Hide.me, established in 2012, is a Malaysia based VPN service provider that has been able to built up a team of IT and security experts from around the world, and that has already emerged as one of the best logless VPN service providers in the market today, offering users high quality online security and privacy, as well as a virtual means of accessing blocked, censored or otherwise restricted online content.
hide.me is one of the best no log VPN service providers in the industry, committed to develop applications and services that provides an open access of the internet, as well as protect users’ online privacy. With VPN-servers in 24 Countries, self-owned and maintained, hide.me offers a comprehensive reach to its users and empowers them to access blocked and restricted content on the internet. hide.me provides with easy-to-install VPN client software or apps for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS with best-in-class Internet security and privacy for anonymous surfing. They continue to grow its customer base and service offerings as an ever-greater number of internet users are adopting the use of VPN.
Pricing Plans with Features
In this Hide.me VPN review, I prefer to discussed about its pricing plan with features first. They offer three different VPN service plans: Free Plan, Premium Plan, and Plus Plan. Undoubtedly if you want the best experience, then you are surely recommend to test their Premium package as it allows the best features for its clients. Let’s have a look at their pricing plan. Their ‘Free plan’ is limited in some aspects like server locations, network speed, using bandwidth and data transfer etc as you see below, but it may be, to a extent, useful for testing the service. But you should understand that free plan comes with some limitations.
Free Plan
- $0.00 /month
- No Credit Card required
- 3 locations
- Best effort bandwidth
- 2 GB data transfer
- Limited protocol support
- 1 simultaneous connection
Plus Plan
- $4.99 /month (
$9.95/month) if billed every 12 months - $6.65/month (
$9.95/month) if billed every 6 months - 9.95/month if billed every month
- 30+ locations
- Unlimited bandwidth and 75 GB data transfer per month
- OpenVPN, PPTP, SSTP, IKEv1, IKEv2, IPsec, SoftEther protocol available
- 1 simultaneous connection allowed
Premium Plan
- $9.99 /month (
$19.95/month) if billed every 12 months - $13.32/month (
$19.95/month) if billed every 6 months - 19.95/month if billed every month
- 30+ locations
- Unlimited bandwidth and data transfer
- OpenVPN, PPTP, SSTP, IKEv1, IKEv2, IPsec, SoftEther protocol available
- 5 simultaneous connections allowed
- Port forwarding Facility
For those that pay for 1 year in advance, Hide.me offers discounts of up to 45% for them.
Remarkable Features of the Boss plan at a glance
- 33 VPN server locations in 19 countries worldwide
- Self-Managed, Highly Secure, Encrypted and Zero-Logging DNS
- Unlimited traffic, bandwidth and Server switching
- No connection logs, No Activity logs stored
- Easy-to-use VPN Client software/apps
- DNS Leak Protection & Kill-switch options
- OpenVPN (UDP, TCP), IKEv2, IKEv2, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP & PPTP
- Maximum security with up to AES-256Bit encryption
- All packages come with a built-in feature of NAT Firewall
- Dynamic Port-Forwarding (UPnP), SOCKS Proxies
- Up to 5 simultaneous devices connection allowed
- Anonymous Proxy Browser for absolutely free
- Compatible with all major Operating Systems and Devices
- Multiple Payment Methods including Bitcoin
- 14 Day Money Back policy adopted
- 24/7 Live Chat & email/ticket Support
Accepted Payment Methods
Hide.me accepts Visa/Master Card, American Express, Paypal, Sofort, CashU, Bitcoin, GiroPay, Electronic Cash for its clients to pay for their service.
29 VPN Servers in 22 Countries
This company currently has 29 VPN servers located in 22 countries across the globe to accommodate their users. While they do have servers with satisfactorily excellent speeds.
They handpick servers that live up to their high standards of security and privacy. These are perfectly access controlled, and they are the only ones that operate them — no one else. They do not permanently store IP addresses, nor do they store logs. Each server supports all popular protocols, including: PPTP, L2TP, IPsec (IKEv1 and IKEv2), OpenVPN, SoftEther and SSTP. With the very best server locations and low ping times, the Internet is yours for the taking — wherever you might be.
Hide,me has installed their 29 VPN-servers across different locations in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, United States of America (California, D.C., Florida, Utah, Washington), Austria, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Morocco and Singapore.
