Avira Phantom VPN Free vs Proton VPN

Avira Phantom VPN Free is Avira’s VPN offering, with a free plan that provides 500 MB/month at free, billed monthly. A 7-day trial is also listed. The service lists servers in 36 countries and supports streaming and torrent use. Its Pro plan lists unlimited data, a Windows kill switch, and customer support, but no price is given. The free offering has no kill switch, and no verified no-logs audit is listed. Avira also lists ransomware protection, a password manager, junk cleanup, a startup manager, scheduled maintenance, restore-point tools, bulk app updates, and scheduled scans. Silent installation is supported, and the device limit is 25. Platform details name Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, while the operating-system information also describes the software as Windows-only; Windows support specifically names Windows 10 and 11. The maker is based in Tettnang, Germany, and was founded in 1986.

Proton VPN is a virtual private network service from Proton, founded in 2014 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It encrypts traffic with AES-256 or ChaCha20 over WireGuard or OpenVPN, and lists a kill switch, streaming support and torrent support. Proton describes the service as no-logs, open-source and independently audited. Its free plan has unlimited data, no artificial speed limits and no ads; it supports one device at a time and connects to randomly selected servers in 10 countries. Paid plan listings show VPN Plus and Proton Unlimited at $0.00 per month, with the first month and renewal also listed at $0.00; both support 10 devices. Apps are listed for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, as well as browsers, Chromebook, Android TV, Apple TV and Fire TV. NetShield uses DNS filtering to block ads, trackers, phishing scams, malicious sites and malware. The service advertises 20,000+ servers in 140+ countries. Payments can be refunded within 30 days, and subscriptions can be canceled at any time.