Hide Me VPN Review

Last update: 03.22.2019

Overview

It’s not bad for users in restricted countries… if they’re rich as hell! Read our full Hide Me VPN Review to learn more.

Beyond the Top 10, we get VPNs with wild quality differences. Some are good for a specific purpose, while others are best thrown into the bin. Hide Me (Hide.me) is, in some senses, one of the better VPNs, although less popular.

It has some great selling points and a decent free version. With that said, it has a number of downsides too. Our Hide Me VPN review will reveal more about this tool.

Security and privacy: Is Hide Me VPN safe to use?

On the technical side, Hide Me VPN offers some strong security features:

• AES-256-CBC and AES-256-GCM encryption
• an RSA-8192 Handshake
• IKEv2, OpenVPN, SoftEther, SSTP, and PPTP protocols
• Kill Switch,
• IP and DNS leak protection,
• an Auto Reconnect feature, as well as Split Tunneling.

This is where some of Hide Me’s past issues start to surface. There have been reports of WebRTC leaks, which means the VPN can potentially reveal your real IP address through your browser. However, Hide Me released browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox to deal with this back in September 2018, allowing users to block potential WebRTC leaks manually. Such proactive measures are commendable, especially considering the “VPN is a trust-based industry” mantra.

Does Hide Me VPN keep logs?

We looked through their Privacy Policy for this Hide Me VPN review and found that the tool logs the absolute minimum of data necessary to make their service run smoothly. We don’t consider this an issue because almost all VPNs are forced to collect some of your data. Many of them collect a lot more of it.

According to their Privacy Policy:

We do NOT keep logs of your VPN sessions, browsing behaviour, websites you visit or any activity related to your VPN connection. In addition we NEVER store VPN connection logs and timestamps that match your incoming and outgoing IP address or session duration.

Speed and performance

In our tests, Hide Me gave us average to above-average speeds.

Before connecting to Hide Me, we had a base download speed of 240 Mbps. We checked the speeds connected to servers around the world:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

• Download: 106 Mbps
• Upload: 128 Mbps
• Dropoff: 56%

London, UK

• Download: 95 Mbps
• Upload: 109 Mbps
• Dropoff: 61%

New York, US

• Download: 63 Mbps
• Upload: 46 Mbps
• Dropoff: 74%

Hong Kong, China

• Download: 12 Mbps
• Upload: 2 Mbps
• Dropoff: 99%

Although these numbers are nothing to write home about (especially in Asia), Hide Me is still an above-average VPN in terms of speed. As long as you don’t try to connect to a server on the other side of the world from your actual location (in our case, to Hong Kong from Europe).

Server coverage

Hide Me VPN has 160+ servers in 34 countries. At first glance, these numbers definitely fail to impress when compared to those of the Top 10 VPNs.

With that said, Hide Me servers are well spread out, offering some coverage in most regions. And, more importantly (and perhaps more surprisingly), they offer good speeds, as we can see from above.

Ease of use and multiplatform support

Hide Me VPN supports the following platforms:

• Windows
• Mac
• Android
• iOS

There are no custom Linux or router apps, but both are supported, along with a range of other device types (Windows Phone, gaming consoles, Amazon Fire Stick, etc.).

It’s worth mentioning that the latest update on the Windows hide.me VPN app offers the new Firewall feature for an extra layer of security. This feature makes sure that all your apps use a secure VPN tunnel for online communications even when hide.me is not running.

The Hide.me Mac client is very similar in look to the Windows version, but the functionality is completely different. The most important difference is the lack of options compared to the Windows app:

If you’re using a Mac, you won’t get to see many options. However, if you’re not a veteran user, the lack of options should not be a problem as its security credentials are still solid.

Both Hide Me’s mobile versions – Android and iOS – are also similar in appearance to the Windows client. However, neither offers as many features than their desktop counterparts. On the plus side, this is a mobile-friendly VPN and will not annoy you nearly as much as some others.

The Change location option takes you to a country list that is easy to navigate because it’s small and there’s a search option. The country list also shows no latency, which is kind of unfortunate. The IP Details panel shows whether you’re connected, what your IP address and location is.

