Internet users who are looking for an effective way to protect their privacy and improve the security of their connection, have many options available. In the VPN industry, there is an extensive list of providers, including some that not even the most experienced users may have heard of before. That is the case of Sweden-based provider AzireVPN. Although the company was established in 2012 and its team has a solid experience in online security services, the brand is not exactly the most popular name out there. That doesn’t mean that there are not reasons to give AzireVPN a chance.
Privacy/Security
To secure your internet connection and prevent your ISP, hackers and anyone else from accessing your private data, AzireVPN users OpenVPN, a protocol that is widely recognized as the most secure solution available. Although other options like PPTP and L2TP/IPsec are also popular and convenient in some situations, the truth is that they don’t offer the high level of protection that OpenVPN provides. When you connect to AzireVPN’s servers running OpenVPN, the highest level of encryption available to protect your information is AES-256-CBC with SHA512 HMAC and TLS authentication. This is an impressive level of security and one of the strongest areas for AzireVPN.
The Privacy policy states that no logs are kept whatsoever. AzireVPN aims to be recognized as a solid VPN option for users who need a high level of protection for their data. Due to this commitment and the fact that the company is based in Sweden (where data retention laws have never been applied to VPNs), AzireVPN doesn’t keep logs of your traffic, activity, timestaps, IPs or any other details about your connection. In addition, they accept Bitcoin and publish a Warrant Canary on the website to let customers know if the company receives any requests from authorities, a warrant or if their servers are seized.
Features
AzireVPN offers support for Windows, Linux, Mac OS, iOS and Android. It is also possible to configure the service on other platforms like DD-WRT and Synology. While AzireVPN doesn’t offer custom VPN clients (it uses open source OpenVPN for Windows and Tunnelblick for Mac OS), the website offers comprehensive guides to set up the service on any of the platforms supported. There are no bandwidth limits and DNS and IPv6 leaks protection is available. Apart from offering security through OpenVPN, AzireVPN also supports Web proxy, which can be set up on Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Up to fuve simultaneous connections are allowed.
Servers
At the moment, there are over 20 servers distributed in 3 countries: Sweden, United States and United Kingdom. While this is a very limited selection, it may be enough if you are mainly interested in streaming content from services that are only available in these locations. That being said, customers who live far from these countries may experience slower connections when they try to reach these servers. While the website doesn’t provide details about P2P/Torrent, after contacting their customer support they confirmed that they allow this.
Plans
You can subscribe for one month and pay €5 EUR (around $5.50 USD) or opt for 3 months for €13 EUR, which is roughly $14 USD. One year of service costs €45 (about $48), meaning that the price per month would be €3.75 or just over $4 USD. All plans are covered with a 7-day money back guarantee and as prevuouslt mentioned, Bitcoin is one of the payment methods accepted.
Customer Support
The website offers a simple and clear design and in most cases it is easy to find relevant details about the service. The Support section includes convenient set up guides and all the information required to get the service ready for use. However, it is only possible to reach them out via email and the responses can take a while. This can be a big downside for new users who are experiencing issues setting up the service. Given that AzireVPN doesn’t offer custom VPN clients (which are generally easier to set up), a more efficient customer support should be in place to assist users who are having difficulties with the configuration.
Conclusion
Although AzireVPN offers a strong level of security and its no logs policy will appeal users who want to keep their privacy protected, the service has some flaws. The limited selection of server locations means that your browsing/streaming experience won’t be exactly versatile. Additionally, due to the lack of a custom software, practical options like kill switch are not available. We would also like to see a more responsive and efficient customer support. However, there are good things about AzireVPN that may make them a good option for some customers.