One of many greatest names within the VPN enterprise, HideMyAss! (HMA) has been defending its customers' privateness for greater than 15 years.
The corporate presents an unlimited community of 1,080+ servers in 290+ places throughout 210+ international locations. That is fewer servers than a few of the prime suppliers, however many more places and international locations (NordVPN has 5,200+ servers throughout 60 international locations, ExpressVPN has 3,000+ servers throughout 160 places and 94 international locations).There's P2P help, however solely on a handful of places, in truth simply eight by way of our Home windows app: 5 in Europe, three within the US.
The service now solely helps the OpenVPN protocol (IKEv2 has been dropped from the Home windows app, and there is nonetheless no signal of WireGuard). It is severely safe, although, with AES-256-GCM information encryption, RSA-4096 for handshaking and SHA-256 information authentication, whereas twin kill switches goal to maintain you protected if the VPN drops.
HideMyAss! has a Mac app, amongst others (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)The HideMyAss! web site proudly proclaims that it really works on all of your units, and it simply may need a degree. Not solely are there customized apps for Home windows, Mac, Android, iOS and Linux, however there's set up recommendation that will help you manually arrange the service on Apple TV, Android TV, Xbox, PlayStation and more.
HideMyAss! helps as much as 5 simultaneous connections with its baseline plans. Paying additional permits you to cowl as much as 10 units, or you'll be able to arrange the service on some routers and join as many units as you want: it is your name.
HideMyAss pricing
The HideMyAss! primary pricing web page appears quick on choices with simply a few plans.
You will get help for as much as 5 simultaneous connections for $4.99 a month on the usual annual plan, dropping to solely $2.99 over three years.
In the event you've acquired plenty of {hardware} to guard, you would possibly need to select the ten connection choice, however that bumps up the worth: $7.99 a month on the annual plan, $6.99 for 2 years of protection, or $5.99 for 3.
No month-to-month plan, we puzzled? There may be, however HMA hides it away on an 'prolonged' pricing web page, presumably as a result of it desires customers to purchase one of many longer-term plans.
Observe down the appropriate web page and you will find an $11.99 month-to-month billing choice. There's additionally a six-month plan at $8.99, and a two-year plan at $4.99 a month. (The identical value because the one-year plan? Possibly that is why it is hidden away on one other web page.) These seem to help as much as 5 connections solely, with no 10-device selection.
$4.99 a month is a good annual value which beats distributors like Hotspot Protect ($7.99) and ExpressVPN ($8.33). Buying round can nonetheless prevent a bit of money, although. Non-public Web Entry fees $3.33 a month for its annual plan, and simply $2.19 over three years. Ivacy's five-year plan is a tiny $1.33 a month.
In the event you've acquired a variety of units to guard, although, HMA would not seem like such an excellent deal. These low Non-public Web Entry costs cowl as much as 10 simultaneous connections, and Windscribe's annual plan, simply $4.08 a month, has no system limits in any respect.
HideMyAss accepts bank cards and PayPal for funds, in addition to Apple Pay and different options (Picture credit score: Avast)
HideMyAss! would not help Bitcoin, no matter plan you select, however you'll be able to pay by way of playing cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Alipay and numerous different strategies. (Fee choices fluctuate by area, however the web site has a useful information here.)
A 7-day free trial offers you an honest period of time to check out the service. Watch out, although – you will need to hand over fee particulars, and also you're robotically billed for the annual plan when the trial ends, until you cancel (fortuitously, that is straightforward to do on-line).
In the event you purchase, after which run into issues, you are protected by a 30-day money-back assure. This contains loads of jargon-packed small print, however there's additionally an unusually beneficiant additional.
Most VPNs say that they will not refund you if you happen to've ever claimed a refund from them earlier than. That is smart – they do not need freeloaders claiming again and again – but it surely may be a bit of unfair, if, say, you are simply making an attempt the service once more years later to see if it would be just right for you.
