Hide My Ass – A Good Choice?

Features:
Own Software, Very Good Speed, Great Features, Many Servers
Summary:
Perfect For Most Users
Ratings
Overall
Speed
Anonymity
Supported Protocols
Amount Of Servers
Price


Hide My Ass offers a VPN service which promises anonymity using a variety of servers located in the world, for example the USA, the UK, the Netherlands and even offshore locations such as Hong Kong or the Ukraine. Features such as an own software providing tens of thousands of different IPs on hundreds of servers with great speed makes it a VPN service worth looking into.

So, can Hide My Ass live up to the expectations? We put them through our tests, here is our review:

 

Table of Contents

General Tests:

 1. How Easy Is It To Use?
2. Speed – How Fast Is It?
3. Support

4. Can You Use It For Hotspot Security, Streams, To Access Blocked Sites Or Programs Such As Skype? (Answer: Yes!)
5. Can You Use It For Filesharing? (Answer: Yes, But Read This First)
6. Can You Use It With Your Smartphone? (Answer: You Sure Can!)
7. How Anonymous Are You Really With HideMyAss? Is It For People Needing Very Strong Security?

8. Pricing

 

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The More Technical Stuff You Might Care About:

 9. Protocols Supported
10. A List Of Other Features

The End: Our Conclusion

 

General Tests

 

1) How Easy Is It To Use?

Getting ready to use the service is rather easy: You simply signup, download the software from the members area and install it. This takes a few minutes – a little longer than your average program – and afterwards you start it up.
After entering in your login data the server next to you is located, and with only one click it connects and starts the VPN. This means that you get automatically connected to the server that should provide you with the lowest ping time and the highest speeds.

Hide My Ass Software - Part 1
(A screenshot of the software in action. Click to enlarge)

This is pretty impressive. Other services don’t offer even the slightest bit of own software, leaving you with the build-in client of windows, and this one gives you all options a VPN can provide. This reduces the hazzle of securing your connection to almost zero – 5 stars here!

 

2) Speed

We connected to one of the nearest servers to our location, and this is what we got:

Hidemyass - Hide My Ass Speedtest

These are excellent results, most people should be able to max out their connection which is pretty rare for a VPN secured connection. 5 stars for that, too.

 

3) Support

Support is available via email, live chat (!) and even a forum, so you should be covered.

 

4) Can You Use It For Hotspot Security, Streams, To Access Blocked Sites Or Programs Such As Skype?

Hotspots: On public WiFi networks you are at a high risk: Often, your data is being transfered completely unprotected, making it easy for hackers to record sensitive information or even important passwords. To securely use hotspots / public WiFi and avoid all these problems, you need a strongly encrypted connection. This is the case for HMA since it uses a OpenVPN which encrypts your data with a military grade strength of 128-bit, which will keep all hackers out of your system.

We recommend everyone to protect themselves NOW, before it is too late…

Blocked Sites And Programs: Being restricted to certain sites or protocols can be a real pain in the ass. Fortunately, if you can get Hide My Ass to connect, everything will be unblocked, including VoIP programs, forbidden websites or anything else blocked by your system administrator. Since encryption stops all possible attempts from a third party to find out what data is being transfered through the tunnel, it will be “invisible” for him too. Unless the firewall is very strict and doesn’t keep the software from opening the tunnel, you can definitely use it for this purpose.

A note about using VoIP or gaming: You should definitely choose a location near you when using these protocols, since short ping times will increases your experience drastically.

Streams: One of the things people need to change their IP for is to watch streams restricted to regions you’re currently not in, allwing you to access sites such as Hulu.com, BBC iPlayer or even YouTube videos restricted in your country. So we connected to USA and UK servers respectively to check if HideMyAss is up for the job – Not all VPNs that change your IP actually make this possible, and if they do speed is often too slow to provide flawless video flow.

After connecting we went straight to Hulu.com and the BBC website, and it worked flawlessly. Top marks in this category!