Compatible with Major Operating Systems and Devices
Their apps and software is compatible with a number of different devices and operating systems:
Desktop
- Windows 11
- Windows 10
- Windows 8
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP
- Mac OS X
- Linux (Ubuntu)
Mobile / Tablet
- iPad / iPhone
- Android
- Windows Phone
- Blackberry
Others
- Router
World class and Easy-to-use VPN Client Software/Apps
In this Hide.me VPN review, I’ll depict an overview of the security and privacy level of their VPN client software in detail.
Hide.me, with their dedicated team composed of talented and expert IT security personnel, has been able to develop an incredibly simple but at the same time innovative, impressive, competitive and very powerful VPN client software that has, with great features, one of the most secured and end-to-end encryption technologies in the industry to ensure the most up-to-date, high performing and feature-rich security service. They have developed this vpn software to defeat censorship, protect your personal identity and prevent tracking you while surfing. The reasons why I said this client software world class and competitive are as below-
Software includes multiple Protocols to ensure your Internet Privacy
Their powerful VPN software is built by their experts to establish a secured and encrypted VPN connection between your computer and their quality VPN servers. All in-and outgoing connections is anonymized and no third-party can see your real IP address.
For ensuriing utmost online privacy and security in any situation, hide.me offers the latest protocols, ensuring up to AES-256 encryption, for use with your PC, Mac, mobile device, games console and home router to make sure that you’re safe and sound on any Internet network.
HideMe offers the latest VPN protocols that work with all of your devices:
- IKEv2: IKEv2 is Available for Windows and Linux, IKEv2 supports AES-128 and AES-256 respectively. IKEv2 is an industry standard protocol, using the most advanced VPN tunneling technology. It’s resistant to short-term loss of network connectivity, and works over UDP to bypass firewalls and minimize problems. IKEv2 is relatively easy to set up, and is the best protocol to choose overall. It’s perfect for home users behind NAT devices, too!
- IKEv1: supports up to AES-256. To leverage IKEv1, hide.me recommends using Shrew Soft VPN Client, an excellent and a free Windows/Linux IKEv1 client software. It boasts relatively the same amount of security as IKEv2, but does miss some advanced features such as NAT-Traversal, Remote access and IP mobility in the standard specification. IKEv1 offers good support and reliability for legacy vendors, and is resistant to short-term loss of network connectivity—similar to IKEv2.
- SSTP: Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol is a tunneling protocol available on the Microsoft platform. The protocol is based on a combination of two technologies, SSL and TCP. The SSL technology guarantees the transport level security and integrity of the traffic. The SSL is, on our servers, configured in such a way that only the strongest method of encryption is enabled. Since a SSTP session is, in fact, a HTTPS session, SSTP may be used to bypass firewalls or ISP throttling. On the other hand, since SSTP is operating over TCP, it will in some cases underperform IKEv2 or other UDP based protocols. Overall, SSTP is a great choice and may help in resolving connectivity or speed issues you may have.
- OpenVPN: OpenVPN supports up to AES-256 encryption for Mac, Windows, iOS, Linux and Android. It has no known weaknesses. OpenVPN authenticates data on both ends through digital certificates, or through certificates with a username and password pair. It is proven to be reliable on all kinds of connections, such as WLAN, wired and mobile. It’s incredibly easy to set up, and is a good choice for desktop users.
- PPTP: PPTP is available for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, DD-WRT, and others — but does not supports AES encryption. Instead, PPTP uses Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption, which has severe security weaknesses. This weaker encryption method makes it a fast performer. Problems may arise when some home routers or ISP do not allow Generic-Routing-Encapsulation (GRE) tunneling. Overall it’s easy to set up, widely supported and is a great choice to bypass geo-restrictions.
- L2TP/Ipsec: Available for Mac, Windows, Linux and iOS, L2TP/IPsec supports up to AES-128 combined with Microsoft Point-to-Point encryption. Due to the leverage of both, it is noted as highly secure. It is dependable and reliable, if your NAT device supports IPsec passthrough properly. It usually needs some custom configuration to set up. L2TP/IPsec is more secure than PPTP, but is not as fast, therefore it’s a good choice for those that value security over speed.
- SoftEther VPN: SoftEther VPN is one of the most powerful, open source, multi-protocol VPN software solutions available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Free BSD and Solaris. SoftEther’s state of the art SSL-VPN protocol penetrates firewalls by tunneling the VPN traffic over HTTPS (similar to SSTP), or over UDP for increased speed (similar to IPSec). VPN tunnel’s security is guaranteed by the use of the strongest cryptographic algorithms. Automatic reconnects, multiple simultaneous connections and a wide variety of tunneling methods can keep the VPN connection stable and fast at all times. SoftEther VPN protocol successfully combines the strengths of both, IPsec and OpenVPN protocols, to deliver an excellent VPN solution. The only drawback, at this time, is the lack of GUI clients for platforms other than Windows.
