HideMyAss Review: Everything you need to know
HideMyAss is a UK-based VPN service that is known for its high-quality VPN Services. The company was started in 2005 by Jack Cator and it was bought by Avast in 2016. The company features a network of more than 1000 VPN servers across 190 countries around the world. HideMyAss also claims to provide 20 GBps server speed and no-logging. In this review, we will put these claims to test and we will tell you everything you need to know about HideMyAss. Usenet.com reviews the VPN services to ensure that you find the right VPN service for you. You can find complete reviews of all major VPN services on our website. Now, let’s get to this review.
Pricing and Plans
When it comes to pricing, the company offers the two types of plans for its users.
- Consumers Plans
- Business Plans
Consumers Plans
There are two types of consumers’ plans which you can pick according to your convenience. All consumers’ plans come with the following features.
- Access to more than 1000 servers in 190 countries
- 20 Gbps Server Speed
- 30-day Money Back Guarantee
- Privacy features such as Smart Kill Switch, Split, Tunneling, IP Shuffle, and Leak Protection
- 256-bit AES protection
- 24/7 customer support
The duration of the subscription varies from plan to plan.
- The 12-month plan is available for $6.99 per month and it will cost you $83.88 to get the subscription.
- The 36-month plan is the limited offer by HideMyAss where you get the 64% discount. It will be billed annually and it will cost you $154.44.
Business Plans
The company also offers the business plans for the corporations out there. Business Plan holders also get the same features as the consumer plan holders. However, the pricing varies from package to package. The company offers the following business plans
- Basic Monthly Package offers the 10 Simultaneous connections and it will cost you $23 per month.
- Standard Monthly Package offers the 20 Simultaneous connections and it will cost you $46 per month.
- Gold Monthly Package offers the 30 Simultaneous connections and it will cost you $69 per month.
- The company also offers a custom plan where you can get the offers tailored to your requirements. You can get a custom plan by contacting customer support.There are also annual plans available where you can get up to 43% discount by getting the annual subscription. The pricing for annual subscription starts at $13 per month and it goes up to $39.08 per month.
The company also offers 7 days of a trial period where you can check the service. However, you will need to enter your payment details to get the trial period. You can cancel the trial anytime during the trial period. Once the trial period is over, you will be billed for 12 months.
How to Pay for Subscriptions
HideMyAss offers a variety of payment options which you can pick according to your convenience and availability of the payment service in your region. The company offers the following payment options.
- Visa
- MasterCard
- American Express
- JCB
- Discover
- PayPal
- Skrill
Features Offered
Just like other VPN services, HideMyAss also offers a variety of privacy features to attract customers. The company offers the following privacy features to its users.
Smart Kill Switch
Smart Kill Switch is one of the most important features of any VPN service because it ensures that no data leaks. This feature constantly monitors the connection between your device and the VPN servers and it automatically kills the internet connection when it drops in the connection between the device and VPN server.
Split-Tunneling
Split-Tunneling is another useful privacy feature that allows you to pick which traffic should go through HideMyAss Severs or which should go through the normal route. It is a useful feature especially if you don’t want to use the VPN for every app and designate the VPN for certain private apps.
IP Shuffle
IP Shuffle is a privacy feature which ensures that your online anonymity. This feature randomly shuffles your IP Addresses after a fixed duration. You can set this duration to 10 minutes or a day, it is totally up to you.
Leak Protection
The company also offers the IPV4, IPV6 and DNS Leak protection which ensure that your data is not leaking to the website. All the DNS requests are handled by the HideMyAss DNS servers where the servers don’t keep log your requests.
Military-grade Encryption
HideMyAss uses the most-advanced, military-grade encryption for its connections. The company uses the Advanced Encryption Standards to ensure that your connection is protected and secure. HideMyAss uses the 256-bit AES encryption for its connection which is the highest level of security. This encryption is so strong that even with brute force attacks, it would require billions and billions of years to crack it. Moreover, the company also uses advanced data authentication algorithms to ensure the integrity of the data.
Privacy
The company advertises that it has the no-log policy but when we dived into their privacy we came to know that the company does log some of the information. For example, the company does timestamps your connections, IP Addresses of the VPN servers you are using and the amount of data transmitted. The company also saves the subset of the IP Addresses you are using. For example, if your IP address is 92.196.243.765 then the company will save the 92.196.243.000 to its servers.
The company also mentions that it only stores this data for 30 days. Moreover, the company has also failed to allow the independent cybersecurity company to audit its system. Whereas, companies such as NordVPN and PureVPN have allowed independent companies to audit their systems.
Support
HideMyAss offers 24/7 customer support. The company allows the users to connect with customer support using the live chat feature available on the website. Users can also submit the support ticket on the website or they can check the FAQ or blog section to find the solution to common issues. In our experience, the customer support was responsive and they replied within minutes.
Protocols Offered
The company offers the 4 different protocols and these protocols are available for most devices.
- OpenVPN-UDP – It is also known as Auto-Path and it is used by default.
- OpenVPN-TCP – it is the protocol used by the service when Auto-Path is disabled
- PPTP – It is the basic VPN protocol. You have the option to use it but we would strongly recommend either use the OpenVPN or L2TP/IPSec.
- L2TP/IPSec – It is another very secure protocol.
Installation & Interface
HideMyAss offers the software and apps for all major platforms including Windows, macOS, Android, IOS and Linux. It is also available for the routers as well. The installation process is very easy, just get the subscription and go to the download page on the official website. Download the relevant software or app for your device and start downloading. After downloading, install the app or software, enter your credentials and start using the service.
The interface of the software and apps are really good. The UI is well-optimized and you can easily change your servers’ locations and access the other features. All software and Apps are user-friendly and you don’t need any technical skills to use them.
Servers & Locations
HideMyAss offers access to more than 1000+ VPN servers in 290 locations around the world. The company has its servers in more than 190 countries and users can use the servers without any restriction. The company has its servers in many major countries including Belgium, Belarus, US, UK, Croatia, Canada, Brazil, Belize, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Egypt and many other countries.
Performance
The HideMyAss VPN service performed well in our tests. The connection time to each VPN server was around 4-5 seconds which is very reasonable. We test the Connection speed for various VPN servers and we got the following results.
- For the UK severs, we tested the Service with our 75 Mbps connection and we were getting the average speed of 65 Mbps with VPN On.
- For US servers, we tested the service with our 97 Mbps connection and we were getting the average speed of 58-60 Mbps with VPN On.
- Similarly, we tested the Hong Kong server with 97 Mbps connection and we were getting only the average speed of 19 Mbps which is very slow.
The overall performance of the HideMyAss was good but the distant servers from our location clearly didn’t perform well. Therefore, we would recommend you to only use the servers near your location to get better speeds.
Conclusion
HideMyAss is clearly one of the better VPN services out there. It comes with some great features, solid speeds, and good customer support. However, the service struggles when it comes to pricing and privacy policy. As far as the pricing is concerned, the company should introduce more affordable packages for its users. The company claims that they don’t log the activity but the reality is that the company does log some of the activity as we mentioned above. If we sum up the whole review, we can say that HideMyAss is a great service but there are more affordable and better options available out there. Our top VPN choice is NordVPN and PureVPN because both VPN services are audited by the independent companies and both services offer much better value for money. We would recommend you to check reviews of best VPN services on our website and then make an informed decision.