Hide.me Review
So, If you are looking for the best and unbiased Hide.me vpn reviews, you have come to the right place.
Hide.me is a virtual private network (VPN) service provider that is committed to making sure that whatever you do online is hidden from all watching eyes. This is very important because your personal information in the wrong hands would not just bring an inconvenience, it could actually be life threatening (and that’s not a scare tactic).
This VPN service don’t leave you guessing as to what it will do for you. It will hide you – not your physical self, but your online self.
Hide.me came on board in 2012, and has managed to accumulate over 5 million users around the world. Are they very effective at keeping users’ online world hidden? This review will shine the spot light on Hide.me VPN in order to help you answer that question
Is Hide.me safe? As of writing this Hide.me vpn review, it is safe and legit. We can personally testify to this. Based on our experience with Hide.me, we can assure you that your information is safe, and you have nothing to worry about. Also, In all of the feedback of hide.me we reviewed online, there was no single complaint about hide.me being unsafe and scam.
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Note: Since you have nothing to loss, it will be a very good idea to register from this post so we can be able to assist you by getting in touch with them if you have any problem in the future. We have the power to force them into rectifying their faults. However, we cannot do anything if you try to trick the system. Just make sure you comply with their rules and regulations to make it easier for us.
Below have compiled some of the Hide.me complaints and feedback so you can make the final decision your own.
“Amazing VPN provider. I have never experienced any problems with their servers and the speed can’t be complained about either. Had a problem with a mobile device connection recently, so I sent them an email. Literally 10 minutes later I got it up and running with the help from their support. So to sum it all up. Amazingly fast connection, good pricing and a great customer service.”
“It is very fast and reliable VPN and also with very helpful support. To be able to utilise the 500 Mbit connection, I needed to tune several options and support was very helpful to guide me through that process”
“Was fast but failed to work after a while. I;m based in china and need a VPN, they sent me a complex method for restarting it, this worked for a while then failed again. I got tired of having to jump through hoops to make it work – downloading new things, entering new IP addresses etc – especially when, if I don’t have a working VPN I can’t access their site anyway! I said I would like to cancel membership so they ended my membership, no refund of anything. I paid for 6 months and used 2. Big waste of money.
According to hide.me, its VPN service has difficulties working steady in China. So, there may be occasional failure in that part.”
Hide.me has 3 service plans. Each plan is different from the other in both price and features. There is a free plan, and two paid plans (Hide.me Plus and Hide.me Premium).
The Free Plan of Hide.me VPN like every other services free version is limited. Of the 43 server locations in the network, you get to connect to only 3 server locations (Singapore, Canada, and Netherlands).
You have a limited choice of protocols, as well as only 2GB of data. Though this can be renewed every two weeks, it still fall short of the 10GB offered in the free version of one VPN service. From time to time, the service also limits the bandwidth of free users; the minimum bandwidth is 3 Mbit/s, though there is no static cap. Lastly, the free version allows only one connection (since it’s free, I don’t see why one would want more connections).
The Free Plan does not require any payment or credit card information. You don’t even need an email address or registration to get started; all you need to do is download the app and click on “Start Free Trial”, and you’ll be flying with VPN protection. I also liked that the Hide.me free plan does not include ads. While some free VPN services annoyingly pillage free users with ads in order to make money, Hide.me Free Plan comes without annoying ads.
The Plus Plan and the Premium Plan are the paid plans of the Hide.me VPN service. Both plans comes with access to all server locations, access to all supported protocols, and a free anonymous SOCKS proxy browser. Both plans also have similar billing options (every month, every 6 months, and every year). From there the plans become different.
The Plus plan has a 75GB data transfer cap, and allows only one device connection. The monthly subscription of the Plus Plan cost $9.95. The 6 month subscription cost $39.95, which works out to $.6.65 per month representing a 30% cost saving. The one year subscription cost $59.95, which works out to $4.99 per month to give a 50% cost saving.
According to Hide.me VPN, the Premium plan is the most popular plan. It is the true “unlimited” plan. Data transfer cap removed and you have unlimited data. It also allows you five simultaneous connections, so that you can protect all five devices with one VPN account. This will be especially important to small businesses and to persons who wish to extend VPN protection to family or friends without paying for multiple accounts.
The Premium Plan also comes with Fixed IP Address and dynamic port forwarding. The monthly subscription of the Premium Plan cost a whopping $19.95. The 6 months subscription cost $79.95 which works out to a monthly fee of $13.32 representing a 30% cost saving. The one year subscription cost $119.95, which works out to a monthly fee of $9.99 representing a 50% cost saving.
The premium prices make Hide.me VPN the most expensive VPN service in the market. Many services have best deals that are just a quarter of Hde.me premium best deal.
Below is Hide.me tutorial in video to help you install the vpn without stress.
Hide.me allows you to make payment conveniently using the major cards (credit cards and debit cards) and PayPal. The service also supports transactions with bitcoin and crypto currencies which allow you to make payments anonymously. This will appeal to “paranoid” users who will be uncomfortable with submitting personal information required by the regular payment methods as part of the payment process.
