At a look
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Good speeds
- Tons of servers and nation choices
Cons
- Privacy coverage remains to be lower than supreme
- Not a lot in the way in which of additional options or customization
Our Verdict
HMA provides strong speeds, a variety of nation decisions, and a loopy quantity of servers. Its privateness coverage has additionally improved, nevertheless it nonetheless logs extra information than privacy-conscious varieties could be snug with. Overall, our advice hasn’t modified. HMA is nice for primary makes use of, however if you happen to’re making an attempt to be as nameless as doable on-line this VPN is just not supreme.
HMA Pro briefly:
- P2P allowed: Yes
- Business location: Czech Republic
- Number of servers: 1,080+
- Number of nation places: 210+*
- Cost: $59.88 per 12 months
- VPN Protocol: OpenVPN (Windows)
- Data encryption: AES-256
- Data authentication: AES-256-GCM or SHA1
- Handshake: 2048-bit TLS and SHA-256
If there’s one factor you’ll be able to say about HMA (Hide My Ass) it doesn’t sit nonetheless fairly often. Since final we appeared, the well-known Avast-owned VPN service launched a brand new model of its app, and it’s time to kick it round a bit and see what’s new. The new look is sort of totally different from that smartphone-style app that we checked out in 2019, and general it’s a fairly good new design.
When you first open HMA it has two major columns. On the left is one thing a little bit extra smartphone-like with a big on/off slider, a giant tile on the backside together with your chosen VPN location, and in between these two parts, your house IP—if you join, it additionally provides your VPN server’s IP tackle. This default view has an animated model of the HMA donkey mascot, Jack. When you activate the VPN, Jack places on quite a lot of disguises to point you’re on the VPN. Sometimes these disguises are amusing, whereas different time he appears to be like like a complete jack… effectively, .
Note: This evaluate is a part of our best VPNs roundup. Go there for particulars about competing merchandise and the way we examined them.
HMA Pro 5 with an lively connection.
IDG
On the rightmost panel are various smaller packing containers that may both show data or present fast hyperlinks to take actions similar to opening preferences, activating auto-connect, or watching your present bandwidth utilization. This space doesn’t seem like customizable, although you’ll be able to dismiss packing containers that aren’t helpful.
To get into the settings, click on the cog icon within the upper-left nook. This opens a second window with various fairly customary choices. What’s good is that various options aren’t activated by default, giving customers the choice to show them on, such because the web kill change, an app-specific kill change, and auto-connect.
Under Settings > Connection HMA has a really easy-to-use approach to handle your PC’s saved Wi-Fi networks. By default HMA received’t attempt to join, and even ask to attach, if you’re on a non-public community similar to your house community. Changing a Wi-Fi community from personal to public or vice versa is so simple as tapping a slider subsequent to every community’s title.
There isn’t something in the way in which of power-user options. No multi-hop, no VPN protocol choices, or something like that. If you want these sorts of options then HMA is just not the best choice.
IDG
One notable problem with HMA is its nation choice choices. HMA provides greater than 200 nation choices with a number of places within the bigger international locations. If all you care about is getting a connection for that nation then simply choose the nation you need, and HMA will deal with the remainder.
However for some international locations, together with the United States, there are digital location servers. So as an alternative of a U.S. server truly being within the United States it pretends to be there, however the bodily machine is definitely in, say, Brazil or Singapore. If you don’t like utilizing digital location servers that aren’t actually the place they’re presupposed to be, then attempt selecting a selected location manually from throughout the app.
You may see which servers are meant for P2P and that are for streaming by clicking the P2P and Streaming menu objects throughout the nation places window.
Overall, HMA is pretty easy to make use of, although virtualized nation places might complicate it for some.
Performance
HMA has at all times been a prime performer and that continues this time round. It has dropped a bit, however remains to be inside our prime 10 VPNs for velocity (at this writing). HMA retained 36.21 p.c of the bottom obtain velocity throughout 5 places and a number of testing days. That must be greater than sufficient for many makes use of.
IDG
Privacy, anonymity, and belief
HMA requires an electronic mail and password to join an account, which is customary for VPN companies. As for funds, HMA accepts credit score and debit playing cards, in addition to PayPal and PayNearMe. There are not any cryptocurrency choices as of but, and HMA doesn’t settle for money by way of PayNearMe.
As for the privateness coverage, HMA says it’s now a no-logs VPN, and an audit by Versprite verified that. The firm says it doesn’t log originating IPs, DNS queries, shopping historical past, or the content material of information that runs by means of its community.
On the server aspect, HMA does log the day you final linked to its servers however not the time of day, and it logs bandwidth utilization in an effort to “plan for new network capacity and server improvements.” All of this information is saved for 35 days.
From the VPN shoppers, HMA logs connection occasions similar to a connection, disconnection, failed connection, and so forth. This data is just not tied to person information. HMA additionally logs “application events,” which principally means how you employ the app similar to utilizing a brand new function, uninstalling, and so forth. It additionally logs crash studies which are despatched and generated by customers. All of this information is saved for 2 years after which deleted on a rolling foundation.
That’s an okay privateness coverage however there are extra minimal insurance policies on the market that gather even much less information, and plenty of VPNs aren’t accumulating information about how folks use the app. That mentioned, for most individuals this function must be positive. But if you happen to’re additional involved about privateness, then I’d say HMA is just not for you.
Bottom line
HMA has loads of issues folks need: tons of servers, heaps of nation connection choices, quick service, and a comparatively easy-to-use app. It’s additionally obtainable at a superb worth. It doesn’t have so much to supply those that need additional options or customization, or these trying to maximizing privateness. But if all you want is one thing to get Netflix abroad or a easy app for connecting whereas on public Wi-Fi, HMA can get the job finished.
*HMA makes use of digital servers which means a few of its nation places should not bodily situated the place they seem like.
Editor’s word: Because on-line companies are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this evaluate is topic to vary in an effort to precisely replicate the present state of the service. Any adjustments to textual content or our remaining evaluate verdict will likely be famous on the prime of this text.
Ian is an impartial author primarily based in Israel who has by no means met a tech topic he did not like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming {hardware}, video and music streaming companies, social networks, and browsers. When he isn’t overlaying the information he is engaged on how-to suggestions for PC customers, or tuning his eGPU setup.