HideMyAss
Website: www.hidemyass.com
Price: From $6.55 4.99 / Month (If purchased via 12-month plan) Accepts Bitcoins.
Coupon / Discount: Up to 57% Off*
Our Rating: – 93.4%
Protection: 4/5
Software / GUI: 5/5
Features: 5/5
Network & Speed: 5/5
Ease of Use: 4.5/5
Service Overview and Reviews
Protocols: OpenVPN, PPTP, and L2TP
Service: HideMyAss provides a paid service with 890+ VPN Servers in 280+ locations. Just one account allows you to access them all meaning you can hide behind over 93,000+ IP addresses.
There is unlimited ‘single click’ switching between the servers and no bandwidth limitation. The servers are fast and automatically check the current load before you connect, based on settings you control, giving you the option to select a faster alternative if required.
The client software is excellent and is both powerful and feature packed yet still very easy to use. It is probably the most comprehensive VPN client software on the market. You can switch IP addresses on the fly on all servers or set a time period for them to change randomly.
With HideMyAss, assigned IP addresses are not shared with other users while you’re connected. Once you disconnect, that IP address is dumped back into the pool for re-use by another user. This is good for some VPN uses, not so good for others, so you’ll want to think about how you typically plan to use your VPN.
The ‘Secure IP bind’ feature allows you to specify applications that will stop working if an unexpected VPN disconnection occurs. You can use this to ensure your real IP does not suddenly leak in the event of a network problem.
Dedicated iOS app for iPhone and iPad and now a new dedicated HMA! Pro VPN Android app for the best VPN experience for your Android phone or tablet. It’s really slick!
5 simultaneous device connections per account!
30-day money back guarantee.
Privacy: Logs are not stored on their VPN servers, they are all stored in a offshore server. Logs are kept 30 days to track abuses like spam etc. They do not monitor any traffic. See their Policy/Terms/FAQ
Coupon / Discount:* Summer Sale:-
1 month $9.99 (13% off)
6 month $39.96 (42% off)
12 month $59.88 (57% off)
Our Thoughts: HideMyAss VPN is a very good service and is both easy to use and stable with fast speeds across most of the network. The global server network is among the largest available with a choice of more than one server in many countries.
The client software is probably the best on the market and is packed with features including easy IP switching and the ability to speed test all the servers from within the software. The ‘Secure IP bind’ feature is an added security bonus for P2P users.
HMA is very competitively priced if you opt for a 12-month plan and represents excellent value for money.
HideMyAss User Reviews
Summary
Reviews
Had the worst support experience with HMA ever. Answers took days and were off topic.
Mac software worked sort of with couple crashes. However how the heck I know what this software does in my system. Source code isn’t available. Would prefer System own VPN services but the server list from HMA wasn217;t up-to-date.
Speed from Shanghai was just awful on most server and servers which have been recommended by HMA own software didn’t work at all.
Only good thing there was no discussion on the 30 days money back guaranty.
Never again HMA for me ever!
True Canuck checking in. Signed up just over a month ago and yesterday upgraded for a further 6 months. Excellent value, always up and working no complaints from here
I’ve been frustrated with Hide My Ass a lot. The first one being about a month ago when the Italian server stopped working because they moved their data center. After weeks and weeks of palliative promises (we’ll have it working by week’s end!) the Italian center is still not working. I had to spend a great deal of money testing other VPNs before I found a few with connections that actually worked. Their (HMA) support staff seems pretty slow and inept as well. Everytime I email them, it takes a few days for them to respond back. Either that, or I’m lucky if they respond at all. I suppose if these things don’t bother you, you can give them a shot. But after this month is over, I am not renewing.
Initial DNS set up problem solved quickly and efficiently be support on day one. after that it’s been great. Best VPN i’ve used. Love being able to use on Windows, iphone and Mac and the price is a steal on the annual option.
Signed up for HMA while travelling in Europe over the holidays. Was able to log in to my Netflix account as well as iPhone and iPad Apps that works only in the USA. Will definetly recommend to friends traveling abroad.
Please rate this VPN from your own experience via the form below:-
HideMyAss Speed Test Results
HideMyAss Speed Test
Below you can see our testing results for HideMyAss . For more details of how we conduct our speed tests go to VPN Speed Tests.