Hide.me offer a 100% money back guarantee for within 14 days of service. This will allow users who are not satisfied with the service to request a refund of their payment; but the request must be made not later than 14 days from the day of making payment.
Hide.me’s 14 days window is smaller than the 30 days that many VPN services offer. However, there are still a few services that only give a 7-days guarantee; at least, Hide.me’s offer can be said to better those.
Also, Hide.me money back guarantee comes with a small caveat – you shouldn’t have used more than 500MB of data. This makes it almost impossible to get a refund; because power users will eat up 500 MB in a few days. It should be noted that Hide.me fall behind many VPNs here; because many of the top VPN services have a “No questions asked” money back guarantee.
The apps comes with an uncluttered and simple interface. The app permits one-click connect. If you are a new user, the one-click connect automatically connects you to the fastest server location closest to you. For regular use, the one-click connects you to your favourite server location.
Once connected, the main interface features: a settings wheel icon, your connection time, a large “disable” button to disconnect, your masked UP address, and your virtual location. Changing servers is easy easy; click the “change” button by the virtual location, and select one from the list of possible server locations that is revealed. P2P servers are clearly marked, and the app even include tips telling you what purpose a particular server best serves.
The Windows app has more settings options than the other apps. The settings tabs allow you to: enable client to automatically launch and connect at start up; enable kill switch; change VPN protocols; configure network settings; and get a log of VPN activity.
Hide.me VPN supports all the major platforms – Windows (7, 8 and 10), Android (4.0 and above), MacOS (10.12 and above), iOS (9.3 and above), and Linux (Ubuntu). Hide.me VPN can also be used on routers; this allows you to increase the number of simultaneous connections, by connecting a lot of devices to the router, and counting off the router as one connection.
Though, custom apps are only available for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android; they provide detailed setup guides for the other supported platforms.
Torrenting is increasingly becoming dangerous because most times torrenteers unwittingly download illegal files. Copyright infringement warnings have been thrown at torrenteers, and this have caused a rise in the need for torrent VPN services.
Hide.me fully supports torrenting. Hide.me have been described by many as the best VPN for torrenting.
Most of the servers of Hide.me are clearly marked as “P2P servers”. The SOCKS proxy that Hide.me offers can be used to optimize your downloads speed for P2P file sharing. The port forwarding featured in the Premium Plan makes for smoother torrenting as it allow P2P software to make a direct connection (that is, other peers finding you), rather than your client having to go search for other peers.
Hide.me VPN fell victim to Netflix sledge hammer; the service was effectively blocked by the streaming service. I tried the “select and check” game of selecting a different server location and checking for Netflix; but all result was the same – No access. It was the same with BBC iPlayer – No access. It is safe to say that Hide.me is not an ideal VPN for streaming.
Hide.me VPN server network consist of 150+ servers in 45 locations within 34 countries around the world.
The server count is on the low side because the top rated VPN services operate thousands of servers. However, the server to location ratio is very good. Some VPN services that have more than double the number of Hide.me servers do not cover as many as 34 countries.
Hide.me server network is truly global as it reach the whole world even places that are often neglected by VPN services such as Africa. The African server location is Morroco. There are 22 major European countries also in the network. South America is represented by Brazil; North America is represented by the U.S., Canada and Mexico; Asia is represented by India, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong; and Oceania has Australia.
Hide.me has also moved to protect users’ privcy by involving no third parties in the management of their server network – they personally own, run and control all their servers.
Hide.me support a range of VPN protocols – PPTP, L2TP, IPsec (IKEv1 and IKEv2), OpenVPN, SoftEther and SSTP. It is only Windows (that has the OpenVPN as the default protocol) that supports the full range of protocols. IKEv2 is the default protocol on the Android app. Hide.me score points for providing the SoftEther VPN protocol because this protocol can fly pass firewalls as its traffic look like regular secure HTTPS traffic.
Paid users (Premium and Plus plan) can choose any of the protocol that suit their internet browsing and download needs; but free users are limited to PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, and IPsec (IKEv1 and IKEv2). They need not worry as the IkEv2 is as secure as the oft recommended OpenVPN.
In terms of OpenVPN encryption; Hide.me use the AES -256 bit Cipher, with HMAC SHA 256 for data authentication, and went for an overkill with RSA 8192 handshake encryption. This is excellent encryption; and even the most security-conscious user cannot think otherwise.
The service has a kill switch feature. When enabled, the client automatically blocks all outgoing connections at the moment the VPN connection is interrupted. This feature is important to the privacy provided by the VPN services; without it, when the VPN is down (which happens to all VPN services), your traffic will be in the open.
Hide.me also has an auto-connect feature which when enabled allows the software to reconnect automatically after the connection is interrupted. This saves one from manually connecting the VPN.
Hide.me VPN focus on users’ privacy have seen them add a layer of security that makes IP leaks impossible. As soon as you are connected, the Hide.me app deletes the default gateway of your internet connection so your local network becomes inaccessible.
