When it comes to the security of the computer, it starts with the moment it gets in touch with the internet. In order to protect your devices as well as precious data, you require a virtual private network popularly known as VPN like HideMyAss. This name is quite direct, and its service is phenomenal. It is quite an excellent interface with straightforward features. It provides great service, but it is also hampered by some of its issues like allotment of licenses as well as few concerning logging policies. Here in this article, we offer HideMyAss Review to give you an idea about this fantastic VPN along with its design, features, pros, and cons.
Definition of VPN
When you put in the address of a particular website in the browser and hit enter, you are essentially sending a request via the internet to the serve where that particular site is stored. It responds with the required information which is requested, and it is duly displayed on the screen. All along this journey, other people can intercept such requests and can even watch whatever you are browsing and view what you are actually saying online. In most cases, it’s the advertisers who are trying to monitor and understand your online behavior to present targeted ads but hackers might also be present on the network, lurking around to steal your essential and private as well as personal details and information, passwords and financial records. A new enemy has emerged which can be the ISPs which are gathering your data in order to sell it for good price.
A VPN is particularly designed to safeguard you against all such threats. Whenever you are connected to VPN, you are essentially creating an encrypted tunnel which is between you and the VPN’s server. Your request is then relayed from the server to whichever site or service that you want to reach and the information and the data travels back along this encrypted tunnel. This means that if anyone is lurking on your Wi-Fi network or even on your ISP, he won’t be able to see or steal anything.
On the internet, your IP address is safe and hidden from anyone who is watching the traffic on different websites will be able to view the IP address of the VPN server. Provided the site which you are accessing uses HTTPS, your data is essentially secured all along the journey.
The most usual place to use a VPN is in the case when you are not on your home network like you are traveling, or you are at a local coffee shop using its public Wi-Fi. Such unsecured networks are the favorite places for attackers who are looking to steal your personal information. VPNs are a great tool for journalists as well as political activists who are operating in countries which have oppressive internet policies.
But what about the fun in using VPN? Well, there is still some fun in it. A VPN can essentially spoof your current location which gives you access to any geographically restricted content such as BBC streaming etc. Some VPNs really don’t appreciate such activities as they can be in violation of terms of service or even against local laws. The content providers like Netflix are also putting pressure on authorities to crack down on users that spoof their location and also the VPN services which they use to do so.
Features and Pricing
In case you wish to try HideMyAss before you decide to buy it, then you can’t actually do it. This service doesn’t offer any kind of free version or a free trial. In case you require a great VPN, but you don’t want to spend any money then you should try a free VPN. Most of such services do have place restrictions on the service unless you pay for it.
In this HideMyAss Review, we talk about the features and pricing of this VPN. It does come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. It also provides loyalty rewards to the users to convince them to sign up. Having said that, it costs $11.53 per month, which puts it on the higher side of the most of the VPN services.
In case you are among those who commit to a service, then you can easily get this VPN’s subscription for $49.99 for six months or $78.66 per year. These are great prices for such durations, but it should be noted that there are some VPN services like VPN Unlimited which offers lifetime plans as well as long-term protection.
In order to buy a HideMyAss subscription, you need to use a credit card, PayPal, e-check, wire transfer, Diner’s Club, UnionPay or Cast at 7-11. You can also utilize many gift cards from different stores like Starbucks. Using these methods, you can make your payments semi-anonymous. However, you can’t use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin which is actually accepted by various VN services like NordVPN, Private Internet Access and likes of these.
However, the relatively high price of this service may feel even higher given that the lesser number of devices it allows you to protect per license. In this HideMyAss Review, we would like to point out that it only allows you to connect two devices to this service and only when those particular devices are essentially connected to separate server. In case you have a computer and a phone, then it is perfectly fine but there are many people who have many devices, and they probably share those devices with their family members and friends. Like other services such as Private Internet Access VPN provides at least five licenses without any sort of restriction. TorGuard allows you with five devices, and for low fees, you can add more devices if you like to.
However, there is a resolution for such restrictions which we will put out in this HideMyAss Review. In case you wish to protect all the devices present on your network then you can use this VPN’s handy guide to install VPN software on your router. By installing VPN on a router essentially means that every device which is present on the network gets all the benefits of VPN. Some companies like TorGuard VPN provide routers as well as streaming boxes such as Apple TV with pre-installed VPN.
The main differentiator between most of the VPN services is actually the number of available servers along with their geographic distribution. A large number of servers means that you can easily find a server which isn’t bogged down with many users. Lots of locations actually mean that there is more choice for you to choose from for spoofing purposes but it also makes sure that no matter if you are traveling anywhere, you will be nearby a server for the best performance. As we mention in our HideMyAss Review¸, this VPN provides 859 servers over 240 locations in 190 countries. This is quite phenomenal since most of the best VPN services don’t have services in many parts of the world especially, in Central America, Africa, and South America. HideMyAss covers all these regions. Another VPN, the Private Internet Access has the most servers with more than 3,000 servers.
