One of the most significant names in the VPN business, HideMyAss! (HMA) has been protecting its customers’ personal privacy for more than 15 years, as well as it’s been owned by safety and security gigantic Avast since 2016.
The firm supplies a huge network of 1,000+ web servers in 290+ areas throughout 190+ nations. That’s fewer servers than a few of the leading providers, however, a lot more places as well as nations (NordVPN has 5,800+ web servers across 59 countries, ExpressVPN has 3,000+ web servers throughout 160 places and 94 countries).
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HideMyAss VPN membership choices:
36-month strategy – US$ 3.99 each month (US$ 107.64 total price).
There’s P2P support, yet only on a handful of locations, in fact, just 8 using our Windows client (five in Europe, three in the United States).
Industrial-strength personal privacy is provided using OpenVPN and IKEv2 support, AES-256-GCM information encryption, RSA-4096 for handshaking, and also SHA-256 information authentication.
HideMyAss! has its very own DNS solution to help avoid DNS leakages and, as a bonus, it obstructs accessibility to destructive and phishing sites.
The HideMyAss! website proudly announces that it services all your tools, and also it just could have a point. Not only are there custom-made apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and also Linux, yet there are installment suggestions to aid you in manually established the solution on several other platforms. This includes the ability to set up some routers, which in theory should permit you to utilize the solution with all your smart gadgets, also.
The apps have been updated to version 5.0 because our last evaluation, as well as now, features a streamlined brand-new user interface, a boosted Place Picker, enhanced kill buttons, and split tunneling on Android. Oh, there’s additionally a Chrome internet browser expansion, as well as assistance for Android TV, as well.
Plans and pricing.
Head off to the official HideMyAss! prices web page as well as the firm looks noticeably short on strategies, with just one-year and three-year alternatives.
In reality, HideMyAss! has even more plans than most of the competition, they’re just hard to find on the internet site. No, that doesn’t make any kind of sense to us, either, but there’s a recap of what’s offered in this article.
The month-to-month plan is valued at $11.99. That’s in the variety you’d anticipate from a leading VPN, however not something that’s suitable for greater than an extremely occasional one-off month. (Surfshark offers you 2 years of service for under $48, or $1.99 a month).
The six-month strategy is also extra expensive than we would certainly like at $7.99 a month. The rate goes down to $5.99 over a year, $4.99 over 2 years, as well as $3.99 over 3. If you are more than happy with the firm, these aren’t poor prices, however many other carriers supply much better value. You can sign up with Personal Web Access for just $3.33 a month, for instance, and that’s simply on the yearly strategy– there is no need to spend for several years upfront.
A Family strategy obtains you a year of insurance coverage for every person in your family, as well as supports as much as 10 synchronized connections, for $12.99 a month. It’s good that this option is given, yet you can buy up to 6 Surfshark two-year plans for less cash.
HideMyAss! Business plans enable sustaining extra synchronized links. These are valued much the same as the Family members plan– around $13 a month for 10 links, $26 for 20, $39 for 30– as well as HideMyAss! can do tailored quotes if you need a lot more.
Bitcoin isn’t accepted, whatever intend you choose, yet HideMyAss! does sustain cards and PayPal.
A 7-day free test offers you a suitable amount of time to check out the service, something you will not get with a lot of the competition. You need to hand over your repayment details, as well as you’re automatically billed for the annual plan when the trial finishes unless you terminate (which is easy to do on the internet).
If you acquire, and after that face problems, you’re secured by a 30-day money-back assurance. This had some aggravating captures a couple of years ago (it was only legitimate for clients who used less than 10GB of information as well as made less than 100 connections), however, they have actually been abandoned, and also if anything, the fine print is much more charitable than many.
For instance, if you’ve had one reimbursement from a VPN, then most won’t provide you an additional, also years later. HideMyAss! will provide you as numerous as appropriate, equally as long as there go to least six months in between refund demands.
Privacy and also logging.
HideMyAss! has so much fine print that the Lawful area has a sidebar without any less than 10 different sections, and a number of those are also very lengthy (the privacy plan alone has more than 3,500 words).
This isn’t rather as negative as it initially seems. The main reason for the cluster of files is that HideMyAss! has actually relocated key areas into different short articles, making them easier to locate, and also most of these are plainly structured and well-written.
The personal privacy policy explains that there’s no logging of originating IP addresses (a possible means to determine you), DNS inquiries, or any kind of details on the websites you’re seeing or what you’re doing online.
There is some session logging, however. The solution documents the timestamp of every session link as well as separate, a subnet of the IP address you made use of to attach to the service (if you attach from 92.145.233.343, 92.145.233.0 is logged), the IP address of the VPN web server assigned to you, as well as the amount of information posted as well as downloaded and install.
