Avira Phantom VPN Review.
Yes, Avira Phantom VPN is safe and legit. This review found out that Avira Phantom VPN is stable and reliable after trying out its VPN service.
So, if you are looking for the best and unbiased Avira Phantom VPN reviews, you have come to the right place.
Avira Phantom VPN is a VPN service offered by German multinational security software company – Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG. Avira Phantom VPN encrypts your connection, enabling you to evade hackers on public WiFi hotspots. It also keeps your web interactions private and bypasses …
Yes! You might have heard of the popular Avira antivirus software. After so many years of protecting your devices, Avira launched the Phantom VPN to protect your online traffic.
Just like a phantom is elusive and has no substantial existence; the Phantom VPN wants to make sure that you are elusive and have no substantial existence online. This is to protect you from cyber fraudsters, hackers, nosy neighbours and monitoring from the government.
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Note: Since you have nothing to loss, it will be a very good idea to register from this post so we can be able to assist you by getting in touch with them if you have any problem in the future. We have the power to force them into rectifying their faults. However, we cannot do anything if you try to trick the system. Just make sure you comply with their rules and regulations to make it easier for us.
The award-winning Avira has set a high bar with some high-quality security products; will Avira Phantom VPN measure up?
This review is meant to examine the capabilities of the Avira Phantom VPN in providing high-quality VPN protection.
Avira Phantom VPN is safe for your usage and we can assure you that your information is secured. But what we cannot reveal to you is if Avira Phantom VPN is slow or not. You can verify for you by reading through the users’ complaints and feedback below.
Avira Phantom VPN is currently legit, as of writing this Phantom VPN review, they have been in the industry for so long. We have lots of users reviews about Phantom VPN which you would see below. But we can assure you that you will definitely get what you paid for. If you change your mind, you may cancel the service using their money-back guarantee.
“Avira Updater Pro is an excellent way of keeping your computer updated and running smoothly. It prevents you from having to update a program every time you open it. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to keep their system operating like new.”
“The nightly prompts about Speedup are a bit much. But, if it’s a choice between overkill and no prompting at all, I’ll take the overkill every time. Most of my experience has been a positive one. I would recommend your product.”
I love your program and wish I had the money to upgrade. I am in my 78th year and have cancer plus live on a very very limited budget. I have no credit cards and don’t have the cash to pay for the upgrade. Other than that, you get an A+ for Avira. Thank you. James Braden.
“I purchased Optimization from Avira and have written twice to ask how to stop the continual notices that I am no longer secure because I have used all my Phantom VPN services. Those services would be covered based on my purchase of Optimization. Plus I purchased O&O Diskimage Pro 12 through Avira and it’s done nothing but mess up my computer. All I get is error messages and O&O states I have to get help from the sales point, not from them. I have had no luck trying to sort it out and I’m not happy with the lack of help or the continued messages from Avira. I have uninstalled the original version and installed the Optimization suite only to have slower internet and a lack of help with O & O. I am not happy with this. Avira continues to assault me with “buy this now” in spite of having purchased their premier product”
“I renewed for 3 years but then kept getting auto-responder messages to tell me how many days of security I still had left, then later, how many days I had no security and could still re-start my account. Twice I went back into my dashboard to confirm that I had in fact paid and it was lodged in the system. Left and right hands not really coordinated!
It took way too long for your helper to sort out the problem and I never did get a proper apology for the aggravation involved”
The Phatom VPN is just one offering of the many offerings of Avira; and some of these other offerings (System Speedup, SafeSearch Plus, Software Updater and Online Essentials) come in the package when you click to download the VPN. To install only the VPN, just click ‘skip’ to pass the other services during installation.
Avira Phantom has a basic interface that allows you to connect to the service with a single click. When you launch the app; at the bottom of the interface is “Virtual location:” followed by a link (Nearest location). Clicking the prominent ‘connect’ bar on the interface will automatically get you connected to the best server closest to you.
After connection, the interface still advocates simplistic minimalism. All you see is your connection status, your data usage status, virtual location, and a disconnect button.
