Hide Me VPN is the less known, but still among the most decent VPNs to choose from. It has some highly-quality sides to it that are worth your attention.
Hide Me VPN is designed to keep you safe and anonymous online, and the free version is not bad at all. On the flip side, there is a number of downsides, too, and I’ll get to them in a minute.
Continue reading this Hide Me VPN review to learn more about this tool, and its features.
Overview
Security and privacy features
When it comes to keeping you safe and anonymous online, Hide Me has everything you would want from a high-quality VPN service: secure encryption, tunneling protocols, kill switch, and some additional features.
Encryption and tunneling protocols
The Hide Me VPN uses military-grade AES-256-CBC and AES-256-GCM encryption, as well as RSA-8192 Handshake.
What is more, there are numerous tunneling protocols – IKEv2, OpenVPN, SoftEther, SSTP, and PPTP – and a significant, security-enhancing Split Tunneling feature.
Kill switch
Kill switch feature is also included in this VPN service. With it, your connection is prevented from being exposed.
You can turn the feature on in the Settings menu:
If you’re using Hide Me on your mobile device, you’ll enable your kill switch in the Settings, as well:
IP or DNS leaks
When it comes to the Hide Me VPN’s IP or DNS leaks, there have reportedly been WebRTC leaks the past.
However, Hide Me VPN 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.
Read more: Is Hide.me VPN safe
To see how Hide Me is improving, I decided to test IP or DNS leaks myself.
I first connected to the Netherlands and was assigned this IP address: 37.120.192.116.
Then I went online to check whether my IP address was leaking:
This is the same IP address that Hide Me assigned me, meaning there were no leaks.
Business location
Hide Me VPN is based in Malaysia.
This country is not among 5 and 14 eyes countries, which is excellent in terms of your anonymity. What is more, there are no data retention laws in Malaysia, which makes Hide me VPN’s “zero-logs” policy more trustworthy.
Logging policy
I 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.
I don’t consider this an issue because almost all VPNs are forced to collect some of your data – in fact, 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.
Anonymous purchase
Hide Me VPN offers many payment methods. These encompass not only the standard options (credit cards and PayPal), but also a range of cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum, and Litecoin).
So if you want to keep your Hide Me payment completely anonymous, you can easily do so.
Speed
You can read tones of comments online about the speed of the particular VPN, but the only way to know for sure is to run online speed tests.
Before connecting to Hide Me, I checked where I was starting from:
After that, I checked the speeds connected to servers around the world:
Germany
- Download: 121.01 Mbps (57% drop-off)
- Upload: 18.30 Mbps (94% drop-off)
- Ping: 45
The US
- Download: 101.22 Mbps (64% drop-off)
- Upload: 12.20 Mbps (96% drop-off)
- Ping: 120
Australia
- Download: 98.77 Mbps (65% drop-off)
- Upload: 5.22 Mbps (98% drop-off)
- Ping: 658
Although these numbers are nothing to write home about (especially in Australia), Hide Me is still an above-average VPN in terms of speed.
Server coverage
Hide Me VPN has 1560 servers in 60 locations.
These are high numbers, especially considering that mere months ago, Hide Me had a fraction of the network they have now.
Does Hide Me VPN support my device?
Hide Me supports all the most widely used devices. However, the features you get on them might differ.
Hide Me VPN desktop apps
Hide Me works on both Windows and Mac.
It’s worth mentioning that 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 – essentially, it’s a kill switch.
The Hide Me Mac client is very similar in look to the Windows version, but the functionality is entirely different. The most crucial 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.
The Change option takes you to a country list that is easy to navigate because it’s small, and there’s a search option.
The IP Details panel shows whether you’re connected, what your IP address and location are.
Moving on, welcome to the well-equipped Settings menu:
Let’ start with the Application tab:
Here you can choose among many options – from launching on system startup or remembering selected location to showing traffic meter or notifications. This is also the place to select your interface language.
Network tab:
In this tab, the majority of settings are related to DNS – you can see servers, choose whether to use Custom DNS, set MTU size, allows sleep when VPN is active.
Auto Connect:
This section is pretty self-explanatory – you will have a chance to set your preferences regarding Auto connection.
Split tunneling:
This is the Settings section for Split Tunneling – you can decide whether all of your device’s apps would use the VPN or only the selected ones.
After checking these tabs, head to VPN Protocol:
There’s plenty to tinker with here:
- Choose the protocol.
- Set up a “Fallback Protocol” (what security protocol will be used if the first option fails).
- Set up a primary/secondary DNS server to use.
- Choose to randomize the port for OpenVPN connections.
- 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.