HideMyAss! understands this, and would not care what number of earlier refund requests you've got made, simply so long as it is not less than six months for the reason that final one. Appears rather more affordable to us.
HMA has been audited to verify its no logging credentials (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)
Privateness and logging
HideMyAss! has a lot small print that the Authorized part features a sidebar with a minimum of 13 separate sections, and plenty of of these are additionally very prolonged (the privateness coverage alone has greater than 5,000 phrases).
This is not fairly as dangerous because it first sounds. The principle purpose for the cluster of paperwork is that HideMyAss! has organized essential sections into separate areas, making them simpler to search out, and most of those are clearly structured and well-written. (In the event you're allergic to small print and simply need the fundamentals, although, try HMA's no log weblog submit for a fast clarification.)
The privateness coverage explains that there is no logging of originating IP addresses (a potential approach to establish you), exact timestamps (whenever you linked or carried out some motion), DNS queries, shopping historical past or transferred information.
There may be some basic logging of service use, together with the date of connection and whether or not it is AM or PM, and a really approximate concept of transferred information (the service solely information entire 100MB blocks, so a 379MB information switch is logged as 300MB).
HMA justifies this minimal information gathering on the grounds that it helps with troubleshooting, customer support and understanding community capability, and that is smart to us.
In the event you're the skeptical kind, although, there is no must take these phrases on belief. In August 2020 HMA introduced in a weblog submit that its no logging coverage had been audited by safety consultancy VerSprite. HMA handed, the corporate defined, with VerSprite awarding the minimal potential 'low danger' consumer privateness affect ranking.
The HMA web site solely offers broad particulars in regards to the scope of the audit, for instance speaking about it together with 'analyses of information, site visitors, and storage on each the consumer and server-side, and the disconnection of consumer identities with information containing details about on-line consumer exercise.'
Because the report is not publicly obtainable, there is no approach to decide how significant the outcomes could be. Nonetheless, it is a begin, and we have now to applaud any VPN which places itself by this type of professional unbiased scrutiny. Hopefully HMA will run additional audits in future, this time with outcomes we are able to learn in full.
That is the consumer interface of the Home windows consumer (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)
Apps
Signing up for HideMyAss! works very like another web service you've got ever used. Select a plan, hand over your cash, an e mail receipt arrives and the web site redirects you to a 'getting began' web page.
In our case, a Download web page pointed us on to the proper app for our Home windows system, whereas additionally giving us link to Mac, Android and iOS builds, and a few tips on utilizing the service with Linux. This is not as well-presented as high-end rivals equivalent to ExpressVPN – you aren't getting the identical variety of tutorials on establishing the service manually, and there is no link to obtain the Android APK file for handbook set up elsewhere – but it surely covers the fundamentals effectively.
The Home windows interface contains an animated icon of HMA's cartoon donkey mascot, however look previous that and it is very like another VPN app. It has a listing of places, an enormous On/Off button, and a Settings dialog with some helpful tweaks.
The Location Picker is properly streamlined (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)
The Location Picker would not drive you to scroll – and scroll, and scroll – to search out what you want. You are capable of filter places by continent or kind (streaming or P2P optimized), enter textual content in a search field, or save generally used places as Favorites for fast entry later.
HideMyAss features a built-in velocity take a look at instrument (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)
The placement names haven't any latency or server load indicators, however there's a Velocity Check choice which detects your nearest servers and calculates their latencies and obtain speeds.
The Home windows consumer has not one, however two, kill switches (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)
Kill change
HMA's app sidebar incorporates a small variety of configuration choices, together with a setting to robotically hook up with the VPN everytime you entry the web, and to enable the consumer's two kill switches. Sure, two: if the VPN drops, a system-wide kill change protects you by blocking web entry, and an optionally available app kill change closes down your chosen processes (your browser or torrent consumer, say).
We examined the kill change by forcibly closing the Openvpn.exe course of and its TCP connection, and monitoring IP leaks after we switched servers. In all circumstances the consumer accurately blocked all leaks, stopping our actual IP from reaching the skin world.
