.
The fact that it allows an unlimited number of devices per account, has no problem allowing P2P or BitTorrent on any server, and offers a free version are all excellent enticements.
Its clear data logging policy is also reassuring.
That said, the app is in need of a visual overhaul, and its server offering is far from robust.
If you...
