AVG Secure

AVG is one of the more popular antivirus companies offering its own VPN. While it’s been successful in cybersecurity, this doesn’t necessarily mean its VPN is any good. Discover if AVG Secure VPN is a serious competitor or just an afterthought.

After testing all its features, I found AVG Secure a mediocre VPN. It has decent speeds that work well for torrenting and adequate security features. However, its privacy policies are concerning; the server network is small and a bad choice for secure streaming and gaming. I recommend you try one of our top-rated VPNs instead.

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Streaming — Poor Performance

AVG Secure VPN can’t safely access many of the top platforms. Although it offers streaming servers in the UK, the US, and Germany, my global team and I couldn’t use them to stream many of our favorite services without delays. On the plus side, I was impressed at the video quality we could achieve on the services it did work with.

Works With: Netflix and Max

We were able to access full Netflix libraries in the US, Germany, the UK, and Japan in high quality. This was a promising start to our tests as the only delay was a 5 second loading time before things got started on Netflix UK.

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The only small issue was that we couldn’t stream Netflix Canada during our tests on the Montreal server.

AVG Secure VPN can also securely access Max from anywhere. We conducted several tests where we could always stream the platform in excellent quality.

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Unfortunately, the VPN wasn’t successful in the rest of our tests even though we tried troubleshooting by using different browsers and protocols.

Doesn’t Work With: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, and BBC iPlayer

We couldn’t safely stream Amazon Prime Video while connected to AVG’s VPN. During tests with optimized and regular servers, we always encountered an error message. The same thing happened with Disney+ and BBC iPlayer.

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The top VPNs let you encrypt your connection without interrupting your streaming performance or reducing your video quality. To find a VPN that works much better in this regard, check out our list of the best VPNs for streaming.

Speeds — Only Fast on Nearby Locations

AVG Secure VPN can be fast, but it’s only on select servers. Our speed guru recorded good rates on most of the nearby locations she tested, although some were surprisingly slow. Once the servers got to over 6,000km away, the speeds plummeted as well.

We do our best to test all VPNs from the same location with the same connection, so it’s easier to make fair comparisons. Our speed expert in the UK always does multiple tests for each server to create more accurate averages. The tests you’ll see below were all done with the Mimic protocol since it gave us the best results.

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The best VPNs will lower your nearby speeds by about 10-20%, and AVG VPN has a nearby average just below that. One thing I hope AVG Secure implements in the future is a display of the load percentage of each server. This lets you know how crowded they are, which often leads to slowdowns.

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So, AVG’s speeds are decent, but you can do much better. The main issue is that you can get fast download speeds with Mimic and good ping rates with WireGuard, but none of the protocols it offers are fast in every category. To get a VPN that will help you maintain much better rates overall, look into our list of the fastest VPNs.

Gaming — Hit-or-Miss Connections for Smooth Gameplay

During several of our tests, we couldn’t load our games while connected to the VPN. We used the WireGuard protocol since it consistently gave us the best ping results. Ping measures how quickly your data can travel, and it’s necessary for playing games without annoying lag. You need it to be under 85ms to get instant reactions to your inputs.

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Things went well in our first test with World of Tanks, but when we tried to play War Thunder, we kept getting an error screen. The same thing happened when we attempted to reload WoT. However, we could play these games without issues with no VPN connected or while using ExpressVPN.

These problems persisted even when we tested different servers. It’s too bad because AVG Secure VPN should theoretically work well for gaming with the ping rates it can provide. You can find a much more consistent VPN if you read our list of the best options for online gaming.

Server Network — Small And Missing Some Privacy Assurances

AVG Secure VPN offers 700 servers from 50 countries, which is below average. Most of the locations are in Europe and North America. This is pretty common with most VPNs, and certain regions like Africa and South America only get 1 server to connect to.

I do appreciate that all the servers are city-level. This just means that it clearly labels which exact city you’ll be receiving an IP address from within the app. That makes it easier to pinpoint your location to account for slowdowns. Most countries only get to choose one city, but the US gets the most with 15 actual cities (and its Gotham City streaming location).

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AVG Secure VPN support staff claimed that it owns all of its servers. I did have many issues with support, so I’m not 100% sure if all the information they gave me is accurate. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if a large company like AVG owns its infrastructure. That would be reassuring since it removes several middlemen who could potentially access your data.

All of its server locations are virtual, meaning they’re not physically located where you expect. This isn’t necessarily less safe, but it can result in some surprising speed results if the server is farther away than you thought it would be. I couldn’t get a straight answer about whether it uses RAM-only servers, but I’d guess it doesn’t because most VPNs are happy to advertise that fact.

It also doesn’t offer dedicated IP addresses. These give you a single, static location that only you can connect to. Many VPNs offer them for a monthly fee, and they can be quite helpful if you’re doing something like running a website where you need a consistent IP.

If you want to find a VPN with a large server network that’s more privacy-friendly, you can read this list of options with superior server infrastructure.

Security — Adequate Features but Offers Little Customization

AVG Secure VPN has the basic features you need to stay safe, but nothing else. It comes with excellent encryption, strong protocols, and a kill switch, which are the 3 most important security options a VPN has to nail to be considered secure. However, it doesn’t come with split-tunneling, multi-hop servers, ad-blockers, and some other options its competitors offer.