Capability to hide IP assigned to your local ISP
I have performed multiple tests to know about much capable Hide.me is of hiding my real IP address assigned by my local ISP and found it supremely OK. Below I have, for example, shown an image of a test result performed at renowned IP tracker website whatismyipaddress.com (I used OpenVPN protocol). The below image shows a Netherlands IP address 95.211.171.172 which was perfectly altered by Hide.me and my real IP address assigned to my local ISP is absolutely invisible there. I firmly believe no third party will ever be able to identify your real IP address while being connected with their VPN tunnel.
Fallback Protocol
This feature helps users to automatically connect to a secondary protocol in case the primary protocol fails or is blocked by a firewall.
Automatic Fallback feature in new Windows VPN app automatically connects to other secure VPN protocols in case of a failure of one protocol (Failure to connect to one protocol is mostly because that protocol is blocked by a firewall). Instead of going through the hassle of trying different protocol and connecting again and again, hide.me users will now automatically connect with the most suitable and secure protocol automatically.
IP Leak Protection
To avoid IP leak, they have designed VPN App in such a way that their application deletes the default gateway of your Internet Connection and your internet connection will never be diverted to a third party gateway and your IP will be securely protected and hidden. In such an instance you enforce the VPN usage adding another layer of security making IP leaks impossible and that’s not it. The app also blocks outgoing IPv6 connections automatically to prevent IP leaks. It won’t affect your overall Internet connectivity if your ISP assigns you an IPv6 address.
Kill-Switch
Kill-switch is an innovative feature to ensure data privacy and security of all users by disabling all internet activities when the VPN disconnects. To ensure complete protection, Hide.me added this ‘Kill Switch’ feature in their VPN software that disconnects all your internet activities if the VPN connection drops. It means when kill-switch is enabled and the connection interrupts, the client software automatically blocks all outgoing network connections. This is an optional feature so you can switch it on if you feel the need.
VPN is here to provide security and anonymity to users. But, this tool only manages to protect the user’s privacy until it is connected. In most disconnection cases, users do not even realize that their VPN connections have stopped working. Cyber criminals and surveillance agencies stay on the lookout for these few unprotected moments to get into a system and compromise its security. Luckily, this will not be the case anymore with hide.me VPN users, because hide.me VPN has introduced the Kill Switch feature in its new Windows VPN App.
To show you about what happened when I intentionally plugged my modem out from my laptop to be disconnected from my local internet connection while Hide.me VPN had been being still connected, I give you an image of the pop-up instantly provided by Hide.me VPN software.
Capability to prevent DNS Leak
You should know that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is able to read and monitor what you do on the internet by storing file-logs and records in their servers about your whole internet activities. When connected to a VPN, a user automatically connects with VPN’s DNS server instead of ISP’s DNS. This way, the ISP doesn’t know which domain you are accessing or what website you are visiting.
But, in rare cases it can happen that your system will revert back to your ISP’s DNS server, exposing your online activities to your ISP. So ‘DNS leak protection’ feature has been invented by VPN providers to mask your local ISP’s eye to let them not see and record your internet activity at all. To do this Hide.me added ‘DNS Leak Protection’ option in their VPN software. See the image below-
I am very delighted to report that to report that I performed multiple DNS leak tests at different DNS leak tracker websites and they gave the common results of No DNS Leak. We have tested on hidester.com/dns-leak-test , ipleak.net , www.perfect-privacy.com/dns-leaktest , www.dnsleaktest.com, and cryptoip.info/dns-leak-test respectively.
Note: In some cases, DNS requests might not go through the VPN connection because of your router’s default configuration but their vpn software takes care that no DNS leaks can happen during an active VPN connection. You just write these following Public DNSs as shown in the below image and click ‘Ok’, then it’ll set a public DNS to the main network interface so all DNS requests originating from your computer are routed through hide.me VPN network. And you’ll be perfectly protected from DNS leaking. In this case just configure the advanced setting option as shown in image below and all are OK.
I performed a DNS Leak Test at ipleak.net using public DNSs 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 as shown above and it showed a result of ‘No DNS Leak’ too, See the image below-
Capability to prevent WebRTC Local IP Leak
Reports from some users have brought to light a Internet security hole first in VPN industry that might reveal your local IP address to websites/web-browsers through ‘WebRTC’. The ‘RTC’ in WebRTC stands for Real-Time-Communication, and the API directory is used for voice calls, video chats, and p2p file sharing. This WebRTC was originally developed to aid certain types of connections between browsers without the need for an additional plugin. But today’s most remarkable worrying subject in VPN industry has been WebRTC that could be used to discover your local IP address assigned to your local ISP, even under the presence of a VPN connection.