The service also have a DNS leak protection feature which when enabled will effectively plug this security leak. Hide.Me built its system in such a way that every DNS request is routed through their VPN network, and it is simply not possible for you to leak your DNS. Needless to say, my test of the service was satisfactory. No IP leaks, and no DNS leaks.
VPN logging policy is an important consideration because if a VPN service keeps logs of what you do with the VPN, that information could end up in the wrong hands. The very essence of using a VPN is so that what you do online remains private. Thus, log keeping and privacy are inversely proportional; log keeping can compromise the privacy that a VPN gives. A VPN service that gives excellent privacy will keep zero logs.
This is what Hide.me has to say about their service: “We have 100% zero-log policy“. That’s what any privacy conscious user wants to hear. But there are records of VPNs keeping logs while claiming zero-logs; so, can Hide.me which is also claiming zero-log be trusted?
I examined Hide.me privacy policy to be sure. Hide.me collect your email address for registration (but you can use a disposable one); when contact them for support, they also collect the information contained in your support ticket/ email. This is very minimal information required only to serve you, and does not threaten your privacy (especially if the email address is a disposable one).
Hide.me also keep some information they call “non-persistent log of connection data”, which they say is for “troubleshooting purposes” only. This includes customer’s randomly generated username and internally assigned (non-public) IP address. The good news is that this log gets securely erased every few hours.
In another place, the policy states: “We do not monitor or log your browsing behaviour. The way we have chosen to build hide.me makes this impossible. All of the usage data we receive is completely anonymous, and is not connected to your real IP address or location”. That’s it. Their system was built with no-logs in mind; and with their technical backend, it is impossible to record your browsing history.
They say that they purposely and strictly do not log any other data, not only for your same, but also for their own sake (to mitigate their legal liability). Once you stop using the service and terminate your account; the account itself, together with all data associated with it, is deleted from all Hide.me systems.
Hide.me explains that if they have to comply with a court order to hand over users’ data, they will have nothing to reveal (except an email address). And that If they are required by law to keep a persistent log of customers’ connections or any other personal data relating to customers’ network activity; they will immediately notify their customers and do everything in their power to move jurisdictions or even close the service to protect their customers.
Hide.me have also published a Transparency report that showed that the service received numerous requests to disclose individual users’ personal data for various reasons. To all the requests, Hide.me forwarded the same response: “Hide.me cannot and does not keep any logs; hence we will not be able to provide you with any further information on this matter”.
Hide.me no-log claims have been put to the test via a third party audit. The audit was carried out by Leon Juranic (a specialist at finding vulnerabilities in software, and the sole founder of Defense Code Ltd which is arguably the World’s best IT Consultancy Company). The audit use the following two categories to rate VPNs: “users security” and “privacy of users’ data”. Hide.me was not found wanting, and was awarded the “Privacy and Anonymity” certification, and even named as the most anonymous VPN service in the industry.
Hide.me VPN is based in Malaysia which is one of the choicest location for a VPN service. This is because local laws impose no obligations on the service to store user logs. This is in sharp contrast to some countries where data retention laws make it mandatory for VPN providers to store user logs.
Hide.me say they’re “the world’s fastest VPN”. My test did not agree. I measured latency, download speed and upload speed without a VPN connected, and measured all three when Hide.me VPN was connected; then I did a comparative analysis of the results. To validate the result, I collected four readings each (two close servers and two distant servers) and used the average.
On the average, Hide.me: increased latency by 218%, reduced upload speed by 57%, and reduced download speed by 39%. The download speed is usually considered as the most important, and Hide.me performance was decent. In all, it can be summed that Hide.me has serviceable speeds.
Hide.me support has the usual – there is the self help knowledgebase, and the contact support service. In the self help area, there are detailed setup tutorials for each platform; and there is also a limited set of FAQS with helpful answers to them. The service maintains blogs and forums from where you can also get needed assistance.
For direct contact with a company staff, there is the ticket system and the live chat support service. Both services appears to be handled by knowledgeable support staff. The timeliness of the ticket service is also very good; for the support ticket, responses were received in about 6 hours. For the live-chat; the only thing I’ll say is that, it redirected me to the ticket support form. So it’s actually the ticket support in disguise.
Hide.me VPN provide excellent privacy and protection. They have a wide range of protocols, and use over-the-top encryption. They effectively plug security leaks, and have a kill switch feature. They are located in privacy friendly Malaysia, you can subscribe to the service anonymously, they keep zero-log, they have a very reassuring privacy policy, and they have been certified as the most anonymous VPN in the industry. I almost forgot to add that the Support P2P activity. Bottom line: Hide.me is a very good VPN for online privacy.
If users’ privacy and security were the only boxes to be ticked, then Hide.me VPN will have a claim to be at the very top. But there are other boxes to be ticked which Hide.me just didn’t tick; and they really should tick these boxes to move from a very good service to a really great service.
Do you have any experience with Hide.me VPN? If yes, kindly use the comment section below to give us your personal Hide.me review
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