46 JULY2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE389
AVAST’SBACKGROUNDISinsecurity
products,anditsSecureLineVPNlooksand
feelsmorelikeanantiviruspackagethan
youraverageVPN.It’salsosoldasanannual
subscription rather than amonthly fee, just
like an internet security suite.
This doesn’tmean that Avast lacks the
privacy protections of other VPNs, however,
northat it doesn’t coverstreaming or P2P
applications.The simple UI reflects thefact
thatthe focus is on delivering asecure,
encryptedinternetconnection with the
minimum of fuss.
HEREANDTHERE
With around 55 servers in 34 countries,
SecureLine doesn’t have the global reach of,
say, Nord VPN (Shopper367)orExpressVPN
(Shopper347). It’sstrong in Europe,Asia
Pacific andNorth America, but much weaker
elsewhere,withSouth America, theMiddle
East and Africacovered by just one server
each (inBrazil, Israel and SouthAfrica
respectively). It does,however,offer specialist
servers forvideo streaming in theUK,
Germany andthe US, plus afew forP2P in
thosecountries plus France, theCzech
Republicand the Netherlands.
Client software is availablefor Windows,
macOS, Androidand iOS, but notLinux. It’s
worthnoting that, while most VPNslet you
connect from multiple systemsatonce,
SecureLine is sold on asingle-devicebasis
(unless you payextra forafive-device licence).
That’sworth bearing in mind if you’re looking
foraVPN to cover allyourfamily’s devices.
It’s alsonot designedtorun on routers.
One of SecureLine’sbiggeststrengthsis
itseaseofuse: once you’vedownloaded the
appyou canbeupand running in minutes.
TheWindows client is more stripped down
than that of HMA! Pro(whichisalso owned
by Avast), butitgives you basic instructions
whileyou’reusing it,and it’s hardly tricky
to work out that you can click the bigred
button marked ‘OFF’ to turn it intoabig
green button marked ‘ON’.
GLOBETROTTING
TheChangeLocation buttonatthe bottomis
equally self-explanatory: servers are listed by
region, and you can pick specificservers
(where available) by clicking adown arrow
next to the country. Allother settings canbe
found with aclickofthe Menu button; not
that thereare many of them.
AVAST SecureLine
★★★★★
£50 per year•From http://www.avast.com
VERDICT
Adependable VPN with apolished interface,
but there’s nothing to make it truly stand
out from the crowd
VPN SOFTWARE
Youcanturnnotifications onandoff, and
choosewhetherSecureLineshouldstart
automatically whenthe PC starts,but
otherwise themostnoteworthyoptions are
under the NetworkSecurity tab,whereyou
canconfigure when theVPN turns on
automatically and enable thekill switch,
should you want it.
Thefinal tab links youtoAvast’sbrowser
extensions forChrome andFirefox, and
gives you the option to use Avast’sSecure
Browser instead.This is based on the
Chromiumopen-source fork of Chrome and
hasbuilt-inad-blocking, anti-phishing and
password-management features.
FORTHE RECORD
Avastisbased in the Czech Republic, which
means it operatesunder EU privacy laws.
The company’s VPNpolicy makes clear that
it willcomply with legaldata-access requests.
It also notesthatAvast does notstore the
originating IP address of users whenthey
connect, and so cannot
reveal any information
about the applications,
servicesorwebsites you’ve
beenusingwhileconnected.
What it does store is a
limited 30-day log that
includes timestamps of
connections, partly
anonymised detailsofthe
originating IP address,
details of theVPN server
used and the amountof
data transmittedacross
thisconnection.
We foundSecureLine’s
privacy and security
protections perfectly robust. The software
uses 256-bit AES encryption with the
OpenVPNprotocol on UDP, and Doileak.com
gave AvastSecureLine aclean bill of health,
exposing nothing untoward in terms of
location, IP address, DNS conflicts or even
excessive hops.
However,SecureLine doesn’thavethe
additional security features of somerival
VPNs. Avasthas addedakill switchinits
latest version, and it workswell,but there
are no additional obfuscation or double-hop
features. If youwanttomake things as
difficultaspossiblefor snoopers, other
VPNs go further.
THE FASTANDTHE FAMILIAR
It’s our suspicion that SecureLine uses some
of thesame infrastructure as HMA! Pro;
certainlysome of theservers that popped
up seemed familiar.
The speedswesaw werevery close,too,
and that means they’re generally verygood.
Close to home there’s very
little drop in speed when
usingthe VPN: our
download speeds dropped
by just under 4% viaaUK
server,whileupload speeds
reduced by under 3%. It’sa
similarstory usingservers
basedinthe Netherlands
(–3.8% and –3.9%
respectively) and Germany
(–4.25% and-4.1%).Ifyour
priorityisgetting asecure
connection, rather than
spoofing aspecific
location, you can expect
great performance.
If your priorityisgetting asecureconnection, rather than
spoofing aspecific location, you can expectgreatperformance
⬆SecureLine is incredibly easy to set up and use
