Our Review
Hide.Me was founded in 2011 and is one of the more recent VPN service providers to enter the market and is focused on offering reliable speed for media streaming and private browsing, including entertainment and sports. The company provides users the ability to use their servce at no cost with a free plan in order to test their capability without the need for commitment.
Currently, hide.me is rated as the best free VPN service, although the free plan does not enable users to experience the full premium VPN services and is limited. The company is committed to offering services and application that provides users with open Internet access while at the same time users identities are protected and complete privacy guaranteed. Hide.Me offers an all-inclusive service to users from self-maintained and owned VPN servers in twenty-five countries, which empowers users to access restricted and blocked content via the internet. Easy to install applications are available for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac users featuring best in class security and the company continues to enjoy an increase in popularity since service are employed by more and more internet users.
An ex-Google International Tech Speaker, Ariel Hochstadt described hide.me as VPN service providers with an excellent reputation for providing users with the ability to browse anonymously, transparency, anonymous web surfing, and security. He also complimented the company for services that are certified log-free as well as the regularly published transparency reports declaring any demands for users details from authorities. What impressed Hochstadt most is that hide.Me keeps no logs, and all requests are answered in the same manner, as the company simply cannot fulfill them.
Hide.me users are worry-free since no digital trail is left and during anonymous surfing their identity, IP address and location are encrypted so activities cannot be traced back to their computers. The service keeps users safe from hackers while all restrictions are removed, and your IP address can be set to match that of the country you wish to stream content from.
- PROS
- Easy to Use Software
- Encrypted Activity
- Great Expert Support
- Strategic Server Location
- Excellent Download Speed
- Exceptional Free Web Proxy Server
- CONS
- Unlimited Bandwidth is Expensive
Hide me VPN Features
The greatest benefit is that hide.Me keep things uncomplicated, and users do not have to be computer experts to take advantage of the security offered by VPN. The community board enables users to get answers to all questions concerning the use of the service, while easy to use setup guides provide great assistance for several systems and support is available 24/7 via live chat.
The free anonymous proxy browser allows users to claim back their freedom and by selecting the proxy location and entering the address of the blocked website access is granted since the free version unblocked websites. The whole Internet connection could be encrypted once users take advantage of the full VPN services.
Hide.me selected servers that comply with its high standards of privacy and security, and all servers can be accessed by authorized hide.Me agents. No IP addresses are permanently stored neither are logs, and each server is capable of supporting all the most popular protocols including SOCKS, SSTP, PPTP, L2TP, IKEv2, IKEv1, SoftEther, and OpenVPN. While hide.me found the best locations for servers and low ping times, users have access to any site wherever they are.
Pricing
hide.me offers several pricing models and taking back you browsing and access freedom is possible in three easy steps starting off by selecting your plan, creating an account and downloading VPN.
The most used are the free option, and no credit card details are necessary as the plan is guaranteed to remain free forever. The free option includes three locations Canada, Singapore and Netherlands, bandwidth of 3 Mbits/s, free data transfers up to 2GB per month, limited protocol support and only a single VPN connection.
The Plus plan starts from $4,99 per month with over 30 locations including Australia, Norway, Italy, Japan, France, Korea, Mexico, USA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Plus unlimited bandwidth with downloading speed of up to 150Mbits/s, data transfers limited to 75 GB per month, full support of all major protocols and the Plus plan is limited to only one VPN connection.
The most popular is the Premium plan that starts at $9,99 per month featuring over 30 locations including Romania, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Norway, Poland, and Turkey. Plus users have access to unlimited bandwidth as well as unlimited data transfer, full protocol support is part of the premium plan, and five connections are available simultaneously while this plan also offers port forwarding.
Every package includes premium user support as well as easy to follow set-up instructions while customer support is available 24/7. All three options support the most popular devices from Xbox to iPhones and users can enjoy top security and speed that are truly flexible. By selecting hide.Me users enjoy encrypted connections while anonymous browsing, as well as the option to unblock websites, gives everyone their freedom back. Several payment methods can be used including Bitcoin, cashU, as well as giropay, SOFORT, PayPal, MasterCard, Visa and American Express.
No, account sharing is allowed since Hide.Me offers excellent bandwidth deals and users sharing account are violating the hide.Me policy, which will also decrease the service quality. Anyone still thinking about the importance of using hide.Me need to only click on the IP address bar, which will instantly display your personal IP address, programs your computer is currently using as well as social media you are currently logged on, which proves that your location and identity is available to anyone.
- Supported Platforms>
- MAC
- Windows
How to install
This is where you realize again why Hide.Me VPN is the most loved by all Internet users since the company makes using a VPN easy, uncomplicated and the instructions is tailored to specific operating systems.
There are three steps part of the setting up process, which includes choosing an operating system. Desktop systems include Fedore 24+, Ubuntu 14.04, Linus (Ubuntu), Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 while mobile and tablet systems include iOS iPad, iOS iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone. Other systems catered for including Synology DSN 6.0+, OpenELEC “kodi,” LibreElec “kodi,” Tomato, DD-WRT, and AsusWRT-Merlin.
The second step is to choose a protocol and each operating system’s protocols are displayed according to speed, stability, security and overall use. OpenVPN is offered on the premium and plus plans only while L2TP/IPsec is more secure although not as fast and would be perfect for users who are less concerned about speed and more focused on security. Once users have made a selection in step one and two the third step are installation instructions. Manual setting up takes less than 5 seconds and is not only fast but also more secure since additional features is included such as DNS leak protection, as well as IP leak protection.
Speed and Overall Performance
The hide.me network page features a list of locations and indicates where accessing online content is offered with absolutely no restriction while each location also includes a speed indicator.
Hide.me succeeded in creating a VPN service that users won’t notice speed differences with and gigabit speed is custom built and used in conjunction with the most modern technology to ensure optimized downloading speed. Hide.me’s PC option is compacted and well-made, users are able to connect to any server while a catalog of different servers is in view, users information include IP locations and address. Several performance tests reveal how impressive hide.Me performs since service actually accelerates download speeds by 1%.
Country IPS offered
hide.me severs are located several VPN locations and with the very best locations users are assured of low ping times and ultimate downloading speed.
Servers in Sao Paulo, Brazil are located in the best are to access content from South America with no restriction. Montreal in Canada is excellent for avoiding surveillance from the US Government; a great selection was selected to open new pathways in Latin America with servers placed in Queretaro, Mexico. Other servers are also placed in San Jose, California, Washington DC, USA, Miami in Florida, Salt Lake City, USA, as well as Seattle in the USA.
In Europe servers is located in Vienna, Austria, Sofia in Bulgaria; Paris in France, in Germany servers are placed in Frankfort allowing users to enjoy all sports channels across low latency lines. Servers are also placed in Milan, Italy, in Siauliai, Lithuania, Haarlem in Netherlands as well as Roosendaal and Oslo Norway.
Other servers across the globe include Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Tokyo in Japan, Singapore and Marrakesh in Morocco.
Summary
Hide.me not only protects users identities and IP addresses but enable everyone to bypass internet censorship, unblock websites, and to gain instant access to geo-restricted services and sites. By choosing to encrypt your activities via hide.Me, users are secure via anonymous IP addresses and can unblock sites blocked by Governments. While the company runs its own DNS on every server to guarantee anonymity users are no longer restricted via censorship, protected via high-level encryption, no DNS leaks can take place, and MitM attacks are prevented.