HideMyAss Review - Should You Choose Them for India in 2023?
HideMyAss(HMA) is a VPN Service Provider, started off as a small proxy website back in 2005 by a 16-year-old, Jack Cator, with an idea of getting around the firewalls at school. It soon took off once a lot of people discovered it.
The primary goal of the founder was (and still) is internet security and freedom for all people. The company even has its mascot — a male donkey with detective clothes on — that represents how “secure” and “private” the internet is.
They have their HQ in the UK, 400 million users worldwide, and are a part of the Avast family, which is a known entity in the security world.
HideMyAss offers full privacy, strict no-logging policy, impressive global coverage & server infrastructure, maintenance, and connection security, it is, without a doubt, one of the most user-friendly solutions out there.
Apart from these features, there’s a whole lot more to why HideMyAss is one of the best choices for a VPN in India and globally. So let’s go and check them out!
If you don’t want to read through, here’s a quick summary/list of things you will learn in this article:
Wanna know all in-depth? Here we go!
Overview
Features | 8/10 |
Ease of use | 8/10 |
Speed | 8/10 |
Locations | 930 servers, 290 locations, 190 countries |
Logs Policy | Strict no-logging policy |
Encryption | 256-bit AES |
Support | Knowledgebase, 24/7 email, and live chat |
Region-locked content unlocks | BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. |
Torrenting/P2P | Allowed, provides optimized servers |
Things that make HideMyAss a great VPN solution
Features
Amongst the VPNs tested, HideMyAss provides a whole range of great features.
With all the compulsory VPN features such as military-grade encryption, strict no-logging policy, kill switch technology, DDoS protection, Lightning Connect, unblocking region-locked content, 30-day money-back guarantee trial, and 24/7 support, it meets all the prerequisites of a great offering for a VPN.
To make the deal even sweeter, it also offers automatic connection rules, split-tunneling, and IP shuffle.
Let’s find out why all these features will make your surfing experience better.
1. Kill Switch
A VPN kill switch is created to avoid any chance of your connection being exposed by disconnecting your device from the Internet automatically once the VPN is disconnected.
HideMyAss offers its take on the kill switch with the Smart Kill Switch.
On all devices, Smart Kill Switch makes sure that no data spills once your VPN connection is offline. However, on Windows, you can customize HMA to be activated for your whole system or on an app-to-app basis.
You can also customize with which apps HMA should start automatically once you launch them.
2. Split-Tunneling
Split-Tunneling is quite an amazing little feature. It divides HMA from most other VPNs that only offer full browser and application encryption.
Split-Tunneling allows users to choose which application or websites should use the HMA VPN, while everything else is connected to the internet normally. Thus, you can watch a Netflix show through a VPN and play your favorite game on Steam without worries.
3. Leak Protection
While surfing the Web using a VPN, you send and receive a lot of data, but to make sure your device can connect to a website we have our favorite middle-man, a DNS server, which translates the domain address of a website to an IP address that you can connect to.
And in a perfect scenario, while you are using a VPN, all the DNS queries should go through a DNS address supplied by the VPN. However, some VPN providers have a security flaw in them, making all the DNS queries go through a default DNS server provided by your ISP.
Some of the tools can help you check these flaws, such as the DNS leak test.
HMA VPN offers protection against IPv4, IPv6, and DNS leaks. They use their own HMA DNS servers to handle all the DNS queries, that keep your usage of the Internet private and encrypted, while also offering protection from malware and phishing websites.
We’ve checked our HMA connection, and in our tests, the results were adequate and our connection was leakproof.
4. Up to 5 concurrent devices
HMA has handled all the bases, as you can connect to it from Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, Linux, or iPad devices. And for those people that find five devices limiting, there’s also an option to add HMA to the router and cover all of the connections at once.
5. Torrenting and P2P
For those who need to transfer a huge volume of files all at once, nothing will beat a torrent.
But using any sort of P2P technologies without a VPN can eventually lead to a leak of your information.
The technology implemented by HMA offers servers that mask your real IP address while not hindering your connection speed.
Although during our tests and research, we found out that HMA offers such technology only in five locations: Prague, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, and New York. Outside of these locations, HMA cannot guarantee that you will have the same great torrenting experience. And as with all other VPN solutions, HMA frowns upon torrenting of copyrighted materials.
6. Lightning Connect
While using some of the VPNs, you always need to go through a list of the servers offered, especially to find the one that gives you the best connection speed at the location you want.
HMA offers a feature that makes this task automatic and picks the fastest server for you, ensuring that you get the best surfing experience. And if ever you will need to connect to a specific location, HMA makes sure that you will be connected to the fastest server in that location, so you don’t have to do it manually.
Overall, HMA offers a fantastic set of features to make your online experience easier and better. It’s one of the reasons we recommend it.
Ease of usage
With over 400 million users around the globe, HideMyAss is one of the most popular VPN solutions. Which, stating the obvious, gives confidence that they know what a customer needs.
Their application’s user interface is on point and easy to read across all the devices that we’ve tested. This ensures that a user with any amount of knowledge on software - be it a computer savant or someone entirely new to computers - can easily use the application.
Sign up process
Very simple.
- 1Visit hidemyass.com
- 2Click Get It Now
- 3Select a plan that best suits you - the longer, the more money you save.
- 4Add your payment method and email address
After that, you’re set. If anything happens, HideMyAss offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Device support
HideMyAss offers its application for a wide variety of devices. You can install their application on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, and Linux.
Which pretty much covers all the major devices used globally.
Just download their application, install it, log in, and you are good to go.