The app kill change is uncommon, as a result of in addition to terminating particular apps if the VPN drops, it additionally robotically connects to HideMyAss! whenever you launch these apps. Presumably HMA is pondering, if this app is so essential that it have to be closed if the VPN drops, then meaning it have to be protected always.
It is a good concept, and it labored throughout testing, but it surely would not provide sufficient management. You won't need to hook up with the VPN each time you open your torrent consumer, as an example, however HideMyAss! would not care: as soon as it is on the app kill change record, that is what's going to occur.
Even worse, whenever you shut the app, the VPN robotically disconnects. You may also be utilizing the VPN to unblock a streaming web site, browse securely or no matter, and need to depart it lively, however as earlier than, HideMyAss! would not care: these are the foundations.
A neat IP Shuffle function permits you to change your IP deal with with out reconnecting, at set time intervals if you want (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)
IP Shuffle
HMA's IP Shuffle function allows altering your IP deal with with out reconnecting. It is a easy approach to scale back the prospect of others monitoring what you are doing, and may also enable you to get right into a web site if you happen to're blocked whereas utilizing the primary IP deal with HMA allotted to you.
Making this occur is as straightforward as clicking the Refresh button whenever you're linked. Alternatively, the app can robotically change your IP at an outlined interval (half-hour, an hour, a day, no matter you want), so you do not even have to consider it.
No matter route we selected, the app labored completely, updating our IP with out exposing our actual id because the connection up to date.
iOS app
HMA's Android and iOS apps have a close to similar interface to the Home windows consumer, and as soon as you've got discovered your means round one, you may don't have any downside utilizing the others.
The iOS model opens with the identical animated donkey, On/Off button and standing info, as an example. In the event you're not within the technicalities then you do not have to do something past faucet 'On' whenever you want the VPN, 'Off' when you do not.
The placement picker is organized a bit of in another way, however nonetheless covers all of the fundamentals. You may view all or streaming-optimized servers, use the search field to discover a particular location, or use the Favorites system to avoid wasting the places you employ most. The one small wrinkle is the iOS app stories eight much less places than Android (298 vs 290).
A sparse Settings space is usually about configuring your system to robotically join everytime you entry Wi-Fi, mobile networks or each.
There's additionally a Private Privateness web page with an choice to 'Share app-usage information with Third-party analytics instruments to enhance this app.' HMA turns this on by default, with out asking you, which is not the greatest strategy (we choose VPNs who do not ship this type of information until you've got particularly permitted it). However if you happen to spot the setting, and you do not approve, you'll be able to flip it off with a faucet.
That is the consumer interface of the Android app (Picture credit score: HideMyAss!)
Android app
HMA's Android app has the identical easy-to-use frontend as iOS. In the event you've used one other VPN you may be fortunately connecting, switching places and disconnecting immediately.
The actual spotlight here is the Settings web page, which is so full of stuff that we needed to scroll all the way down to work by every part (and that is even in Portrait mode).
There's Auto-Join whenever you entry Wi-Fi or cell networks, as an example (precisely the identical interface as on iOS). Break up tunneling permits you to direct some apps by the VPN, whereas others use your commonplace connection.
IP Shuffle switches your IP deal with after a predefined time. Risk Scan checks any Wi-Fi community for indicators of hazard. There's assist establishing the Android system kill change, an OpenVPN TCP choice to perhaps enhance connection reliability, and a Contact Assist space the place you'll be able to ship a message from contained in the app.
We might like more. WireGuard help can be an enormous plus here, as with the remainder of the vary – however total this can be a high quality app which is straightforward to make use of and presents a variety of performance.
We use plenty of totally different velocity take a look at companies to find out VPN efficiency (Picture credit score: nPerf)
Efficiency
We measured HideMyAss! speeds from US and UK places, each with 1Gbps connections, utilizing a number of efficiency testing websites and companies (SpeedTest's web site and command line app, TestMy.internet, Netflix's Fast.com and more). We checked the obtain speeds not less than 5 instances from every web site, after which we repeated all of the checks in a night session.