Still, this is one of the AVG VPN’s strongest areas, and it lives up to its “Secure” namesake.

Encryption & Leak Protection

AVG Secure VPN keeps you protected with military-grade AES 256-bit encryption. This is a nearly unbreakable level of encryption that’s used by top banks worldwide. All the best VPNs offer this, and it’s one of the reasons AVG passed all of our leak tests.

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I wish it gave more details about its leak protection technology on the website. However, tests showed us that it offers solid protection from DNS, IP, and WebRTC leaks.

Protocols

AVG Secure VPN offers Mimic, OpenVPN, WireGuard, and IPsec protocols depending on your device. Windows and Android apps get everything but IPsec. Unfortunately, Apple users can only connect through IPsec or Mimic. Below, you’ll find a quick breakdown of each protocol:

• Mimic. This protocol uses obfuscation technology to hide your VPN use. It can be useful when you’re on a restricted network like they have at many places of business or schools. It offers incredible download speeds, while its ping rates are pretty high.
• WireGuard. This is known as a safe protocol that usually offers the best speeds. However, during our tests, Mimic gave us better download rates. But, WireGuard still delivered a much better ping, so it’s the go-to for gaming.
• OpenVPN. Many consider this to be the safest VPN since it’s open-source. This means it’s constantly being checked for vulnerabilities by cybersecurity enthusiasts around the world. However, it’s usually a bit slower than the 2 protocols mentioned above.
• IPsec. Since it’s a bit older, I’d recommend trying to avoid using this protocol. While it’s still generally considered safe, you’ll get better performance and improved security with the other options.

Kill Switch

AVG Secure VPN offers this necessary feature that acts as a failsafe if your connection ever falters. A kill switch will shut down your internet connection in the event that the VPN suddenly disconnects. You can turn off this feature, but I recommend always leaving it on.

I really like that AVG alerts you when the kill switch has been activated. For example, when you choose to switch servers without disconnecting, a little message appears on your app letting you know your internet is being blocked. You can choose to unblock it, but you’ll be safest just letting the kill switch do its thing and turn off once you’ve acquired a new secure connection.

Privacy — Unclear Policies Are Worrying

It’s difficult to find out what AVG Secure VPN’s actual privacy policies are. There is a general privacy policy for all AVG products, but it’s not very reassuring. It’s also tough to determine what jurisdiction the company falls under since its headquarters are in one location, but its parent company’s is in another.

In the end, you’re better off sticking with a VPN that has clear privacy policies, so you know exactly what you’re getting into. I recommend you take a look at our list of the most privacy-friendly VPNs to find one that’s more transparent about how it handles your vital information.

Does AVG Secure VPN keep logs? Unclear

The link to its privacy policies on AVG’s website is broken. When I brought this to support staff’s attention, they seemed completely unaware of it. This is quite concerning because I can’t endorse a VPN that doesn’t explicitly tell you what information it stores about your VPN use.

Reading through the general AVG privacy policy was a bit disturbing as well. The overall AVG policies claim that they can access and store your full name and IP address. It’s possible that the VPN’s privacy policy used to state that this isn’t the case when you only use the VPN, but there’s no way to know for sure.

Has AVG Secure VPN been independently audited? No

There have been no third-party audits of the VPN or its policies. I love it when a VPN undergoes audits from reputable third-parties because this can prove that they actually back up their claims. Without one of these audits, you just have to take a VPN at its word, and that’s not easy to do with AVG.

Based in Czechia

AVG is technically based in Czechia, but its parent company is based in the US. Czechia would be a decent place for a VPN to keep its headquarters since it’s outside the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances although it still has to follow some EU data retention laws.

However, AVG is owned by Gen Digital, a company that also owns Norton and Avast. This corporation keeps its headquarters in Arizona, USA. While I can’t say for sure that AVG falls under US jurisdiction, if it did, that would be concerning. The United States is known as one of the least privacy-friendly countries on the planet.

Does AVG Secure VPN Work in China? No

Even though it offers obfuscation, support confirmed you can’t use AVG Secure VPN in China.

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While there have been many VPNs banned in China, there have been no publicly-reported cases of individuals getting in trouble for using them. Still, we don’t condone any illegal activities and ask that you please read up on the laws before choosing to use a VPN in the country. To find a VPN that’s been tried-and-tested, check out our list of the best VPNs for China.

Torrenting — Works Well With All Server Types

I could download files quickly and safely with AVG Secure VPN. While it doesn’t offer special features like port forwarding that can increase download and upload speeds, it’s still quite fast without them.

I could download a 700MB file in 15 minutes with the VPN connected. With no VPN connection, I can only download the file 1 minute faster. This was with an optimized server near me. But, using a regular server, my speeds were nearly identical. So, you’ll probably be able to get the best speeds using the nearest server, whether it’s optimized or not.

Torrenting is legal in most countries, but downloading copyright files isn’t. We recommend that you stick with files within the public domain to make sure you don’t break any laws.