Hidemyass Review 2024

Hidemyass is the leading VPN network online. Now a member of the Avast family, Hidemyass is part of the largest and most trusted security company around the world. With more than 400 million users out there (and at least a donkey), each helping to make their network stronger against the bad guys, you know you will be in safe hands (or hooves).

Internet use has changed the world. Sensitive information is now sent through the internet both at work and in social media activities. Also, both industrial and domestic purchases are frequently done through the internet.

These activities might leave one vulnerable to identity theft, credit card frauds, industrial espionage, and other internet crimes. That is where a VPN comes in – to provide you with needed security and privacy to boot. VPN is one of the best ways to protect you from cyber fraudsters. This it does by altering your virtual location and encrypting your data packets.

HideMyAss is one of the leading VPN in the world. Below a detailed review of the VPN is done using:

1. Ease of use
2. Location Availability

• Speed and Performance

1. Pricing
2. Privacy
3. Security

• Customer service

Ease of Use

Think exciting user experience. Think HideMyAss. HideMyAss is user friendly to the core. Everything (from its cheeky name to its catchy donkey illustrations, to its slyly humorous backstories) paints a picture of friendliness and is meant to spice up the user experience in a fun-way. Navigation is also made easy as everything is in bold colours and in clear characters. HideMyAss interface is very easy to use, such that even a novice would seem like a pro when using the program.

When an order is approved, download of HideMyAss Pro VPN will start automatically for the current device being used to purchase. HideMyAss also gives provide excellent connection speed. HideMyAss allows you to choose between three modes for your privacy

1. The instant mode – which connects you to the fastest and nearest server near you. This mode is the quickest way to be secured especially when you are in a rush, or when you are on a public Wi-Fi.
2. The location mode – which allows you to choose your location from a huge list of countries. This mode makes you appear somewhere else in the world. You can choose Brazil, and your device will read that you are in Brazil when you are actually in Ghana.

• Freedom mode – which allows you to pick a country without internet restrictions if you happen to be in a country with internet restrictions. With this mode, you can be in a country where certain contents are banned, but you can still access them, as your IP will put you in another country without such bans.

HideMyAss also take user experience to another level with their built-in speed testing tool. This feature not only gives users a real-time feel for how fast their usage actually is, but it also provides users with accurate VPN connection speed and this can help you find the best possible servers when you want to stream movies.

Device Support:

HideMyAss has apps for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows PC and also Linux. You can use HideMyAss to provide security and privacy for your mobile phones too; with one license you can run up to five connections simultaneously, so you are covered even if you have multiple devices. HideMyAss comes as one easy to use the app for all your devices. There are even routers, essentially built for VPN,  affiliated with HideMyAss.

Location Availability

A good VPN should provide IP addresses covering a wide range of global locations. Where contents are geo-specific, you will need an IP address of the specific geographical location to access the contents. You would not want to come up stuck because your VPN provider does not have IPs for the location. Also, if your requirement is multiple IPs from different countries, it is important to determine that the VPN provider allows such IP switches.

HideMyAss offers the best location availability among PVN providers. The site boldly states that HideMyAss has the biggest VPN Network. HideMyAss has near 300 locations and over 880 servers in over 190 countries. These locations are spread across the continents (North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Europe), even including locations such as the Vatican City. However, they are not sitting on their laurels; the number keeps growing as new servers are continuously being added to the list.

HideMyAss proudly flaunts their network size, and yes they should because it is indeed their greatest strength. Plus, it is unprecedented.  With their colossal server network, you can change your virtual location to a wide range of locations on the globe; you will hardly face connectivity related issues. HideMyAss also allows you to randomly change your IP address after every 30 seconds; thus, you can switch to different IPs and have your online activities scattered over the different locations. With HideMyAss, you could also bind a particular IP address, so that you can always reconnect with it.

Speed and Performance

Only two things annoy me to my bone (i) My partner’s snoring that disturbs my sleep (ii) buffering that disturb my streaming experience. Even if it does not annoy you as much as it does me, you will agree that buffering action is a kill-joy with the constant ‘stopping and starting’ or the display of the screen that reads loading.

VPN provides online privacy by re-routing your traffic through an encrypted server. A drop in internet speed is expected with this activity due to the time it takes for a data packet to travel back and forth over the VPN. Also, VPN provides online security by tunnelling your connections through a security protocol. The level of encryption of the protocol affects speed, such that the higher the level of encryption the lower the VPN speeds. Generally, using a VPN slows down your internet speed, including download speeds.

Speed then becomes one of the most important factors in rating VPN providers. A bad VPN can ground your internet speed to a halt, and downloading becomes buffering; while the very best VPNs will be those that have very little or no decrease on your internet speed.

In terms of speed, HideMyAss is not the fastest VPN but is still very good. It is only slightly below the fastest VPN site by only about three per cent (3%). Thus, HideMyass offers a smooth browsing experience. However, you should not expect HideMyAss to give good quality VPN connections if your country do not have strong internet, the speed which your internet service provider (ISP) provides will affect the speed of the VPN connections.