OpenVPN outcomes had been glorious at 340-350Mbps within the UK, 270-410Mbps within the US. That beats most suppliers in current testing, though just a few have edged forward: Conceal.me managed 390Mbps, and ProtonVPN hit 400-460Mbps.
VPNs with WireGuard and related protocols delivered a lot quicker downloads in our testing, although. CyberGhost WireGuard connections reached 760-860Mbps, for instance, and NordVPN's Nordlynx delivered 760-880Mbps. However if you happen to're hoping to arrange the service on a router, or perhaps join by way of some third-party app, OpenVPN efficiency is more likely to matter, and HideMyAss! ought to be greater than quick sufficient for many conditions.
HideMyAss! wasn't capable of unblock US Netflix in our checks (Picture credit score: Netflix)
Netflix and streaming
Level your browser on the HideMyAss! web site and you may learn that the service permits you to "stream your favorite TV shows from wherever you are in the world using one of our dedicated streaming servers." Sounds good, however is it true?
The HideMyAss! Home windows consumer allows filtering its location record to show solely streaming servers, and proper now there are simply six of those: 4 within the US, one in London and one other in Frankfurt. That is not precisely a variety of selection, and we puzzled whether or not that may make it simpler for streaming web sites to detect and block them.
The server scarcity did not appear to be a difficulty within the UK, the place we might stream BBC iPlayer content material from three separate logins and IPs with none hassles.
The US story was disappointing. We could not get into Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus from anyplace. And though HMA unblocked US Netflix for our final overview, we had no luck this time.
That is a poor consequence, however HMA is not alone. Netflix has been preventing VPNs even tougher this 12 months, and loads of companies are blocked proper now. But when accessing streaming websites is a should for you, CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, Non-public Web Entry, ProtonVPN and Surfshark all unblocked each considered one of our take a look at websites.
HideMyAss! gives help by way of 24/7 stay chat, an internet discussion board, FAQs and a searchable knowledgebase (Picture credit score: Avast)
Assist
The HideMyAss! help web site presents a variety of assets, together with setup guides, a searchable knowledgebase, FAQs, an internet discussion board, and 24/7 stay chat for something pressing.
The net content material is not as in-depth or well-presented as a few of the competitors. ExpressVPN has a bunch of detailed setup guides, all simply accessible in a few clicks from the help web page. HideMyAss! would not arrange its articles fairly as neatly, and whenever you do discover them, there's much less info, and sometimes some questionable factors.
For instance, numerous troubleshooting guides embody suggestions for disabling Home windows driver signing checks, resetting the Winsock catalog and different technical steps. This is not essentially dangerous recommendation if you recognize what you are doing, but it surely's additionally severely superior stuff with implications to your safety and different apps, and we would not anticipate it to look in a basic set up tutorial for all ranges of consumer.
The HideMyAss! neighborhood discussion board is not a busy place, however submit a query there and it is usually answered by a workers member inside just a few hours. Replies are usually useful, and if the issue isn’t solved on the discussion board, the help group will typically create a ticket for you or ship you a direct e mail to debate the difficulty additional.
If you cannot wait, stay chat is available for swift help. We {asked} a couple of Home windows set up difficulty, and inside minutes, a help agent started giving us a useful and correct answer. That works for us, and total, we predict HideMyAss! ought to have the opportunity that will help you remedy most typical VPN points.
HideMyAss! overview: Closing verdict
HMA's unblocking efficiency is below-par, and though OpenVPN speeds are nice, they cannot match the WireGuard competitors. That mentioned, the apps are straightforward to make use of, there's an enormous selection of places, and the corporate's no logging guarantees are backed by an unbiased audit. If these are your priorities, give HideMyAss! a Try.
SociallyTrend.com is an Entertainment News Portal. It shares the Latest Entertainment News and Updates we provide the latest updates on various topics globe.