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 mobile apps
The Hide Me VPN has mobile apps for both Android and iOS.
Both mobile versions are also similar in appearance to the desktop apps. However, neither offers as many features as their desktop counterparts:
On the more positive side, this is a mobile-friendly VPN and will not annoy you nearly as much as some others.
Hide Me VPN for web browsers
The Hide Me VPN has extensions for Chrome and Firefox:
Enabling the extensions is quick and straightforward:
- Install the hide.me Chrome or Firefox Extension
- Add the Extension in your Chrome or Firefox Browser
- Connect to any server you desired
Hide Me for Fire OS
Great news for content lovers – Hide Me also works with Amazon Fire OS. You can install the app and enjoy your favorite shows on Amazon Fire Tablet or Amazon Fire TV.
Netflix and other streaming services
The 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.
Does Hide Me VPN support torrenting?
You’ll have a much better time with torrents than with Netflix. The Hide Me VPN has proper 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:
What about Kodi?
Hide Me supports using Kodi. This is even better since they have an excellent, very minimal logging policy so that you can enjoy Kodi safely and securely with this VPN provider.
Support
The Hide Me VPN support is 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 while 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 more straightforward technical queries as well.
In the event of something more complicated, you can open a support ticket. They will not respond immediately, but that’s still better than some other VPN services offer.
Pricing
Again, there’s no way to make this look prettier – the Hide Me VPN prices are very high:
- Premium: $12.95/month
- Premium: $4.99/month
- Premium: $8.32/month
In short, Hide Me is expensive. While their service has improved and their price has gone down quite significantly over the past year, we’d like to see the price even lower.
If you’re not browsing a lot, the Hide Me Free plan is not bad at all. It has all the features, so it’s an excellent way to check what to expect from the service.
However, if you’re a user that has above-average demands, the Free plan will not satisfy your needs. The 2 GB/month traffic limit won’t get you very far as well as the fact that with the Free plan, you can only choose from several countries.
Bottom line
All in all, the Hide Me VPN does have its selling points.
It’s got decent encryption and protocol selection, and it will let you use torrents to your liking. Moreover, it offers above-average speeds, and the Hide Me app is both user-friendly and customizable.
On the flip side, Hide Me is more expensive than its competitors. If this VPN service were to update its prices, it would be well on its way to the top of the market.
With the US Government spying on its own citizens, I like to hide my IP address. All other popular VPN Proxy applications seemed to have broken up with the new update, but Hide Me VPN works great. I was attracted to the app for my device by its user-friendly layout and non-data logging policy. The app has great connectivity, smooth operation, easy to use and reliable. All I needed was something to hide my IP with, but I even got more features so this is a great bargain and very good quality service and I strongly recommend downloading too, thanks!
I was told that Hide Me VPN is a good VPN but if it does not unblock Netflix, why would someone get it? And minimal logging, I mean seriously? I’d rather go for a no-logging VPN.
Thank you for the comment!
There are many reasons why people get VPNs – Netflix is just one of them. Hide Me VPN is quite good for security and privacy, and the logging is indeed quite minimal.
Minimal logging is still logging, isn’t it? I can’t believe they only have 160+ servers?! Is that true? It seems unbelievable. I think their pricing is also way off and I personally wouldn’t try them out (well, maybe I would try their free option) from what I’ve heard so far.
Hello, Koukic. It sure is, it sure is. But it’s not that easy to find true “no-logs” VPN services. Therefore we see minimal logging as the second best option, which is still much better compared to those companies which log more than they need.
And while we agree with you about the pricing, the server numbers don’t always tell the story. In this instance, the coverage is decent, which in turn allows good speeds across the world.
According to their website, their Free version is REALLY Free, unlike other VPN services. Moreover, it has been built to serve users to top speed and zero information logging. I’ve got to try it for myself to believe that! Do you recommend the Free version?
It’s not bad as far as free versions go, however, it still limits your data transfer amount to 2GB/month, which doesn’t get you very far I’m afraid!
I’m looking for a free or reasonably priced VPN mostly to access Netflix, so it look like Hide Me VPN won’t work for me. I’ll keep reading your reviews to see what other VPNs you recommend that would fit my needs. I’ve been hearing about IvacyVPN. Have you reviewed them?
Hi Faith,
Yes, we have reviewed Ivacy VPN and rated them quite favorably. Have a read
Clean, efficient, clutter-free; brilliant!
It’s surprising to know that Hide ME VPN originates from Malaysia. For a total score of 7, it doesn’t sound too bad of a try. Thank you for highlighting this!
Yes, Hide Me is certainly not a bad choice! Good luck with the VPN!