In this review, we discuss the primary difference of FREE vs. PAID VPN’s, and if Hide.me is a trusted free VPN option. Does it have a no-logs policy? Does it give you sufficient data? Can I use it for Streaming? Torrenting? Heavy Downloads? We will address all of these questions below and MORE! Stay tuned for the recap of Hide.me VPN. I will also link up to the most recommended VPN service of 2019, which is currently NordVPN. You can see the full length review HERE.

Now, Let’s take a look at the Hide.Me VPN offering below!

 

Our Judgement

 

Hide.me’s free VPN providing is good if undramatic, with 2GB of free monthly data and mid-range speeds.

 

PROS:

 

• Wide platform compatibility
• Lots of VPN protocols supported
• Privacy check

 

CONS:

 

• Limited to 2GB of data per month
• Middling network performance

 

Hide.me bills itself as the “World’s Quickest VPN,” however we did not realize that to be the case. Its speeds were around average in our tests, and likewise, its free 2GB of data per month is more than some rivals provide however less than what others offer.

 

 

eVenture Ltd Hide.me Free Subscription Options

 

1 month set up – US$0 per month (US$0 total cost)

On the plus side, Hide.me could be a full-featured, versatile VPN supplier with several enticing options and it’d be worth considering as a paid service. however we’d suspend using its free offering till we’d burnt up our 10GB free monthly allowance from Windscribe, that we predict offers the most effective free VPN service.

 

Free vs. Freemium VPN

 

We can’t suggest any entirely free VPN services, because too many of them borrow your bandwidth, sell your browsing histories, inject ads into websites, or are fake or malicious. Running a network of VPN servers costs a lot, and if you are not paying a service, it’s using you to create cash.

Many paid VPN services have limited free teaser plans that either throttle your network speed or cap the quantity of data you’ll use. we tend to advocate using one or a lot of of these if you are on a laptop computer and connecting to free Wi-Fi in a coffee bar, airport or building.

However, none of those restricted free plans is good for 24/7 home VPN connections. For that, it’s better to merely buy a quick, unlimited service.

 

What You Get At No Cost

 

 

The Hide.me free service provides up to 2GB a month of data, that is not abundant however is more than what you will get from some other free tiers. The Premium unlimited-data service costs $9.99 a month, however there also a plus set up that offers you 75GB of data per month, quite enough for many individuals, for $4.99.

Both paid plans provide you with a selection of over fifty five server locations to connect to. The free plans limit you to servers within the Netherlands, Singapore, Canada and also the united states. however you are doing get the right to contact Hide.me’s tech-support employees, an uncommon feature for a free tier.

Hide.me features a privacy-check feature that examines your VPN connection and provides details like whether or not your location is hidden, where you are connected to the internet and whether you are using IPv6. it is a nice way to confirm you are firmly online. the company is headquartered in Malaysia, out of reach of U.S. law-enforcement search warrants.

Hide.me provides a large choice of VPN client software, together with not solely the standard Windows, macOS, iOS and android clients, however additionally apps for Windows Phone ten, Microsoft Surface and, as of January2019, Android TV, Amazon fire Stick and Amazon fire tablet.

The website has elaborate instructions for putting in manual connections to hide.me servers for many of the above platforms, further as for Linux; BlackBerry; and routers that use OpenWrt, DD-WRT, AsusWRT, pfSense or Tomato open-source firmware.

You can use a large variety of VPN protocols with Hide.me, together with IKEv2/IPsec (recommended), IKEv1/IPsec, OpenVPN, SSTP, PPTP and L2TP/IPsec, further because the jack-of-all-trades SoftEther client software system.

Not all protocol decisions are attainable for every platform, however there aren’t any protocol limitations otherwise without charge users. an informative Hide.me website explains the variations among the assorted protocols.

 

Performance

 

We tested the free offerings of 9 totally different VPN services — Avira Phantom VPN, Hide.me, Hotspot shield, the Opera browser VPN, ProtonVPN, Speedify, SurfEasy, TunnelBear and Windscribe — using an hp EliteBook X360 1020 G2 notebook in a home in a residential area new york provisioned with regular, consumer-grade cable broadband.

Ookla’s Speed test was used to measure every VPN service’s network latency (delay), upload speeds and transfer speeds. each speed test was run 3 times per service, and baseline network speeds were measured before the beginning of every round of tests.

We got Hide.me’s half dozenMB installation package up and running in 6.5 minutes on our HP EliteBook laptop computer, together with making an account. Hide.me’s desktop interface doesn’t run full screen, but it’s got enough room to show your ip address, connection location and whether or not you are using the VPN (indicated by a green check mark).

 

 

We selected Hide.me’s Canadian servers for testing, however the network still took a protracted nine.5 seconds to connect, that was the longest time of all of the 9 free VPN plans we tested. The Canadian server had a median latency (how long it took to respond) of forty eight.8 milliseconds; this was 3 times the pre-VPN level however not the worst among the services we tested.

Data downloaded at a median speed of fifty six.1 Mbps after we were connected to cover.me’s network, a decline of sixty eight % from the baseline and really about to the common 65-percent decline among the eight regular free VPN services. (The ninth service, Speedify, uses distinctive network tricks, and that we thought-about its wonderful scores one by one.)

Hide.me’s uploads averaged twenty three.5 Mbps, down twenty eight % from pre-VPN levels however higher than the thirty four % average. Those 2 speed results place Hide.me in regarding the center of our pack of free VPN services. however it absolutely was solely a bit quicker then ProtonVPN, whose free tier, whereas much slower than ProtonVPN’s paid services, puts no limits on data usage.

 

Hide.Me – Bottom Line

 

We really hoped to love Hide.me’s free offering, as a result of it’s platform-flexible, does not choke speed and even offers technical school support. However, Windscribe’s free tier has similar options and is quicker and far a lot of generous with data. However, their paid option really does open up a lot more options and is a real contender as a real VPN service, like ExpressVPN and Cyberghost.

 

 

VPN STATS

 

Client platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Microsoft Surface

Protocols: PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, IKEv1/IPsec IKEv2/IPsec, SSTP, OpenVPN

Servers/countries: 45/34

Restriction: 2GB of data per month

 

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