VPN Reviews

Hide.Me Review – A Premium VPN Solution

By Paul Liu
Wednesday, November 26th, 2014

Hide.Me is a premium VPN solution that is trusted by more than 800,000 users worldwide. The service was earlier known as hide.io and was launched by eVenture Ltd. (a Malaysia based company) in 2012. The team behind Hide.Me has good amount experience in developing security solutions for corporations and governments and they believe that everyone deserves privacy and protection on the web. In this Hide.Me Review, we’ll provide you information to see if this is the right VPN service for you.

Server Locations & Site Access

Hide.Me has deployed its servers in 17 countries including Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Lithuania, Romania, Netherlands, Morocco, Iceland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Sweden, Luxembourg, United States, Turkey, Italy and France. The locations were carefully chosen to offer uninterrupted connectivity and fast speeds to customers from all over the world.

If you are an expat or a tourist who wishes to unlock premium streaming services or IPTV websites from abroad then Hide.Me can definitely help you out. Through the service, you would be able to access On-Demand content offered by Netflix, CBC, Demand 5, Spotify, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Rai TV, Zattoo, Eurosport, Pandora, CTV, 4OD, Rara, TVB, MTV, Lovefilm, WimpMusic, Wilmaa, RTL, Mio TV, E!, Sky Go, Global TV, HBO Go, USA Network, Bravo, Arte, Deezer, Viasat, MyTV, AT5, Voddler, UK TV, FOX, Vevo, ProSieben, Amazon Prime, CMore, iTV Player, NHL, Xfinity, MLB, CWTV, Vudu, NBC, ABC and CBS from any city in the world. The service also makes it easy to bypass restrictions imposed by the governments of China, Cuba, Egypt, Thailand, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Iran and Bahrain and unlock popular services such as Gmail, Skype, Google Talk, Twitter, Facebook and Facetime from anywhere. Paid subscribers of Hide.Me get access to all the gateways offered by the company and they can even switch servers unlimited number of times.

VPN Speed & Bandwidth

Hide.Me offers both metered and unmetered plans but regardless of the plan chosen, customers would be able to stream, browse and download content at very high speeds. The company’s servers are connected to 1-16 GBit/s nodes thus ensuring that customers would never have to deal with downtimes, buffering or slow browsing speeds. The provider even permits torrenting activities from within its network so it’s a great way to hide your P2P sessions from the ISPs.

Privacy Settings

Hide.Me supports up to 256 bit AES encryption and delivers its service through PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, IKEv1, IKEv2, OpenVPN and SSTP protocols. The high level of encryption and support for numerous protocols ensure that you would be able to secure your online sessions regardless of your location or device. The service protects your documents, passwords and financial transactions from surveillance, eavesdroppers, wiretappers and hackers even if connect to the internet via an unsecured Wi-Fi network.

Hide.Me does not log IP address or monitor users’ browsing sessions. The company only logs non-personal data such as bandwidth consumed, randomly generated usernames and internally assigned IP address for troubleshooting and maintenance. The data is erased after every few hours and is never handed to third parties even if the company is served with a legal request. Since the company is based in Malaysia, it doesn’t have to store detailed logs of user activities thus ensuring 100% customer privacy.

Supported Operating Systems

Hide.Me works with a wide range of systems including Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8), OS X, iPads, iPhones, Android, Windows Phone 8.1 and Ubuntu. It is even possible to use the service on Smart TVs, Freesat boxes, gaming consoles and Apple TV since it can be configured on DD-WRT and Mikrotik routers easily. And although the company does not have its own VPN software, it provides extremely detailed setup instructions for all devices and OS.

Customer Support

Hide.Me provides support through email and helpdesk. In addition, customers have the option of browsing through Hide.Me forum to get answers to their technical questions.

Pricing Options – Hide.Me offers 3 different types of VPN plans –

1) Free Plan – No cost VPN solution, access to 2 servers, reduced speed (minimum 3MBit/s), limited protocol support (OpenVPN not available).

2) Plus Plan – Access to all servers, 75 GB per month bandwidth, only one connection at a time, costs $10/month ($40 for 6 months and $65 per year).

3) Premium Plan – Access to all servers, no bandwidth limitation, 5 simultaneous connections, Socks 5 proxy and dynamic port forwarding options available, fixed IP available on request, costs $20/month ($85 for 6 months and $140 per year).

Hide.Me supports more than 80 payment gateways including anonymous payment options like Bitcoins which is definitely a big plus point. The company does not offer free trials for its Plus and Premium plans but you can get 100% refund within 14 days provided you have not consumed more than 500 MB of bandwidth.

Final Verdict

Hide.Me definitely scores high as far as performance and privacy is concerned. On the downside, the paid subscription options offered by the company are somewhat expensive. Our recommendation is to check out the free plan first and then upgrade your subscription if you are happy with the service. For more information, please visit: www.hide.me.