So, does Hide.me VPN client software have the capability to protect your local IP address from being leaked through WebRTC?
To get this answer, I have performed a test on this issue using OpenVPN protocols (without any WebRTC IP leak controller extension) at renowned and reliable WebRTC-IP-Leak-Tracer-Website ipleak.net. I am very delighted to state that Hide.me perfectly passed the test and No WebRTC IP leak were detected, at all, during my test. I have shown below here an image of my test result got from ipleak.net .The result shows an IP address 10.3.179.131 as WebRTC Local (Private) IP address which is assigned to Hide.me; not assigned to my local ISP. So, my Local IP address is not leaked through WebRTC technology while using Hide.me VPN.
Note: To increase ‘WebRTC Local IP address leak protection’ security, I recommend you to use updated Mozilla Firefox browser (and completely avoid Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Comodo Dragon etc browsers), while being connected with VPN, for ensuring more privacy. If you add ‘Disable WebRTC’ or WebRTC Control extension to Mozilla Firefox Browser and perform the same test at the same WebRTC IP leak tracer website just mentioned above, then you’ll get more perfect result and even your Hide.me’s local (Private) IP address will be absolutely invisible. See the images below-
In case you use ‘Google Chrome‘, you are recommended to add ‘WebRTC Control‘ extension to an updated Google Chrome to prevent ‘WebRTC IP Leak’ perfectly.
Auto-Server Selection
Don’t need to waste your time testing the fastest available server, their Auto-Server Selection feature will automatically connect you to the fastest available server. It is also optional, so you can switch it on or off according to your need.
Reconnect Automatically
You don’t have to connect the software again and again if the connection drops. Just Enable their ‘Auto Reconnect’ option. When your Internet connection is interrupted, their vpn app is intelligent enough to stop and reconnect once your internet connection resumes. This feature guarantees extra privacy and security for their users.
Connect on Application Start
The app will automatically launch every time you login to your device if you enable the ‘Auto Connect on Startup’ option. You can switch it on or off according to your need.
VPN Server Network Speed
The download and upload speeds of Hid,me VPN have been tested and the speeds were found truly fast. In both Plus and Premium Plans, the speeds have been satisfactory to all OS and devices. Speed tests have been tried out with Windows and Mac OS, tablet and Android, as well as iPhone. There also is a Hide,me free proxy offered by the company, that’s fast too.
Note that Its impressive speed does not cover their Free Plan, rather it has some limitations in speed and bandwidth. In this case, the speed generally depends upon how their premium customers do with the servers at the time. If there is overcrowding and heavy traffic in servers, you can expect substantially slow speed to the Free Plan. Because they give good priority to their premium customer first.
Privacy Policy
Hide.me is an excellent privacy focused offshore VPN provider with zero-logging privacy policy. Following an audit by Leon Juranic of Defense Code Ltd., hide.me is certified as completely logless VPN. They are incorporated in Malaysia, which is a perfect jurisdiction for a VPN company, they are also outside both EU and US jurisdiction, and they say they will move locations if unlikely circumstances forced them to.
They clearly state-
We strictly do not log any personal data to avoid legal liability, and to ensure your online privacy. Furthermore we do not store any log file on our VPN servers, it’s not our job to monitor or filter your data. [https://hide.me/en/features/logs]
We do not monitor or log your browsing behaviour. The way we have chosen to build hide.me makes this impossible. All of the usage data we receive is completely anonymous, and is not connected to your real IP address or location. [https://hide.me/en/features/logs]
‘We maintain a non-persistent log of connection data for troubleshooting purposes which includes a customers randomly generated username and internally assigned (non-public) IP address and which is securely erased every few hours. We purposely and strictly do not log any other data to mitigate our legal liability. We do log the amount of monthly data traffic to properly bill you and to maintain a high quality of service. We do not monitor or log your browsing behavior. It is impossible to record your browsing behavior with our technical backend. All the usage data is anonymous and not connected to your real, public IP address. [https://hide.me/en/legal#privacy]
Since our customers are anonymous when using our service, such (DMCA) notices are directed to hide.me and our legal department will issue an appropriate response. Since we store no connection logs, we couldn’t associate a request with a customer identity even if legally compelled to do so. [https://hide.me/en/legal#privacy]
The company is incorporated in Malaysia. If a court order is received from a recognized legal authority with jurisdiction over hide.me then the company shall comply with that order. However, the company cannot be compelled to hand over information which it does not have. When a customer signs up we request as little information as possible; a valid email address. If it ever becomes required by law for us to keep a persistent log of our customers connections or any personal data relating to their network activity, we will immediately notify our customers and do everything in our power to move jurisdictions or close the service to protect those who entrust their privacy to us’. [https://hide.me/en/legal#privacy]
Refund Policy
If you are not completely satisfied with Hide.me’s VPN services, and you notify them in writing via email within the first 14 days of your contract that you wish to cancel, you will be given a 100% refund of the contract amount in case the bandwidth usage in not more than 500MB. If a refund is due, you will be notified by e-mail; it can take up to 10 days after cancellation of your contract to receive your refund depending on payment form used.
