HideMyAss test and review
HideMyAss is an extremely recognizable brand among VPNs. A logo with a characteristic donkey and a catchy, slightly vulgar name, which also works on the imagination – they’re immediately remembered. What possibilities does HMA give us and how big is the decrease in download speed when using this VPN service? This is certainly what interests potential users most.
Is HideMyAss fully safe?
HMA boasts the latest encryption standard, 256-bit AES. When establishing a connection in Windows and Android applications, OpenVPN is used along with GaloisCounterMode (AES-256-GCM). Handshakes are performed using 4096-bit RSA keys, identified by the SHA256 algorithm. On Mac and iOS devices, the protocol used is IKEv2/IPsec – for maximum compatibility with Apple devices. HideMyAss allows you to automatically establish a VPN tunnel depending on the network you connect to. This option allows you to add a network to a white list of trusted connections. All servers used by HMA are also encrypted with a 256-bit AES key.
For direct access by unauthorized persons, our data is properly secured. The same is true in the case of government interference. Even if the server is ordered to be seized, it will be completely useless for the police and other services. Additionally, all HideMyAss nodes – are actively protected against DDoS attacks, making sure that the user can always enjoy comfortable access to VPN service. However, should any problems arise while using HMA, you can count on 24/7 technical support – provided by qualified staff.
What I need the VPN HideMyAss for, i.e. we put on a “blind hat”
You surely happened to use a public wi-fi hotspot once. From the point of view of network security, such practices prove to be very dangerous. After all, you never know who you’re connecting your device to, in fact. Many cyber-security experts draw attention to the so-called Man In The Middle attacks, which involve exploiting gaps in the security of websites and then reading the victim’s sensitive data. Even worse are the attacks involving sniffing or setting up fake hotspots.
Such interference allows the hacker to copy all network traffic to his device and then analyse it. This way someone can hack into your mailbox! Fortunately, all types of attacks mentioned above are based on direct access to your network traffic. Therefore, if you connect to the Internet via VPN, all data downloaded and sent from your device will be 100% securely encrypted, and a hacker in the worst case will only see a gigantic and completely worthless string of random characters and numbers. In addition, using a high quality VPN service makes your geolocation completely impossible.
How much does HideMyAss VPN service cost and is a trial version available?
HideMyAss is definitely one of the cheapest VPN providers on the market. The monthly subscription, allowing full access to all HMA capabilities, costs only PLN 19. If we decide on a yearly plan, we will have to pay only PLN 14.92 PLN for it. For each month. The VPN HideMyAss subscription is the most advantageous when choosing a 36-month plan. Then one month will cost us only PLN 7.75! In addition, the company offers us a 7-day free trial or a 30-day trial period. The trial version gives you the comfort that in a situation when you’re fully dissatisfied with the quality of provided services – you will get your money back.
Using streaming services through HideMyAss
HideMyAss has over 290 servers that are located in 190 countries. This allows you to watch Netflix and other popular services that offer video on demand. You can immediately notice the completely different approach of HMA to network traffic management. Their most popular data centers, through which most of the information flows from VPN tunnels, have a bandwidth of 20 Gb/s, while the servers in other locations – are capable of processing up to 10 Gb/s.
What download speed does HideMyAss offer?
HMA offers some of the fastest VPN servers available on the market, which can reach up to 20 Gb/s. How do these promises and download speeds look in practice? During the speed test, without HideMyAss enabled, 152 Mbps download, 154 Mbps upload and 1 ms ping were achieved.
The Lighting Connect function, which selects the optimal connection parameters and ensures maximum data transfer speed, has automatically connected us to the Polish server. The download speed for the Polish server was 134 Mbps and the upload speed was 139 Mbps with 14 ms ping. These are good results, but there is a lot missing from the first place on the podium. However, VPN HideMyAss is completely sufficient for everyday use of the Internet.
Normally in our test it was the turn to the United States. How did HMA handle the USA? I must admit that it was quite bad. We managed to scream only 70 Mbps download speed and 128 Mbps upload speed. The low ping of 105 ms deserves praise. To FullHD should be enough, but a smooth 4k can be very hard to achieve.
The connection coming out of the UK finally allowed HideMyAss to spread it’s wings. Surprisingly, the UK managed to achieve a higher score than on the Polish server. Download speed was 137 Mbps, upload speed 129 Mbps and ping speed 37 ms. We can boldly watch 4k content or use YouTube videos in 3d VR technology and we won’t have to worry about available bandwidth. American Netflix available at your fingertips – in three steps: downloading HMA VPN, selecting the server and… logging in!
The German connection is disappointing – only 61 Mbps download speed and 57 ms ping. Admittedly, the upload speed is 145 Mbps, but in practice it isn’t used very often.
It’s worth noting that the connection is established quickly and is stable. And all in all, this is so many advantages. HideMyAss performs much weaker compared to its competitors in terms of speed. If you want to watch content in 4k resolution, you should consider choosing another VPN provider.
Can you download torrents with HideMyAss?
HMA has specialized servers, configured for torrent network specifications. Unfortunately, their performance will also not knock you down. The highest download speed we have achieved in our tests is only 85 Mbps. Again, we can praise the high upload. If you like to seed torrents, HideMyAss functionality should satisfy you.
How does HideMyAss look like?
The HMA application has a slightly infantile look and feels a gentle whiff of kitsch from the past decade. However, it’s intuitive and easy to use, but it can jam for a while and the animations lack fluidity.
Summary
There’s no denying that with HideMyAss, we’ll experience a lot of shortcomings. The biggest accusation against this VPN service is the unsatisfactory speed and delays at an average level. Fortunately, this is offset by a really low price. If you’re a less demanding Internet user and you need an inexpensive VPN that allows, among other things, easy blocking of ads, then HMA can be the perfect solution for you. Also worth praising is the completely free 7-day trial version.
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