Changing servers is also easy; you can do this by going to the settings page under “select virtual location”. Select a location from the list of servers and you will be automatically connected; you don’t have to disconnect from the current location.
Avira Phantom VPN provides another faster way of changing servers; click on the link following “Virtual location:” and it will open the servers’ list. I like that Avira Phantom gives a faster option to switching servers and that this was achieved without cluttering the interface.
Avira Phantom VPN manage to out-do a lot of VPN services by showing the pings of the servers. This information will help determine the fastest servers.
The settings page allow you to do some basic ‘configurations’ (enable a kill switch, set the VPN to launch when Windows starts, set the VPN to automatically connect when your device is on certain Wi-Fi networks, and prevent the sending of diagnostic data to Avira”
The interface is not feature-packed but allows you to do basic settings to get flying with VPN protection.
Having one or two mobile devices, a laptop, and yet another office device; you’d want a VPN that allows you to protect all devices simultaneously without spending more than necessary.
How many devices should VPN services allow you to protect with one license? The VPN industry average for simultaneous connections is five, and services that have free versions allow only one connection on the free version.
Avira Phantom VPN tops all that. On Avira Phantom Pro (the paid version), you can connect as many devices as you like (unlimited connections); while on the free version, you are allowed up to five simultaneous connections. This is a very generous offer.
You can use Avira Phantom VPN on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. You are out of luck if you use Linux because Avira Phantom VPN does not support Linux. You also cannot use the VPN on routers, but this should not be a worry because of the unlimited simultaneous connection that Avira Phantom VPN allows.
In VPN circles, a VPN streaming capability is almost becoming synonymous with its ability to unblock Netflix. This is not only because the premier streaming service has a large library, but majorly because Netflix is successfully blocking VPNs. It is becoming rare to see VPNs that gives you Netflix, and anyone that does must be a ‘helluva’ VPN service for streaming.
Avira Phantom VPN is an excellent service for streaming; one server after another gives access to Netflix contents.
It is safe to assume that Avira Phantom VPN does not support P2P activities.
While most VPN services even seem to encourage torrenting activities (by giving tips for anonymous torrenting); torrenting is conspicuously absent from the website of Avira Phantom VPN.
Also, while some VPN services have clearly marked servers optimized for P2P activity; none of the servers of Avira Phantom VPN is so marked.
Lastly, anybody who wants to learn a thing or two about giving political answers can study the responses that the Support service gives to queries about torrenting.
Avira Phantom operates 36 servers in 25 countries around the world. The server network covers many of the major cities of the world.
In VPN circles, server count is a pretty important factor, because more servers equal enhanced anonymity and performance. VPNs give you anonymity by replacing your real IP address with one of their own. Remember that IP addresses define location; so when you are online with VPN protection, your real location is not seen, what is seen is the virtual location the VPN gives you.
If a VPN service has a million virtual locations; it means you can be in all one million places when online. Anonymous.
In terms of performance; when too many users connect to one server to share its resources, speed is reduced. With a million servers, you’re less likely to see a server that is overcrowded.
At the moment, VPN services can only dream of a million servers; but there are some that operate as many as 4,000 servers. The 36 servers of Avira Phantom VPN pales in comparison. Avira badly needs to increase its server count, as well as to reach more countries. Currently, in their server network, only one country (Brazil) represents the whole of South America, while the whole of Africa and the Middle East is conspicuously missing.
Avira Phantom has two service offerings – a free version (called Phantom VPN) and a paid version (called Phantom VPN Pro).
The Phantom VPN Pro is tiered into two – a ‘multi-device’ plan and an ‘Android & iOS only’ plan. The two plans of the Phantom VPN Pro has similar features, the only difference is device supported and billing option.
The ‘multi-device’ plan can be used on all devices and has two billing options (annually and monthly); while the ‘Android & iOS, only’ plan can be used on only mobile devices and is billed monthly.
The Phantom VPN Pro ‘multi-device’ plan cost $8.00 for the monthly subscription and $62.40 for the annual subscription (which equates to $5.20 per month to give a 35% cost saving). The Phantom VPN Pro ‘Android & iOS only’ plan cost $4.99 monthly.