Although this is extra logging than you’ll see with some providers, the lack of a complete IP suggests there’s no other way to definitively link any type of web action back to your account. HideMyAss! deletes this data after 1 month, also, more restricting any type of direct exposure.
While this sounds favorable, possible consumers have no chance to validate these logging assurances to tell the whole story. VPN service providers such as TunnelBear, NordVPN, and VyprVPN have allowed independent firms to examine their systems for logging, privacy, and safety and security, and also have released the results. That’s the only way to begin to guarantee users about what a VPN is actually doing, and also we wish HideMyAss! and the rest of the sector will soon follow suit.
Applications.
Signing up for a HideMyAss! the test works similar to any other internet service you have actually ever utilized. Pick a strategy, choose a payment technique (card or PayPal) as well as turn over your money in the usual means.
A Download and install web page directed us directly to the proper application for our Windows tool, while likewise providing us links to Mac, Android, and also iOS develops, and some reminders on utilizing the service with Linux. This isn’t as well-presented as high-end rivals such as ExpressVPN– you don’t get the same number of tutorials on establishing the service manually, and there’s no web link to download the Android APK apply for manual installation in other places– however, it covers the fundamentals well.
HideMyAss! has completely revamped its applications because of our last review, with brand-new, structured, and streamlined interfaces throughout the variety.
The old ‘Immediate’, ‘Location’, as well as ‘Liberty’ modes have actually been ditched, and the new versions function much like the majority of various other VPN apps: it has a listing of places, an On/Off switch, as well as a Setups dialog with some helpful tweaks.
The Place Picker doesn’t compel you to scroll– and scroll, and also scroll– to find what you need. You’re currently able to view places by continent or type (streaming or P2P maximized), enter text in a Search box, or conserve generally used places as Faves for speedy gain access to later on.
The Place Picker does not have any kind of latency or web server load indicators, yet there is a Speed Test choice that finds your local web servers and determines their latencies and also downloads rates.
A sidebar contains a handful of configuration choices, including a readying to immediately attach to the VPN whenever you access the internet as well as to allow the clients two eliminate buttons. Yes, 2: if the VPN goes down, a system-wide kill switch safeguards you by obstructing web gain access to, as well as an optional app eliminate button closes down your selected procedures (your browser or torrent client, say).
We tested the kill button by forcibly closing the Openvpn.exe procedure and also its TCP connection, as well as monitoring IP leaks when we switched servers. In all cases the customer appropriately blocked all leakages, avoiding our genuine IP from getting to the outside world.
The application kill switch is unusual due to the fact that as well as ending details apps if the VPN drops, it additionally immediately attaches to HideMyAss! when you introduce those applications.
This is a wonderful idea, as well as it worked throughout the screening, but it does not offer adequate control. You may not want to link to the VPN whenever you open your torrent customer, for instance, yet HideMyAss! does not care: once it’s on the app eliminate switch list, that’s what will certainly occur. The customer should treat the auto-connect option as a different function and also make it configurable for each and every app.
Concealed in the Preferences box, an unusual IP Shuffle function modifications your IP address at a defined period (30 minutes, an hr, a day, whatever you like), making it even more difficult for others to track what you’re doing.
You can improve the auto-connect attribute, and also perhaps have it connect to HideMyAss! when you access a public network, however not with networks you trust, when you are, say, at home or job.
Little however thoughtful touches include the capacity to watch your OpenVPN link log, which is potentially extremely beneficial in troubleshooting connection problems.
The Android, as well as iOS apps, have a near-identical interface to the Windows client, and also when you’ve located your means around one, you’ll have no problem utilizing the others.
The Android application has an additional attribute in its brand-new split tunneling assistance, though. In a click or more, you have the ability to determine which applications need to make use of the encrypted passage, as well as which are entrusted to your regular link.
The mobile applications have smarter auto-connect rules, as well, as well as can instantly attach you to the VPN when you sign up with unsafe Wi-Fi networks just, or with any Wi-Fi, or both Wi-Fi and mobile networks.
The different HideMyAss! apps aren’t the most effective we have actually seen, and regardless of the redesign, they’re not the most convenient to utilize. They’re pleasant, however, and also the majority of doing an excellent job, and we anticipate they’ll promptly improve as HideMyAss! uncovers and also fixes concerns with the brand-new user interface.
Performance.
We started our HideMyAss! efficiency checks by choosing a tiny group of test servers: 3 in the US, 3 in the UK, 2 in Europe, as well as locations in Australia, Hong Kong, and also South Korea to stand for the rest of the world.