When it comes various operating systems such as Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, all utilize the OpenVPN protocol to get connected. We recommend OpenVPN because it has open-source nature and it provides excellent speed along with protection. The iOS client utilizes the IPSec protocol. Most of the VPN companies will support different protocols and allow the users to choose from. This is not a big issue for HideMyAss which is mostly about ease of usage. The average user really doesn’t care how their VPN gets connected. The only aspect that matters to him is that it gets connected.
Even though HideMyAss has phenomenal geographic coverage, there is nothing of the sort of specialty servers. NordVPN does have a specific server type which is only for high-speed video streaming and another server type which routes the VPN connection via the Tor network and another server for P2P file sharing as well as BitTorrent and another type for providing double encryption. In this HideMyAss Review, we would like to mention this difference between HideMyAss and other VPN services like NordVPN.
Other VPN services like Private Internet Access as well as Spotflux Premium comes with ad and tracker blocking which HideMyAss doesn’t offer. In case you are looking for such kinds of advanced features or looking for the ability to change the VPN protocol to choose, then HideMyAss is not worth looking.
HideMyAss’s company headquarters is located in the UK, a country where there are mandatory data retention laws. It is not very clear if a VPN would be allowed to maintain the information about its users, but there is certainly a possibility. HideMyAss company does keep logs of the activity of the users, noting their IP addresses along with IP address of the VPN server which they connect to as well as the time of connection. This particular information is generally stored for two to three months. Many different VPN services are in different countries where there aren’t any mandatory data retention laws and don’t have any logging policy. For some user, this may not be a matter of concern, but for some, it can make a huge difference.
One thing that we like to highlight in this HideMyAss Review is that it doesn’t inject any advertisements into your traffic. In previous times, the VPN services use to utilize this method to earn big bucks.
Review on Working on HideMyAss
When it comes to this VPN’s Android app, it is quite bright and has a colourful design which is continued to be the same in Windows app. The app provides three scenarios in order to help you to get online swiftly. The first scenario is Instant Mode which essentially looks for the closes and fastest server and then connects you. This is particularly great when it comes to day-to-day usage, and it also reduces the impact of the VPN connection does have on web browsing experience. This is an important aspect which we would like to mention in our HideMyAss Review.
The second scenario is Location Mode which essentially allows you to select the server that you desire. You can easily search from the extensive list by city or country, and you can even save your favorite servers too. The fast server selection of this mode is quite handy, but it fails in offering specialty servers or any kind of information about the traffic load that is on the servers. IVPN and NordVPN are those services which offer stats regarding each server which helps you in deciding the server.
The third mode is Freedom Mode. Just click it, and you are directly connected to a VPN server which is what HideMyAss terms as the “closes free-speech country.”
People who are looking to get access to region-locked content with this VPN may face a hard time in trying to do so. We did try to watch Netflix videos but no matter which server we used, we weren’t able to watch anything.
Speed Test
It doesn’t matter which VPN service you decide to use; the connection will always change in some fashion and mostly in the worst way. But it is not the same in case of all VPNs as they don’t have the similar effect on your internet experience. In order to test this, we did compare the average results from speed testing platform Ookla’s speedtest.net in order to find the percentage change with the VN off and on. Since networks are fickle things, we tool the baseline measurements at every instant after testing the VPN speeds. To create this HideMyAss Review more informative, we did some tests.
We did this test on two occasions. On the first occasion, we used a server located in our physical location. It does emphasize speed as well as performance and most likely depicts how most of the people will utilize the service. Then on the second occasion, we performed the same test while being connected to an Ookla test server in Bangalore, India and a VPN server in Australia. The large distance was involved to act as a stress to test the service.
In the first scenario, there was low latency which increased by a small percentage. It was the lowest latency service out of all the services we have tested. It did provide great download, and upload test and only slowed down by few percentages.
In the second scenario, HideMyAss didn’t perform as we expected especially in terms of latency. Its latency increased by a huge margin. However, it performed well when it came to download test.
Pros
- It has hundreds of servers which are located in almost all countries across the world.
- It has integrated server speed testing.
- It comes with a kill switch feature.
- IT has great speed test results.
Cons
- It is quite expensive.
- It only provides two licenses per subscription.
- It does have a clunky interface.
- Compared to other VPN services, it has few features.
Conclusion
It is quite easy to understand why HideMyAss this great user following. It does have great design, and it is quite easy to use on almost every platform. It delivers solid speed test results for many years running. It is quite simple. However, it allows only two devices per license which is quite restrictive. In this HideMyAss Review, it has been hard for us to justify its high price. Its company’s logging policy is also an issue. In case you are looking for a seamless and friendly interface, then HideMyAss is among the best.