HideMyAss! has been a preferred supplier of VPN providers for greater than 10 years, however is now owned by Avast.

The corporate gives 840+ servers in 350+ places throughout 190+ nations, many greater than the majority of the competitors.

Load balancing permits HideMyAss to advocate the server with the minimal load in any location, serving to to maintain your speeds excessive.

The HideMyAss web site proudly proclaims that “our VPN software program works on all of your units” – meaning desktops, tablets, mobiles, good TVs, and sport consoles. There’s not numerous up-to-date set up assist out there for something past the principle platforms, however skilled customers ought to determine the fundamentals with out a lot problem.

There is a free 30-day trial that has simply been rolled out within the US (with different territories more likely to observe quickly), however the common costs are pretty typical for a premium VPN: £7.99 ($11.52) per single month, £5.99 ($eight.33) per 30 days paid each 6 months, or £four.99 ($6.56) per 30 days on the annual plan.

There’s not less than a 30-day refund, though that additionally has some situations. Particularly, it is solely allowed should you’ve used lower than 10GB of knowledge and made fewer than 100 connections.

Privateness

HideMyAss has extra phrases, situations and insurance policies pages than simply about some other VPN supplier, however should you take the time to learn them you may discover some attention-grabbing particulars.

Whenever you register for an account, the corporate collects your unique IP handle and shops this for as much as two years after you have closed your account. Different VPNs sometimes maintain your electronic mail handle solely, and some do not even try this.

Some cost particulars are additionally held for 2 years, and communications with assist are saved for as much as six months. Reside chat particulars, once more together with your IP handle, are held for months by one other firm solely.

Like different providers, HideMyAss would not log your internet exercise. Not like many different providers, it logs your incoming IP handle while you begin a VPN session and the IP handle of the server you are utilizing. This information is saved for between two and three months.

This type of session logging will not matter should you’re simply utilizing the VPN to guard common web actions like accumulating electronic mail or on-line procuring. However should you’re downloading torrents or doing anything the place somebody would possibly document and examine your IP handle, it offers a method for them to narrate these actions again to your HideMyAss account.

Efficiency

Signing up for HideMyAss works very similar to some other VPN. Select a plan, choose a cost methodology – card, PayPal and UnionPay are supported – and hand over your cash within the regular manner.

The HideMyAss account display shows fundamental account and licence particulars, in addition to hyperlinks overlaying the way to arrange the VPN on units and routers. Barely bizarrely, the account interface has no hyperlinks to obtain the shoppers or to contact assist should you want extra assist. It is not tough to search out these – they’re clearly linked from the homepage – however a very good service ought to current you with key particulars like this instantly, not go away you to search out them your self.

The HideMyAss Home windows shopper opens with a easy and stripped again interface which provides you a selection of three working modes.

Immediate Mode mechanically finds and connects to your nearest server with a single click on.

Freedom Mode connects to the closest ‘free speech nation’. The corporate says that is geared toward customers in “censorship regimes” and permits them to “connect with the quickest out there server within the closest nation recognized by HMA! as secure and pro-free speech.”

Location Mode lists all out there servers by nation or metropolis. There is a Search field to shortly discover what you want, and a easy favorites system to simply entry commonly-used places. There is no load info, however apparently HideMyAss mechanically makes use of the server with the bottom load in any location.

Unusually, HideMyAss permits accessing some places by way of one other nation, for instance reaching a US server by way of the Netherlands or Singapore. This implies you connect with the Netherlands or Singapore server, your visitors will get routed by the community and exits someplace within the US. This additional step might make it tougher for somebody to trace again from the exit IP and discover out who you’re, however the draw back is it’ll in all probability reduce your speeds.

Elsewhere, there’s little or no configurability or management. You’ll be able to have HideMyAss boot when Home windows masses otherwise you entry unsecured Wi-Fi. You can too specify whether or not to make use of OpenVPN with TCP or UDP, or arrange a kill swap to guard your identification if the VPN connection drops – and that is about it.

The kill swap is just a little uncommon as it really works by blocking community entry for particular purposes (most VPNs block your entire system). This works, but it surely’s extra awkward to arrange as you have to manually specify every part you wish to be closed, and keep in mind so as to add new apps as you put in them.

Nonetheless, the principle server choice instruments are undeniably straightforward to make use of. Should you’re in a rush, the Home windows shopper can be managed in a fundamental manner from the HideMyAss system tray icon. Proper-clicking the icon and deciding on Join will get you related to the final location; a Change IP Deal with possibility reconnects to the present server to get a brand new IP handle; a Disconnect possibility closes the connection while you’re accomplished.

The shopper’s simplicity pays off when it comes to its system affect, too. HideMyAss sometimes grabbed beneath 25MB RAM on our check Home windows 10 system, lower than half the necessities of many consumers.

HideMyAss additionally did nicely in in our efficiency assessments*. Connecting to our nearest UK server gave us an inexpensive 28-34Mbps obtain speeds, and we received very related efficiency from the Netherlands and different close by nations.

UK to US connections delivered a really acceptable 20Mbps, and even the long-distance places – Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia and extra – sometimes gave us Three-6Mbps

The constructive impression continued proper to the tip of the evaluation, with HideMyAss blocking DNS and WebRTC leaks and making certain our actual identification was at all times safely hid.

Last verdict

This service’s information assortment insurance policies might be an issue for the privacy-conscious. Speeds are good and also you do get one of many largest VPN networks round, although, and if these are your priorities HideMyAss could be price a strive.

*Our testing included evaluating common efficiency (shopping, streaming video). We additionally used speedtest.web to measure latency, add and obtain speeds, after which examined instantly once more with the VPN turned off, to test for any distinction (over a number of rounds of testing). We then in contrast these outcomes to different VPN providers we have reviewed. After all, do word that VPN efficiency is tough to measure as there are such a lot of variables.