hide.me VPN Review

A Malaysia-based VPN company, hide.me VPN is a relative newcomer to the market but with a team that has plenty of experience working with major clients and even some governments. It promises the world’s fastest VPN and offers a convenient free trial in case you want to try it out before buying. Let’s take a look at its most important characteristics and whether it can deliver on its promise in this hide.me VPN review.

Interface

This VPN service provider offers a designated Windows client that is simple, clean, and relatively easy to use. Choosing between different protocols is very easy and can be done in just one simple click. The same goes for server switching. This is really an interface that can be used by just about anyone. This company has apps made for Mac, iOS, and Android as well, which is definitely a major plus.

Performance and Reliability

This company did pretty good on the speed tests. We cannot confirm their claim of the “world’s fastest VPN” but we can say that they are definitely not disappointing. The speeds are equally reliable whether we are talking OpenVPN or any other protocol offered by this service. If you are just interested in browsing and streaming media (TV shows, music, radio, etc), we can confirm that hide.me VPN provides very stable, seamless service.

When it comes to reliability in terms of leaks, DNS leaks are, from what we saw, virtually inexistent, just as promised, so you don’t have to worry about that either.

Multi-Platform

As we said earlier in this hide.me VPN review, it has custom clients for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, as well as for Linux (Ubuntu). Basically, all the major platforms and operating systems are covered. You can also use hide.me VPN on your router so that the connection covers all the devices connected to it – your entire home or office network, which is convenient. The company provides detailed setup tutorials for each platform.

Features

As we mentioned in the introduction of this hide.me VPN review, it is a Malaysia-based company that has 32 servers at this point. The Americas are represented by Canada, the United States, and Mexico. There is also one location in Brazil. In Europe, they have servers in the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Romania, Sweden, and Iceland. There are two servers in Australia and one in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and Morocco each.

All the servers are access-controlled, owned, and operated by hide.me VPN exclusively, which means no third-party interference whatsoever. Most of the servers are P2P-friendly. All of them support all the protocols used by hide.me VPN and they all have low ping times.

This VPN company offers unlimited bandwidth and server switching, albeit only with their premium packages. Premium and Plus Plan users also have the choice of the full protocol suite, which means SoftEther, L2TP/IPsec, PPTP, SSTP, IKEv1 and IKEv2, and, of course, OpenVPN.

There is also a convenient feature called Kill Switch. What this feature does is that it literally shuts down your connection and all your apps and programs connected to the Internet if (or when) something goes wrong and you get disconnected from the VPN.

As for torrenting, it is supported and encouraged. Users can also enjoy SOCKS proxy for maximum download speed.

All hide.me VPN users, regardless of the package, get a free anonymous proxy browser. What this basically means is that, if you are only interested in accessing geo-restricted content and websites, you simply use proxy alone and access any site you want, anywhere in the world.

The company allows setting up VPN connections on up to five different devices with the Premium package, which means that you are pretty much all covered. This is particularly suitable for families and smaller offices. The Plus and Free plans provide one connection.

Premium users can also enjoy dynamic port forwarding (UPnP) and fixed IP addresses. In addition, hide.me VPN is one of the few VPN companies that allows payment via Bitcoin. Why is this important? Users who want to remain absolutely anonymous can use this form of payment and avoid giving even the most basic information, which is otherwise required if you use other payment methods, especially credit card.

Security and Privacy

Like we already said earlier, hide.me VPN offers all the most popular encryption protocols available these days. There is SoftEther, PPTP, with 128-bit encryption, L2TP/IPsec (AES-128), OpenVPN and SSTP, both with strong 256-bit encryption, IKEv1 (AES-256) and IKEv2 (AES-128 and AES-256 ). Premium and Plus Plan users can choose between any protocol they like while those with a free plan are limited to PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, and IPsec (IKEv1 and IKEv2). They also support SOCKS proxy.

Being based in Malaysia, hide.me VPN is well outside the US and EU jurisdictions, which is definitely good news for those who want to keep their online business private and anonymous. Also, the company is now certified log-free. They don’t even keep any logs on their free users anymore.

Support

This VPN provider has an excellent support community with a well-maintained blog and forums. German-language forums are, however, more helpful than those in English, so if there is an answer to your issue in there, you will probably have to use a translator.

As for customer support, the company offers a support ticket and, for those who prefer more direct and immediate contact, live chat. Both services are fairly quick and the staff is knowledgeable and helpful.

Pricing Options

The company offers a free plan which includes five server locations, the so-called “best effort” bandwidth (meaning minimum 3 Mbit/sec), 10GB data, a limited choice of protocols and just one connection at a time.

If you decide for a monthly plan, you will pay $9.95 each month in a subscription that has to be renewed. This type of subscription offers no savings or discounts at all. If, however, you choose a 1-year plan, you will have to pay just $69.95 each year. That’s just $5.82 per month. The 2-year subscription offers the biggest savings as you will pay only $3.45 per month totaling to 89.95 for a 26 month subscription.

hide.me VPN Pros & Cons

As we wrap up this hide.me VPN review, here’s a quick overview of the features that wowed us and the aspects of the service that could use some improvement.