Customer Support
According to my personal observation, Hide.me VPN service seems pretty professional when it comes to customer care and support. They have got 24/7 live chat for instant feedback, and there is also a contact form. Detailed setup guides for all devices and OS also help you out throughout the installation process and aid you with the Hide.me VPN download.
You can also join their community and learn more at the forums or the Hide.me blog. Apart from everything else, there is a FAQ section with enlightening details. Last but not least, they are pretty active on social media with accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
As a whole, Hide.me offers 24/7 support via Live Chat, Emails, Tickets & Community. They also provide knowledge-bage section named as FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for their clients.
Remarkable Pros
- 33 VPN server locations in 19 countries worldwide
- Self-Managed, Highly Secure, Encrypted and Zero-Logging DNS
- Unlimited traffic, bandwidth and Server switching
- No connection logs, No Activity logs stored
- Easy-to-use VPN Client software/apps
- DNS Leak Protection & Kill-switch options
- OpenVPN (UDP, TCP), IKEv2, IKEv2, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP & PPTP
- Maximum security with up to AES-256Bit encryption
- All packages come with a built-in feature of NAT Firewall
- Dynamic Port-Forwarding (UPnP), SOCKS Proxies
- Up to 5 simultaneous devices connection allowed
- Anonymous Proxy Browser for absolutely free
- Compatible with all major Operating Systems and Devices
- Multiple Payment Methods including Bitcoin
- 14 Day Money Back policy adopted
- 24/7 Live Chat & email/ticket Support
Remarkable Cons
- Small number of VPN servers
- Little bit Expensive
Our Take on Hide.me
In this Hide.me VPN review, I like to say that Hide.me is, according to me, one of the best VPN service providers in industry. Firstly, because Hide,me perfectly ensures military grade encrypted privacy of user’s identity and other important associated information, while surfing online, by hiding local IP and geo-location from unauthorized inspection of any third party.
Secondly, Hide.me is one of the best logless vpn service providers; meaning they neither store user’s connection-logs (user’s local IP address, time-stamps during connecting or disconnecting attempt) nor activity-logs whatsoever. They neither can relate any internet activity with any specific user account nor can they match any specific user’s identity with any Internet activity. Their fully logless system plus regular transparency reports is a real plus point for anyone concerned about Internet anonymity and freedom from unwanted scrutiny by even bad/corrupted organizations
Thirdly, Hide.me is under Malaysia jurisdiction, which is outside the risk of corrupted political territory of US and EU, which offers certain advantages especially for privacy and the risk of overzealous government surveillance, and also where there is no mandatory data retention law. So, Hide.me is a great choice in terms of users’ privacy especially for those (like truth seeker journalists, news reporters, bloggers) who face a severe need of end-to-end virtual privacy in upholding true information in the internet against powerful bad organizations ( like bad governments, bad law enforcement agencies, bad politicians etc.) with a view to protecting themselves from the probable harassment that might take place by those bad organizations, because if these organizations even illegally force Hide.me to handover all possible identifiable logs of any specific user to them, they will not be able to officially match any specific user’s identity with any Internet activity.
Fourthly, Hide.me might also be highly recommended for those users who want to bypass any country’s Internet Censorship & Content Surveillance, as well as to access any Geo-Blocked Website, or to view or download any legal file or video, in the form of P2P or torrenting, with profound privacy.
Fifthly, Hide.me has a 24/7/365 live chat facility with other types of customer support systems to solve your problems at any time by a great support team composed of experts in IT security and privacy. So, all the above qualities and features make Hide.me one of the best VPN providers in industry. Those who hunt for best Offshore logless VPN, Hide.me may be their solution.
