Hide.me claims to be the world’s fastest VPN. We’ve heard that one before. The service offers a free and paid option, but you don’t get much from the free package. And we never advise people to choose free VPN’s.
Overall, at first glance, it appears that this VPN offers a lot of benefits and features including advanced encryption, no logging, a kill-switch, and DNS leak protection.
So far, so good.
Let’s dig a little deeper and find out if Hide.me meets our expectations.
Presenting Hide.me VPN
The goal of a VPN is to disguise your IP address so no one can track you and see what websites you are visiting. Hide.me does a great job of keeping your identity hidden from prying eyes. Hide.me takes your real IP address and replaces is it with one from its servers. In return, you get an anonymous IP address and encrypted traffic so no one can track what you are doing.
This service works on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. It currently features an impressive 1400 servers across 55 locations in Asia, Europe, and America.
Noteworthy Features of Hide.me
Every VPN has its features, and they start to overlap as you begin researching. We try to separate the standout features of each VPN service so you can understand the differences. Here are some of the essential elements to keep in mind when thinking about Hide.me.
- A free and paid option
- Strict no logging policy
- DNS leak protection
- AES-256 bit encryption
- 1400 servers across the globe
Hide.me Pricing
At the time of this review, Hide.me only offers two different pricing plans. It’s simple and easy to understand, which is something we like. It has a paid and a free version. Here is a breakdown of how the pricing of Hide.me works.
- Paid: $5.41 per month (unlimited data, five simultaneous connections, 55 worldwide locations)
- Free: $0 forever (2GB data, 1 connection, 5 worldwide locations)
As you can see, although it offers a free version, you wouldn’t get too far with it. We see the free option as a test run to see if you would like to pay for the full version. With the paid service you do get a 30-day money back guarantee as well.
What We Like About Hide.me VPN
This VPN service has a lot of great features and overall excellent security. The most important thing a VPN should do is protect your identity and Hide.me has no problem doing that. Here are some of the pros of this service.
Advanced Security
We’ve said it, but we’ll go more into detail so you can understand the level of security we’re talking. Hide.me offers AES 256-bit encryption using OpenVPN, which is industry leading. This encrypts not only your browser but your passwords, payment info, files, and any other potentially-compromising information.
Hide.me also works with Tor browser, so that adds more security and anonymity as well.
A Real No Logging Policy
We’ve read no logging policies that would make your head spin. They are often confusing and mislead you to believe that you are protected when you are not. One of the best features of this VPN is its straightforward policy against logging.
Hide.me says, the way it designed its VPN completely prevents it or anyone from logging anything. It does not track your online activity, connection info, name, or any personal information. Even VPN security analysts who audited the service say it checks out fine.
Built-in Kill Switch
But wait, there’s more. This kill switch is the icing on the cake because it automatically drops your internet connection if you lose your connection to the VPN. Without this feature, your unsecured internet connection would remain while disconnected from the VPN, which would expose your real IP address, data, and location. The kill switch prevents that from happening.
Torrents Too
How could it get much better? You also get access to P2P connections using Hide.me. That means that you can torrent whatever you want as long as you use the SOCKS5 proxy. You need to use the proxy combined with the VPN to get an encrypted server for safe torrenting. This process might be a bit more complicated than some other VPNs, but it still works.
And complicating something is not the best idea in our book, so we could never add them to our best VPN’s for torrenting list.
What We Dislike About Hide.me VPN
It’s not all good news. But overall, Hide.me is a decent service, so don’t be too alarmed. There are some issues worth mentioning, though.
Not the Fastest VPN
Although it claims to be the fastest VPN in the world, it is most certainly not. During our research, we found people using the servers experiencing speed drop-offs of as much as 70%. Speeds at around 20 Mbps could affect your ability to stream.
No Netflix and Chill
Yes, we are sorry to tell you that you will not have much luck streaming Netflix using Hide.me. During our research, everyone who tested out Hide.me servers were unable to break through the barriers. If the Netflix geo-restrictions are what brought you here, you might have to look elsewhere for a solution.
Try Nordvpn, expressvpn or cyberghost. Those 3 are guaranteed to work well with Netflix or any other service you are looking to access through geo spoofing.
Useless Free Plan
We think instead of a free plan, it should expand its free trial offering to allow you to experience the entire service without having to pay. Its free service is useless. 2 GBs of data will not grant you much at all and with only three servers, and one connection you can expect extremely slow download times.
Our Verdict
If you are concerned about your privacy and anonymity online (we assume you are) then Hide.me is decent. The service does a great job of providing plenty of security and encryption to keep you safe.
The VPN is also easy to use and affordable for most budgets. If you must, you could try the free plan to get a feel for things, but we would suggest going right into the paid option and canceling before 30 days if you don’t like it.
The only serious downside about Hide.me is the lack of Netflix. This could change over time as it continues to expand the number of servers it has. It is possible that across its many servers, you might find one that works.
Either way, Hide.me is an okay VPN network for people looking to hide their IP address and keep their identity safe. But there are so many better ones, so we recommend checking out our best vpn list before you decide on this one.
Disclosure: Blokt strives to provide transparent, honest reviews, and opinions. The writer of this article is a user of the product(s) or service(s) mentioned in this article and was not influenced by the respective owners.
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