Hide.me in short:
- P2P allowed: Yes (on all however 4 places)
- Business location: Malaysia
- Number of servers: 1,800
- Number of nation places: 47
- Cost: $100 for one yr / $120 for 2
- VPN protocol (default): OpenVPN
- Data encryption: AES-256-GCM
- Data authentication: SHA-384
- Handshake encryption: RSA 8192-bit
It takes just a few years, however most VPN companies which can be in it for the lengthy haul slowly broaden their networks to embody extra places, and add extra servers. Hide.me from Malaysia-based eVenture Ltd. has taken that tack.
The final time we checked out it, Hide.me had simply over 150 servers and 34 nation places. Two years later, the variety of servers has elevated to 1,800, whereas the nation places have bumped as much as 47.
Note: This assessment is a part of our best VPNs roundup. Go there for particulars about competing merchandise and the way we examined them.
Features and companies
Hide.me for Windows 10 with an energetic connection.
Not lots has modified with the Hide.me Windows utility. It nonetheless has that enormous Enable/Disable button within the heart. Below that the Change button within the lower-right nook results in the situation itemizing, and the left facet reveals the PC’s present IP handle.
One new addition is the upper-left nook notifications icon. This addition is known as Message Center. It notifies customers of updates to the service resembling new server places or new options.
Speaking of which, Hide.me has added a variety of new objects since we final checked out it. For essentially the most half these are primary however vital additions resembling IPv6 assist.
Hide.me additionally helps quite a few streaming companies, together with Netflix, in addition to others that aren’t as prickly about VPNs, resembling Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Now.
Hide.me has WireGuard as a protocol possibility, the brand new and standard VPN protocol that guarantees simpler implementation, higher safety, and higher speeds. WireGuard isn’t but the default changing OpenVPN; nevertheless, Hide.me tells us its WireGuard implementation is a full a part of the service and never a beta possibility as is the case with many different VPNs at the moment.
Dipping into the Settings part of the app, there’s lots right here. There are the standard choices to launch on system startup, join routinely, and so forth. Hide.me additionally nonetheless has its fallback protocol the place you’ll be able to specify the order through which the app will attempt to join with the assorted VPN protocol choices.
Hide.me additionally has two options which can be very comparable: Split Tunneling and Stealth Guard. The former is what you’d anticipate. You can select to permit solely particular apps to make use of the VPN, whereas others use your customary ISP connection.
Hide.me’s VPN protocols.
Stealth Guard, in the meantime, is a complementary function to Split Tunelling that blocks an app from connecting to the web until a Hide.me VPN connection is current. There’s an possibility to make use of this with all apps or to solely cease particular apps from connecting when a VPN connection isn’t current.
There’s additionally an web kill swap, and supported VPN protocols embody IKEv2, OpenVPN, SoftEtherVPN, WireGuard, and SSTP.
Hide.me is out there for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. There are additionally browser add-ons for Chrome and Firefox that include assist for the SOCKS proxy.
Performance
For our velocity exams we caught with the default as a substitute of testing out WireGuard. We might run one other check to see how the WireGuard implementation is doing; however most individuals will simply use regardless of the default implementation is, in order that’s what we did right here.
Hide.me’s speeds this time round weren’t fairly as quick because the final time we examined.
Across 5 days of testing, we discovered that Hide.me maintained 27.3 p.c of the bottom velocity. Within that combination, nevertheless, have been some really unbelievable speeds. We simply discovered they weren’t constant. It was fairly widespread for every location to hit 30 to 50 Mbps (the bottom velocity was within the excessive 80s every time we examined), however we didn’t see these speeds with every spherical of testing.
In the tip, nevertheless, we’re assured that Hide.me has sufficient velocity to handle something it’s worthwhile to do over a VPN connection.
Privacy, anonymity, and belief
Hide.me’s basic settings on Windows 10.
Hide.me’s privateness coverage states that it doesn’t monitor your exercise while you’re related to the VPN. It doesn’t preserve connection logs or retailer IP addresses. The firm does, nevertheless, preserve troubleshooting logs that embody a randomly generated username and an internally assigned IP handle for every person. The troubleshooting logs are erased each few hours, in accordance with the privateness coverage.
The firm’s About web page doesn’t record its workforce, however as we discovered beforehand, the corporate CEO is Sebastian Schaub, who is predicated in Kuala Lumpur.
Hide.me has a wide range of pricing constructions. You will pay for 2 years for $120, which works out to $5 monthly. A single yr is $99.84, which is $8.32 monthly, and a month-to-month subscription is $12.95 monthly.
Clearly, Hide.me is pushing individuals in the direction of the two-year possibility, which is simply $20.16 larger than the single-year possibility, and subsequently a significantly better worth.
Hide.me accepts funds through bank card, PayPal, and Bitcoin.
Conclusion
Hide.me’s speeds aren’t as constant as final time, however they’re nonetheless excellent. The service has carried out a pleasant job increasing its providing, with extra nation places and added options resembling assist for Netflix and different streaming companies. Overall, Hide.me is a well-rounded service. We want the corporate didn’t have such an unique enterprise location, however others would possibly select Hide.me for precisely that motive.
Editor’s be aware: Because on-line companies are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this assessment is topic to alter in an effort to precisely replicate the present state of the service. Any adjustments to textual content or our ultimate assessment verdict shall be famous on the prime of this text.