In terms of required financial outlay, these prices will put Avira Phantom VPN in the middle of the bracket (not expensive, but not cheap); there are more expensive VPN services, and there are still some very top-quality VPN services with more pocket-friendly prices.
Avira Phantom VPN allows popular payment options such as credit and debit cards, Paypal and wire transfer. Because these billing operations leave clear trails; users have called for anonymous payment methods to be introduced. Avira responded by recently adding the anonymous Bitcoin payment to their list of accepted payment methods. This will enhance the anonymity of users purchasing the service.
Avira Phantom VPN also employs auto-renewal of account that allows a user’s subscription to be automatically renewed upon expiration.
Avira Phantom VPN offers a 30 days money-back guarantee which allows you to request a refund if you do not like the service. 30 days guarantee is what most VPNs give, but it is a generous offer for Avira Phantom to give considering that Avira Phantom VPN also has a free version that users should have used in testing the service before making financial commitments.
Avira Phantom VPN is one of the few VPN services that offer a free version. However, as you’d expect, you cannot have all the goodies in a free version, not when there is also a paid version in the market. The free service has a monthly bandwidth cap. When signing up for the free version, submitting an e-mail address is optional. If you sign up with an e-mail address, you’ll get a monthly 1GB data every month; but if you sign up without an e-mail, your monthly data usage is capped at 500 MB.
Also, there is no kill switch, there is no tech support, and only five simultaneous connections are allowed. The bandwidth cap effectively means there is no streaming (not that streaming is not allowed; but streaming will exhaust the data almost immediately)
Given the vast success of Avira in the security software business, I would have been surprised if Avira Phantom VPN failed in plugging security leaks like IPv6 leak and WebRTC leaks.
Fortunately, Avira Phantom VPN successfully protected against these leaks. You can be sure that while browsing you will not be leaking DNS and revealing your true location.
It is not enough that a VPN service provides security and privacy; the service should, among other things, be fast. Being fast means that the service should not decrease your browsing speed beyond tolerable limits.
Avira Phantom VPN showed mixed results in terms of speed. On the average Avira Phantom VPN increased latency by 137%, making it one of the fastest VPNs in connecting to servers. Some of the premium VPNs increase latency by more than 200%. On the upload front, the VPN did not perform well; speed dropped by over 75%. On the all-important download test, the Phantom’s performance sank even further. Avira Phantom VPN dropped download speed by 129%. It is safe to say that Avira Phantom VPN does not have speed on its side.
Avira Phantom VPN uses the popular OpenVPN protocols. For encryption, they use the AES 256 bit key which is the industry standard. Authentication is done using SHA512, and handshake is DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384.
However, Avira Phantom does not allow you to choose another protocol; and don’t even think of changing the level of encryption.
Just as Batman protects Gotham city, a VPN service protects our online world; but even a hero like Batman sometimes needs a sidekick – Robin. In the same vein, even the best VPN needs a sidekick – the kill switch.
A VPN can only protect when it is up and running. Sometimes a VPN connection drops and you are disconnected from the VPN service; when that happens your traffic is open to the world. At those time that the VPN is down and leaves you unprotected, the sidekick comes to the rescue. The Kill switch cuts off your internet connection and ensures that you do not transmit data until the VPN comes back up.
Avira Phantom VPN has a kill switch – though not so named. This can be accessed on the settings page under “Block all internet traffic if VPN connection drops”. Toggling on the feature does exactly as its name suggest, it blocks all internet traffic, and ensures that you are not online without VPN protection.
You can’t really be as elusive as a phantom if you are being monitored and/ or a record is kept of your activities. One of the main reason for using a VPN is to disappear into anonymity, and one of the main reason for log keeping is to document evidence. Anonymity and log keeping are opposite poles; that is why VPN users run from log keeping services. It is also why VPN services advertise no-log policies to assure users that their privacy will not be compromised.