Test PC #1 – United States – OS (Mac OSX) – ISP (Cox)
SpeedTest.net (Iron) | Location | Ping | Download | Upload |
Not Using VPN | United States | 24 | 20.62 | 6.91 |
PPTP | Canada | 218 | 16.41 | 2.30 |
PPTP | Singapore | 198 | 5.48 | 2.95 |
PPTP | United Kingdom | 180 | 7.94 | 2.80 |
PPTP | United States | 33 | 10.06 | 7.70 |
PPTP | Luxembourg | 185 | 6.58 | 1.93 |
Download Test (Curl) | Location | File Size | Av. Speed/sec | Time/mins |
Not Using VPN | United States | 620M | 1546K | 06:51 |
PPTP | Canada | 620M | 1169K | 09:03 |
PPTP | Singapore | 620M | 354K | 29:51 |
PPTP | United Kingdom | 620M | 811K | 13:02 |
PPTP | United States | 620M | 971K | 10:53 |
PPTP | Luxembourg | 620M | 1056K | 10:01 |
P2P Test (Transmission) | Location | File Size | Av. Speed/sec | Time/mins |
Not Using VPN | United States | 729.1Mb | 1.65Mb | 07:20 |
PPTP | Canada | 729.1Mb | 1.17Mb | 10:19 |
PPTP | Singapore | 729.1Mb | 0.84Mb | 14:31 |
PPTP | Luxembourg | 729.1Mb | 1.09Mb | 11:14 |
Test PC #2 – United Kingdom – OS (Win 7) – ISP (Sky)
SpeedTest.net (Firefox) | Location | Ping | Download | Upload |
Not Using VPN | United Kingdom | 32 | 10.56 | 0.94 |
PPTP | Netherlands | 60 | 8.46 | 0.75 |
PPTP | United States | 113 | 8.97 | 0.86 |
PPTP | United Kingdom | 49 | 10.14 | 0.78 |
PPTP | Canada | 148 | 7.48 | 0.71 |
PPTP | Switzerland | 56 | 10.08 | 0.77 |
PPTP | Serbia | 88 | 7.71 | 0.79 |
Download Test (Curl) | Location | File Size | Av. Speed/sec | Time/mins |
Not Using VPN | United Kingdom | 620M | 1241k | 08:31 |
PPTP | Netherlands | 620M | 676k | 15:14 |
PPTP | United States | 620M | 890k | 11:52 |
PPTP | United Kingdom | 620M | 1113k | 09:30 |
PPTP | Canada | 620M | 843k | 12:32 |
PPTP | Switzerland | 620M | 1025k | 10:19 |
PPTP | Serbia | 620M | 614k | 16:44 |
P2P Test (uTorrent) | Location | File Size | Av. Speed/sec | Time/mins |
Not Using VPN | United Kingdom | 695Mb | 1.1Mb | 10:22 |
PPTP | Netherlands | 695Mb | 0.99Mb | 11:50 |
PPTP | United States | 695Mb | 0.92Mb | 12:55 |
PPTP | United Kingdom | 695Mb | 1.0Mb | 11:20 |
PPTP | Canada | 695Mb | 1.0Mb | 11:25 |
PPTP | Switzerland | 695Mb | 0.92Mb | 13:02 |
PPTP | Serbia | 695Mb | 0.77Mb | 15:20 |
Tips: If speeds are slow with OpenVPN and you aren’t hyper-paranoid about security, try PPTP (Update: see Alert below) or L2TP. PPTP and L2TP can sometimes be faster, and are perfectly fine for most stuff.
When selecting similar locations from the list, it seems generally the last ones in the group are fastest (i.e. – LOC1 S5 might be faster than LOC1 S1). Also, don’t trust the load balancing feature too much, because there could be a good reason more people are using some servers vs. others (like they’re faster).
When using P2P, it’s generally a good idea to connect to servers in countries that are not subject to strict DMCA provisions to avoid copyright trolls and other unjustified hassles for both you and HMA. They have plenty of countries to choose from when connecting for P2P use.
Note: The handshake protocol (MSCHAP_V2) used by many PPTP connections has been cracked and therefore PPTP could now be considered unencrypted. For maximum security use OpenVPN or L2TP.