Using the VPN
As soon as you install and open the VPN application, you have three options on for connecting.
The first option is to connect via Instant Mode, which ensures you have the most secure connection, be it over cable or Wi-Fi. It finds the best location with the fastest connection speed for you.
The second option is to connect via Location Mode, where you can choose the country or location you want to connect to, and HMA finds the best server in that location.
The third option is freedom mode. In their company information, they do strive towards absolute Internet freedom and letting their users find all the information they want without being hindered by their country’s agenda. If you choose to connect via this mode, you will be automatically connected to the closest free-speech country to unblock websites and news.
Their menu tab is quite easy to navigate and from where you can access the settings menu, support, knowledgebase, and diagnostics menu.
In the Settings menu you will have an option to turn on/off the kill-switch and IP Shuffle, choose to use the VPN only over TCP connection and access to your personal location log that you’ve accessed previously.
All in all, navigating the HideMyAss application was very smooth, and it is one of the most accessible VPNs in the market!
Servers and Connection Speeds
Servers
One of the reasons HideMyAss is on our top 5 best VPNs list in India is the number of server choices.
When using their application, you can choose from 930 servers across 190 countries.
There is quite a good reason as to why having so many options is great for you:
Speed
We tested the HideMyAss servers to learn how they affect the speed after connecting to them.
Average Download speed reduction | ~ 36% |
Average Upload speed reduction | ~ 35% |
Average Ping | ~ 220 ms |
We picked several random servers and averaged the speed and ping difference. And even though the speed reduction is quite harsher than that of our top 3 choices, the connection was very stable.
With our 100 Mbps plan, the average download speed we got after connecting to a HideMyAss server was approximately 64 Mbps and the upload speed at 65 Mbps. Our average ping was 220 ms.
Still, while using this VPN, you won’t have any trouble torrenting, downloading, or streaming.
And unless you are the next promising Esports talent, playing games online is possible with HideMyAss.
In conclusion, the wide variety of locations offered and the maintenance of servers ensures that you will get the best connection speed at the location you need.
Security and Privacy
Security
HideMyAss is one of the most secure VPN solutions on the market.
They use the military-grade AES 256-bit encryption algorithm to protect your data.
This algorithm is the best in the market, as it is virtually impossible to crack it and view that data.
Additionally, all of their servers offer the same level of encryption, making sure that no law enforcement or another hacker group activist will be able to read your information.
Support is provided to the security protocols, OpenVPN, PPTP, and L2TP/IPSec, which are on the list of the most secure!
Privacy
HideMyAss has a very strict no-logging policy. They do not log your precise IP address, what you are doing during your online session, or how much data you’ve transmitted while using their application. It’s a sure-shot guarantee to your anonymity.
They also provide a crystal clear privacy policy, through which you can read how they accomplish their product functionality and maintenance.
Region blocked content
Due to the extensive offering of locations and servers, HideMyAss proves itself one of the most successful VPNs to access and view content from Netflix, iBBC iPlayer, and Amazon Prime. So you don’t have to give up your love of watching sports or evenings that involve a lot of ice-cream and shows.
HideMyAss offers 20 Gbps servers that can handle streaming in the best possible quality. In our tests, we were able to consistently stream at Ultra HD quality, and most of the servers unblocked the content in that particular region.
For example, a match in English Premier League between Liverpool and Manchester City available in the UK but not in India? HideMyAss covers that - just connect to a UK-based HMA server and have fun!
Overall, HideMyAss can bypass region-blocked content.
Customer Support
HideMyAss has one of the most amazing support experiences - polite, fast, on-point, and well-informed.
HideMyAss offers 24/7 email and live chat support. Besides that, it has quite an extensive knowledge base, a very positive community providing solutions for the most extreme of cases and video tutorials - most of our questions were answered.
In our experience with their live chat, the support agent connected almost instantly, gave the best answers and solution to our problem, and was very diligent.
So if you are ever confused or have an issue while using the application, their support will always be able to help you out!
Pricing
One of the reasons why HideMyAss is in our top 5 list is its great value for money!
HideMyAss offers a 7-day free trial, so you can test out their application and decide if their service is exactly what you want.
Their 1-year plan starts at only $6.99 per month and a 3-year plan at a low price of $3.99 a month. Their offering also allows the connection of up to 5 devices.
The value and features that you get at the price HideMyAss offer you is one of the reasons why HideMyAss is our choice for #5 VPN in India!
HideMyAss Cons
While all the features that we’ve shown in this article about HideMyAss do sound amazing and great, it does have some hiccups.
Through our connection speeds, we did find out that the average speed reduction of HMA servers is almost double of NordVPN. The maximum devices that can be connected simultaneously are also lower than what our #1 VPN offers, which could perhaps stray you from using HideMyAss and instead look into purchasing NordVPN.
And even though their P2P optimized servers provide great connection speed and can handle huge volumes of data, we did find out that besides servers in Prague, Frankfurt, New York, London, and Amsterdam, that we’ve had an amazing experience with, servers in other locations may block incoming torrent ports.
Obviously, none of these reasons are dealbreakers. However, we thought you should know for an informed purchasing decision.
Conclusion - Can we recommend HideMyAss?
Without a doubt, we can recommend HideMyAss!
HideMyAss is one of the best VPN solutions, mainly due to its value for money.
Let’s summarize the reasons:
So, you want to buy a VPN? Just click on this link and dive in!
Starts at $1.07 per month
Starts at
$1.07
/ month
• Military-grade encryption
• No logging policy
• P2P-optimized servers