HideMyAss comes out as a VPN with no bandwidth caps. Providing unlimited bandwidth and speed makes HideMyAss an excellent VPN for streaming. There are no restrictions to your uploads or downloads, and it does not slow down downloads either. Yes, there are no annoying buffering. You will also find it a very good VPN for gaming. A very good feature that scores point for HideMyAss is that it allows access to Netflix.

Pricing

Someone I know once said, “everything comes down to money”. While that can be debatable, you cannot but agree that everything should be reasonably priced. Pricing of VPNs is never taken for granted, as the prices of VPN plans affect patronage. That does not mean it is best to go with the cheapest services; quality does not come cheap. The most expensive VPNs also do not translate as the best.

HideMyAss has three simple pricing plans: one month, 6 months and 12 months. The cost of HideMyAss’ one individual month service plan, which currently stands at $11.52, is one of the highest among VPN providers. However, you can save more on longer plans. The 6 months plan at $49.99 breaks down to $8.33 per month, which is about 28% cheaper than the monthly plan; their best offer is their annual service plan, which at $78.66, cost $6.55 per month, and is 43% cheaper than the monthly plan.

Those who would not want a long-term commitment can embrace and rollover the monthly plan. But it is soon discovered to be too pricey.

Though HideMyAss prices are not the highest in the VPN world, they are still relatively expensive when compared with other good VPN providers. For example, HideMyAss best offer which is $6.55 is still more than double the best plan of some other very good VPN providers; also while HideMyAss single month plan is $11.52, you can get offers of the individual monthly plan for $5 to $8 by some very good VPNs. Most VPN users are turned off by HideMyAss prices and they seek out cheaper alternatives. HideMyAss even acknowledge that their prices are relatively high with: “our only negative rumble to mention is pricing”.

Seasonal Discount Sales:

One scoring point for HideMyAss is that they frequently run seasonal discounts sales which can come with significant cost savings. Currently, HideMyAss is offering discount up to 0% on the one month plan, 33% on the six-month plan, and 50% on the annual plan.

Making the payment is also not much of a hassle with HideMyAss because they accept regular payment options such as credit cards, wire transfers, Paypal, and bitcoins.  Sometimes payment options are dependent on the location of the subscriber. For example, while they accept WebMoney and Wiki payments, these options are currently only supported in a few countries.

HideMyAss is yet to move to the realm of accepting cryptocurrencies. As will be seen in the privacy section, the regular payment options have their drawbacks. Apart from these drawbacks about privacy, the only hitch with payments is the time it takes to receive and verify payments. Thus, with bank/ wire transfers, it is advised to make the transfer at least seven days before you will need the VPN service as such transfers usually take up to seven working days.

No free trial:

Businesses look for ways to convey the value of their products/ services to potential customers. While writing persuasive manuals and making persuasive ads can do the trick, those methods can easily come off as a company talking the talk.

On the other hand, a free trial is one of the only ways to let your product sell itself. Free trials do more than conveying the value of the products/ service to the customers, it tells the customer that the company is confident about the quality of the product/ service. It’s not rocket science. I don’t know of you, but I will not move to a paid plan if a free trial leaves me unsatisfied. Therefore, offering me a free trial tells me that the company is confident the quality of their service will get me hooked.

HideMyAss does not offer free trials. However, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, which stands as the only way to test- drive the service free of charge.

HideMyAss can do well to offer free trials, even if for a very short period of time. Free trials have proved successful; it is reported that the best-in-class software sees more than 60% of their free trials convert into paid plans.

Privacy

One of the cardinal promises of VPN is privacy; thus, the extent to which VPNs offer complete privacy is an important factor in rating them. A VPN that does not provide total privacy is as good as an insecticide that does not kill cockroaches. Never worry, the producers tell you, the insecticide spares no mosquitoes, roaches are only a small nuisance, and roaches can’t give you malaria. Are they saying roaches are harmless? You ask. No, the producers answer you; roaches do pose certain health risks. So why should I use your insecticide that can’t protect me from health risks from roaches? You ask. Their response is that they don’t offer the total package, just ample protection. Don’t worry, they add, their ample protection takes care of the bigger nuisances.

I don’t know about you but I would worry, no matter how small a nuisance it is claimed that roaches are. I want to eliminate the threats posed by insects; if a product eliminates such threats by killing the insects, then it should kill the insects. What the company has is not an insecticide, but a mosquitocide.

The best VPNs should offer complete anonymity, which means no logs of any sort should be kept. Keeping whatever logs have the risk of jeopardizing privacy especially if the logs fell into the wrong hands, which include hackers, phishing scammers, fraudsters, and even regulatory/ governmental authorities. If no logs are kept; even if the VPN Company is required to provide logs for an investigation, they couldn’t because nothing was kept.

HideMyAss have a logging policy. Granted, they do not keep activity logs. This means that; the websites visited, the data transferred, the IPs accessed and any other kind of activity do not get logged.  However, HideMyAss does keep connection logs. This means that; the time of connecting, time of disconnect, duration of connection and bandwidth usage are all logged. They claim that they keep connection logs to prevent abuse and for diagnostic purposes. Because they do, HideMyAss claim that all VPNs logs usage. That is not true.  There are several VPN providers that have strict no-logs policy meaning that neither user activity nor connection logs will be stored.