( This needed downloading and install OpenVPN arrangement data, so we mored than happy to locate that HideMyAss! provides a broad option, smartly called as well as the right approximate date.).
Our tests began by linking to each web server consequently, recording the link time, running a ping check to seek latency problems, and also utilizing geolocation to confirm that the webserver remained in the place advertised.
There declared information in every area. All servers appeared to be where HideMyAss! claimed they would certainly be. Link times were efficient around five seconds, also for the most remote places (some VPNs are twice that, or more), as well as ping times extended for faraway servers, but no greater than we expected, and they really did not disclose any type of troubles.
We went on to inspecting the best-case download speeds, linking to our local webserver from both United States and UK locations, and also measuring download performance making use of Ookla’s SpeedTest as well as TestMy.
UK speeds were an excellent 69-71Mbps on our examination 75Mbps link, just around 4-5% down on our efficiency with the VPN shut off.
We made our United States checks from a superfast 600Mbps link, allowing us to see what degree of performance the HideMyAss! servers can maintain. Speeds weren’t much better than the UK, at 75-80Mbps, well down on the 140-200Mbps we saw in our last testimonial.
Our examinations were carried out at the beginning of April 2020, when a lot of the world remained in coronavirus-prompted lockdown, with VPN as well as net website traffic at record degrees, so it’s possible this had an impact. As there’s no other way for us to claim for sure, we’re not going to count these results as a major black mark against the business, this time.
Even if that 75-80Mbps United States efficiency was all you would certainly ever before getting, however, that’s still more than sufficient for most functions, as well as quick checks from the UK showed even one of the most distant web servers took care of really useful rates (Australia hit 34Mbps, Malaysia managed 25-30Mbps, even Peru’s 10-12Mbps sufficed for surfing and also fundamental streaming).
Netflix.
Direct your browser at the HideMyAss! the internet site and you’ll read that the service permits you to “stream your favored TV shows from any place you are in the world utilizing among our specialized streaming servers.” Sounds great, yet is it real?
The HideMyAss! Windows customer makes it possible for filtering its place list to show just streaming servers, and also right now there are simply five of these: two in New York, one in Florida, one in London, as well as another in Frankfurt. That’s not specifically a lot of options, and also we wondered whether that would certainly make it much easier for streaming web sites to find as well as obstruct them.
The results were, well, a little difficult. The HideMyAss! UK web server obtained us immediate access to BBC iPlayer, and UK Amazon.com Prime Video Clip, though not UK Netflix. Meanwhile, the United States web servers got us right into the United States Netflix, as well as US-only YouTube content, but not Amazon Prime Video.
That’s not wonderful and as the HideMyAss! the website does not dedicate to sustaining gain access to for any type of particular solution, it’s possibly not going to change whenever quickly. Remember that you do reach try the service for a week totally free, however, so there’s plenty of time to evaluate it on your own.
Assistance.
The HideMyAss! assistance site supplies a wide range of sources, consisting of arrangement guides, a searchable knowledgebase, Frequently asked questions, a web forum, and also 24/7 online chat for anything immediate.
The web material isn’t as in-depth or well-presented as some of the competitors. ExpressVPN has a host of detailed setup guides, all conveniently accessible in a couple of clicks from the assistance page. HideMyAss! doesn’t organize its write-ups fairly as neatly, as well as when you do discover them, there’s less info, as well as periodically some doubtful points.
As an example, the Windows setup tutorial starts by speaking about downloading the current version of the.NET Framework, for example, prior to stating there’s nothing uncommon concerning cautions that the TAP chauffeur isn’t signed, as well as recommending you fix this by disabling chauffeur finalizing checks. This isn’t always bad advice if you understand what you’re doing, yet it’s also a seriously sophisticated thing with implications for your protection, and also we would not expect it to show up in a basic installation tutorial for all degrees of the user.
The HideMyAss! internet discussion forum isn’t a hectic location, but upload an inquiry there, and also it’s normally answered by a staff member within a few hrs. Replies are usually handy, and also if the issue isn’t fixed on the forum, the assistance group will certainly typically develop a ticket for you or send you a direct e-mail to talk about the problem further.
If you can’t wait, live chat gets on hand for near-instant aid. We asked about a Windows installment concern, as well as within minutes, an assistance representative began offering us a useful and also precise option. That helps us, and overall, we assume HideMyAss! must be able to assist you to address one of the most usual VPN issues.
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Final verdict.
This VPN service provider’s information collection plans could be a trouble for the privacy-conscious, as well as costs are greater than we’d preferably like. That stated the brand-new applications are easy to use, it unclogged US Netflix and also BBC iPlayer, and also you do get one of the largest VPN networks around. If these are your top priorities, HideMyAss! might be worth a try.