Moving on, welcome to the well-equipped Settings menu:

Application tab:

Network tab:

Protocols tab:

There’s plenty to tinker with here, and there are quite a few interesting and meaningful choices to make on the three tabs (Application, Network, and Protocols):

• • • Set up a “Fallback Protocol” (what security protocol will be used if the primary option fails).
    • Set up a primary/secondary DNS Server to use.
    • Change packet size (MTU size). Useful for unstable connections – smaller packets mean less packet loss.
    • Choose to randomize the port for OpenVPN connections.
    • Enable or disable Split tunneling, which can make exceptions for apps that you don’t want to use the VPN with.
    • If you’re using the SoftEther protocol, you can enable, disable, or customize the UDP acceleration function, which can bring the SoftEther protocol speeds closer to that of IKEv2.
    • Enable, disable, and customize the kill switch feature.
    • Enable or disable DNS leak prevention.
    • Choose the protocol.

In addition to the Settings menu, there are three more important menu options more advanced users would like to explore.

Split Tunnel:

Kill Switch:

Protocol:

As you can see, Hide Me is quite an easy-to-use tool that also leaves room for customization to veteran VPN users. In that sense, it’s comparable to some of the top VPNs on the market, and in some cases even manages to provide more options than the cream of the crop VPNs.

Hide Me VPN for Netflix

Hide Me VPN does not unblock Netflix, and after a long session of extensive trial and persistent error, this is all Netflix US deemed suitable to show us:

Aside from Netflix, Hide Me VPN was also not capable of unblocking the BBC iPlayer and based on reports you won’t have a better time with Hulu and Amazon Prime either.

Hide Me VPN for torrenting and Kodi

You’ll have a much better time with torrents than with Netflix. Hide Me VPN has good encryption and doesn’t log any personally identifiable data – that takes care of the safety issue, mostly. As long as you skip the “No P2P” servers and choose the right option, you’ll be fine:

With that said, while you can use Hide Me VPN for torrenting, there’s still the price issue, which could make most people reconsider.

What about Kodi?

Hide Me VPN supports using Kodi, so it’s a good VPN for Kodi solution.  This is even better since they have a great, very minimal logging policy, so you can enjoy Kodi safely and securely with this VPN provider.

Is it good for users in China?

The answer: yes!

If you’re a Windows or Mac user, the SoftEther security protocol will make sure you get past the Great Firewall of China. This protocol masks your VPN traffic as HTTPS traffic so it can blend into the flow.

If you’re looking for a VPN to use in China, however, there are better choices out there at much better prices. It’s not to say that Hide Me VPN is a bad option, per se, but you can get a lot more bang for your buck from most of the others.

Customer support

The Hide Me VPN support resources are decent but not great. In particular, they seem to lack a meaningful self-help section – FAQs, troubleshooting guides, etc. These do exist but they will not cover many of the issues that can arise whilst using the VPN.

With that said, Hide.me does have a live chat support option. It says this is only for Billing and sales questions but they’ll answer some of the simpler technical queries as well. In the event of something more complicated, you can open a support ticket. They will not answer immediately but that’s still better than some other VPN services offer (Private Internet Access, for example).

Pricing

Again, there’s no way to make this look prettier – the pricing plans are absolutely terrible. If you’re a user that has above-average demands (not a power user, just someone who uses the net a lot), the Free and Plus plans will not satisfy your needs.

Here are the Hide Me VPN prices:

• Plus: $9.95/month
• Plus: $6.95/month
• Plus: $4.49/month
• Premium: $19.95/month
• Premium: $13.32/month
• Premium: $10/month

As you can see, both the Free and Plus versions limit the amount of data you can transfer. In addition, both only offer 1 connection at a time. The Free package has even more drawbacks (only 3 locations, limited bandwidth, etc.), removing it from the conversation when it comes to serious VPN services. It may suffice for someone who just wants to access Google in China, but not much more than that.

The Plus package is not as cheap as it seems – the prices shown on the face are the monthly cost if billed annually. Meanwhile, if billed monthly, the Plus package is $9.99 and the Premium is $19.95.

The only positive point we could find on Hide Me’s pricing page is the number of different methods you can choose to pay these exorbitant prices with. These encompass not only the standard options such as credit cards and PayPal, but also a range of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Dash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. However, paying too much anonymously still means paying too much.

Bottom line of our Hide Me VPN review

By and large, Hide Me does have its selling points. It’s got decent encryption and protocol selection, it works well in China, and it will let you use torrents. Moreover, it offers above-average speeds, and the Hide Me app is both user-friendly and customizable.

While all of the above might seem well and good, it’s important to remember the two main negatives: its non-existent geo-unblocking capabilities and, most importantly, extortionate prices. These are the two glaring issues that disqualify Hide Me as a serious consideration for our top VPNs list.

To conclude our Hide Me VPN review, you can find at least a dozen cheaper choices that are also just as good or even better in almost every aspect. Thus, our recommendation is to give this VPN a miss. At least until the day when Hide Me decides to make itself at least somewhat affordable.