Avira Phantom VPN, like almost every other VPN in the market, says they do not log users data. An excerpt from their logging policy is: “We do not collect any data about the web pages you visit or the services you use on the internet”.
That is what every VPN user want. Further, into their privacy policy, Avira Phantom VPN says this: “We only collect data when it’s truly necessary, and in our customers’ best interests, e.g. to send you a product activation code via email”
While that was also good to hear, it tickled my curiosity. I became interested in knowing the data that is collected by the service so that I will determine for myself if it’s truly necessary and in my best interest. So I dug deeper into Avira privacy policy.
To sign up for Avira Phantom VPN Pro, you are prompted to put an email address and a password. It also asks for your name (first name and last name), location (country, city, ZIP code, even to your street address).
Outside email address, I find it hard to accept that the other information collected is truly necessary; and I find it even harder to accept that collecting that information is in my best interest.
Definitely, Avira Phantom minimalist approach (that makes the app’s interface so simple) did not extend to the signing-up information requirement; here they seem to want to know everything. There is even an optional “add business information” text box; the only thing missing is “date of birth”.
It was surprising that Avira Phantom VPN wants to know so much in the signing up process when other services want to know as little as possible.
Avira Phantom VPN says that to help them improve the service, they track and record “diagnostic data” of potential bugs that users might encounter.
Is this truly necessary? No. Avira Phantom VPN even agrees by making it optional to send them the diagnostic data. In the settings page, you can turn off “send diagnostic data”.
Avira Phantom VPN also says that they track ‘information’ on whether one is paying or a free user. I really wish they state what information is tracked here.
This is where it really gets ugly, not for every one though. Avira Phantom VPN measures the amount of data consumed. They say it enables them to control the costs of providing VPN infrastructure and to continue providing Phantom VPN free of charge. It is safe to say that the recording of bandwidth use applies only to users of the free version. To enforce the data cap of the free VPN version, Avira Phantom keeps connection timestamps, data usage, and very likely the IP addresses of users of the free version.
Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG, the company that owns Avira Phantom VPN, is a German company. This will give some VPN users the chills. First, Germany is a member of the 14-Eyes surveillance alliance; this alliance is effectively a global spying network – member countries work together to gather and share intelligence on identified subjects.
Also, there is the problem of the German Intelligence Agency – Bundesnachrichtendienst. I can’t pronounce that either. In fact, I got a headache when I tried pronouncing it. Come to think of it; If simply pronouncing their name will give a headache, then imagine what will happen when they come at once.
The organization which is thankfully called the BND has been embroiled in one spying scandal after another. The spy agency has been described as one of the most invasive intelligence agency in the world and has been known to use loopholes in the law to spy on German citizens and companies.
The Avira Phantom VPN knowledge is neatly arranged; to aid navigation, the great number of helpful articles are sectionalized into download and install, renew and activate the license, technical, configuration, malware, and payment option.
You can also get help from Avira Phantom VPN by directly contacting a representative through ticket, email, or telephone. The phone number can be requested via the Support section of the Avira website. This is very good, as most VPN services limit contact support to email and ticket services. Timeliness of the feedback for the email and ticket systems have been big issues for Avira Phantom VPN. The service can improve on the more than 24 hours that it takes for customers’ queries to be responded to.
Avira Phantom VPN has a beautiful interface that makes it easy to use. They allow unlimited simultaneous device connections and offers a generous free version. The VPN works well with Netflix. They use strong encryption to secure your data and wrap the security package with a kill switch and security leaks protection.
The Phantom provides basic features to give you VPN protection on the fly, but is short on advanced features and configurations to optimize your connection.
Compared to the competition, Avira Phantom VPN has a small server network; and is expensive for what it offers. They don’t have speed on their side, and they also do not support P2P file sharing.
They collect more than necessary information to sign up for the service, and the phantom’s German location can pose a threat to privacy. Germany: (i) is a 14-Eyes country (ii) has an invasive intelligence agency (the BND)
Do you have experience with Avira Phantom VPN? Good or bad, kindly use the comment section below to give us your brief Avira Phantom VPN review.
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