 

5) Can You Use It For Filesharing?

The HMA software offers a feature called “IP Binding” which almost seems to be made for filesharing programs, protecting you from IP leaks due to disconnects. This increases your security in P2P networks by far.

Having said that, it is obvious that this service is great for downloading securely, since you get great speeds and nothing is being blocked. However, you should know that HMA logs your IP when connecting, meaning if they get any complain they will warn you and, if you don’t stop, will finally terminate your account. To avoid this, it is strongly advised to use an offshore server such as Russia for your filesharing needs. Simply select one of these countries from the list in the software, and have fun! (Oh, and don’t download anything you’re not allowed to ;-) )

In fact the only thing they claim to do when receiving a complain is to forward it to you but they will not disclose your data unless a court orders them to, so no major worries here.

 

6) Can You Use It With Your Smartphone?

To make a long story short: Smartphones require the PPTP protocol, which HMA is offering, so yes, you can use it on your Android or iPhone.

 

7) How Anonymous Are You Really With HideMyAss? Is It For People Needing Very Strong Security?

A VPN protects you from any third party looking at your traffic. However in some cases, you might need really strong anonymity, meaning that your anonymization service doesn’t give you away when a court order asks them too. Journalists, for example, need this kind of protection. For this, HMA would need to not store any IPs from their users, making it impossible even for them to track you down.

Unfortunately, this is one of the few things they don’t provide. Your IP is being logged for over 30 days, and as some members of the hacking group LulzSec found out, it i given away when a US court asks HMA to do it. Although court orders are rare, you are definitely not protected if one strikes you. So, if you really need very strong anonymity, HMA is not for you.

 

8 ) Pricing
Now this is where it gets really interesting. Usually, when you signup for a month, you pay $11.52 a month for unrestricted access to all servers, which is already very low for a VPN provider. But if you use the link below and signup today, you can save up to 43% by paying for a year in advance, meaning you only pay $6.55 per month.

We don’t know how long this offer will be available, so it is highly advisable to click the link below right now: Click here to save 43% on your subscription today

9) Protocols Supported

HMA supports OpenVPN and PPTP, the two main protocols out there. While the PPTP encryption is not as secure as OpenVPN it may become handy if OpenVPN is being blocked in your network for some reason, or if you’re using a device that doesn’t support OpenVPN such as Android phones, iPhones and similar. Also it allows you to use the VPN client integrated in Windows if you can’t install the software because of limitations your employee set up on it or something like that.


10 ) Other Features

HMA claims to offer the following features worth noting:

- Over 18.000 different IPs spread over 162 servers / server farms, meaning you get a new IP with each reconnect according to them, a service almost no other provider offers.

- 32 different countries to choose from.
Hide My Ass Map
(Click to enlarge screenshot)

- Fast switching of servers and locations using the software, and an easy overview about the available servers. With just one click of a button you can select the server that matches you best by looking at distance, ping, or speed (as there is a speedtest integrated too), hit your mouse and the connection changes to the location you want.

- You can even automatically change your IP, or schedule your IP to be switched automatically in certain intervals. How cool is that?
Hide My Ass Software - Part 3 - IP Changing

- IP Binding, an experimental but in many cases already working feature that allows you to protect yourself against IP leaks due to possible connection problems. If the connection to the VPN fails usually you get a “leak” because programs might try to communicate without protected in the time it takes the VPN to reconnect. With this feature you can make sure that nothing a specific program sends and receives from the Internet will go by unsecured.

- You can use up to 2 connections at the same time, making it possible to use it on a mobile device and your computer at the same time.

 

Recommendation:

Hidemyass is an extremely good service overall. Speed is mostly top notch, something you cannot say about most other services. For most uses this is just fine, so if you like simple use, great speed, a lot of very cool features and great support this is absolutely for you. Also, don’t forget to claim your 43% discount, which may not be available for long. Click the banner below now!

HideMyAss.com

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