HideMyAss also records the contents of whatever mail you send when you use their anonymous e-mail service. They claim that it is to protect their own privacy. For their own privacy, huh! Well, I don’t know about you, but it sets off the alarm bells in my head. They will keep stuff (think dirt) on me; for their own security. What happens if they are pushed? Maybe they wouldn’t budge. What if the push becomes a shove, and even more? Why does it feel like they will sell my ass rather than hide my ass? Maybe its paranoia; but with their usage log policy, the privacy and security they promise become suspect. It is more like a mosquitocide posing as an insecticide.

While HideMyAss is retaining their logging policy, the best VPN providers are taking their complete anonymity provision a step further by switching to anonymous payments options. They have recognized that regular payment options for their service plans are drawbacks on the promised provision of anonymity because in receiving payment personal information (such as billing address, credit card details etc) are relayed to them. They are allowing the use of cryptocurrencies and other anonymous payment options to make do on the promise of complete privacy.

Security

Security of data online is one of the most foremost reasons for the development of VPNs.  A good VPN should offer solid security. Different security levels are delivered by using different encryption protocols.

Many VPNs especially the free ones use a Point-to-Point tunnelling protocol (PPTP) VPN which have been proven to not be 100% secure. Though PPTP is easier to set up and are arguably faster (because of their 128-bit encryption), they have significant security flaws. With a commitment to providing optimal security, HideMyAss offers other secure protocols and advice the use of these over the PPTP when establishing a connection.

The L2TP and OpenVPN encryption protocols are the other protocols used by HideMyAss to tunnel your connections securely and keep you really secure online. The ‘open’ in OpenVPN might not sound like a security-conscious word, but it should be read ironically in that the OpenVPN is actually the safest and most secure security protocol for VPN services.

HideMyAss is part of the Avast family, which is one of the largest online security companies in the world. HideMyAss encryption level is virtually unhackable. They use cypher AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) 256 bit – a technique that uses a 256-bit key to encrypt and decrypt your data online. It is the same encryption techniques used by both banks and government to ensure the safety of their data online; making it one of the most secure encryption methods in the world.

Customer support

At some point, one would meet issues – connection issues, payment issues or whatever else. That is where support comes in. Good customer support is key for every business success. Would you like to be left on your own when you have issues? I don’t know about you, but I for one wouldn’t. Thus, VPN providers that don’t have customer support are a no-go for me; and there actually are some like that. If you are like me in this regard, then you will love HideMyAss. HideMyAss has one of the most extensive and most complete customer support services.

They have answers for both the new user and the advanced user. On the site, a help window opens to “getting started” and “knowledge base”.  The former opens an extensive FAQ section; while the latter opens solutions to user submitted problems including an advanced FAQ and troubleshooting. There is also the search button which opens a series of helpful suggestions matching your search.

If you desire direct contact you can send in a ticket by using their help form that can be found in the “submit request” link, and a member of the support start will respond in a matter of hours.

Social media is one of the defining phenomena of the present times, and has changed the way we do business and live in society; thus a good VPN is expected to have a social media presence. HideMyAss social media presence is robust. You can find HideMyAss on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Youtube. T

here are tons of HideMyAss forums where members share VPN tips and help each other out. There are over 150,000 active paying subscribers, and this translates to several informative blogs and forums for myriads of questions and answers. It is not uncommon to see in customer reviews that HideMyAss forums proved to be very helpful to someone in one situation or the other.

Also, with HideMyAss, you could actually talk to someone over the phone. Talking with someone and being walked through almost any issue is really appealing. HideMyAss floors the pack with this support feature. The best customer support that many of the leading VPN providers offer is a live chat with a customer support representative. However, the phone call support of HideMyAss is only from 9 am to 5 pm UK time. It could really do with some upgrading to a 24 hours service.

Extras – Anonymous E-Mail and Referrer

HideMyAss, being an offspring of Privax – an established company providing online privacy and security, have the advantage of tapping into the resources of its mother company. HideMyAss offers you the opportunity of using other latest privacy solutions developed by Privax. This includes an anonymous e-mail service that makes sure that your online messages cannot be monitored.

Another of its Privax resource that HideMyAss offers you is an anonymous referrer tool which you can use to create links that cannot be traced back to you. Any such trace of links created by you will only lead to the HideMyAss website.

Conclusion

In summary, HideMyAss is bold, and they have the product that warrants beating the chest for. It is easily one of the best VPN providers in the world.

They lead the pack with a robust VPN network that covers over 190 countries. They offer solid security using high-level encryption protocols. This does not diminish speed, as they offer decent speed. They have unlimited bandwidth and are one of the few VPNs that allow access to Netflix.

Their over 150,000 users supply a robust user-driven community for support and help. Their prices are healthy given their overall package, and they give juicy periodic discount sales.

Their biggest drawback is their logging policy which raises questions about risk to users’ anonymity. They could also do with improving customer support, as well as offering free trials.

Do you have experience with HideMyAss? Good or bad, kindly use the comment section below to give us your brief HideMyAss review.