| Provider : | Hide My Ass |
| Price : | 1 month – $11.52 (30% Discount) 6 month – $50.66 (50% Discount) 12 month – $78.66 (60% Discount) |
| Overall Rating : | 4.5 / 5 |
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Since my last review Hide My Ass Pro VPN service has matured and a new version of the client has been released. One of the features that has grown and which many will be really happy about is the inclusion of a PPTP service to accompany the openVPN service they started with. For any on that does not know what PPTP is I shall briefly explain. PPTP or point to point tunneling protocol is a technique used in creating a secure connection between two points or simply, it is a VPN. The significant difference between PPTP and openVPN is the adoption of PPTP by many large companies. Microsoft Windows, Apple and many mobile devices have built in support for PPTP and as such you should not have a problem using it if you don’t want to install their client.
Hide My Ass Pro have put a lot of effort into their new release and they have taken many of the important points and included these in the new release. Some of these features include a monitor that will show you whether or not you are connected. The old client had an issue where it would dissconnect and you would think you were still connected so you were falsly under the impression that you were safe. They have taken this one step further and added Secure IP Bind. What this clever addition does it bind certain programs to Hide My Ass Pro VPN. I for instance bind Chrome so if the connection on Hide My Ass Pro VPN fails you will no longer be able to browse until a new connection has been established. A problem I had with the last client was the random disconnects and the clients inability to reconnect. This seems to have been addressed and the program happily reconnects after a disconnect.
With the growth of the service they have also been able to expand their servers into many different countries and expand to so you have many georaphic choices in these countries. The USA has 21 servers now (when this was published), the UK has 6 and then there are various others dotted around the world. Some examples or these are Canada, Ierland, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Estonia, Ukrain and Portugal. There are more than this but those are just some of the one I thought to mention.
I have revisisted the speed and have done a more comprehensive speed test. The speed test was done using a 100Mb file (http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test) and the avererage speed on completion of the file download. All tests were done on a Virgin Media 10Mbps line.
So in conclusion, the new client is great. Hide My Ass Pro are consistently reinvesting into their service and are adding more and more servers and the speeds if you pick a server close to you are really good. With all this business of ISP’s monitoring your downloads and monitoring your usage I think this is a really great service and I will continue to use them.
| Review at a glace | |
|---|---|
| Usability |   |
| The app is really simple to install and use. The simple user interface and easy to understand configuration is great for inexperienced VPN users. | |
| Speed |  |
| Using servers that are close to your location gets really good speed, in fact from the UK I got my exact speeds. When I had to connect from UK to US it can be a bit slower. | |
| Support | |
| Support via email and via their forum was good but I have had very little to contact them about. | |
| Reliability | |
| The recent updates addressed some issues and the software now connects easily and if the connection drops automatically re-connects leaving you safely behind the VPN | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| I have now had the service running for 18 months and they have really gone from strength to strength. A simple, unobtrusive and in todays day and age essential tool. I would recommend to a friend, in fact, I do. | |
James, i’m thinking of using hidemyass on my mac, do i need to install a software application?
Hi Fred
I am not sure if they will still allow this so don’t take it as gospel truth but most of the servers (if not all) support PPTP. It is really simple to add a new PPTP connection to your Mac and just select a few different servers in different locations. You will need the server IP and I am sure that your standard username and password will work. You just need to remember that once you set this up to go insto the advanced settings and make sure all traffic is routed via this connection. One thing you will loose is the large list of servers to just connect to from a drop down list. Why is it that you don’t want to install the app?
Because in Italy there’s only one server to choose from 🙂
Right, I see. If you want I will make a guide and put it on my other site I am setting up vpn-reviews.net?
Thanks, it could be great 🙂
Actually i’m undecided between HMA and PureVPN, PureVPN doesn’t have a server in Italy but they have a great support. They answered all my questions is few hours, HMA answered in one day and strongVPN still waiting for an answer.
What do you think of PureVPN? I see you don’t have listed them in your vpn reviews site
I have not used PureVPN, I will get in contact with them and see if I can do a review on them too. I am just busy with a review on http://www.intl-alliance.com/ and I must say they are looking promising. I will have a review up for them this week as soon as I have the server details.
James,
I’ve been using Hidemyass VPN Pro for a couple of months now and generally speaking the service performs as advertised. I will say that when it comes to downloading Torrents there is a substantial decrease in speed when and if I log into my local HMA VPN before downloading which is somewhat disappointing. Do you know of any providers similar to HMA who delete their IP logs every 24 hours or less? HMA deletes theirs every seven days.
Thanks
Hi Kyle
Firstly have you tried looking for more under-utilised servers when using your torrents? I normally don’t have a problem with the speed (but then again I usually leave mine unattended and am not in a rush). The best VPN service I have used in terms of quality is VyprVPN, it is more expensive but the quality is noticable. I have done a review for you can read the review here. I am also in the process of doing a review for intl-alliance.com which is looking really good too. VyprVPN is the supported connection for Giganews so I can almost certainly say that they do not store logs or personal information for very long and I can’t comment on int-alliance.
Hope that helps
I was stupid enough to sign up for 12months and then found out that in fact a vpn does not bypass your isp’s down load capping or network traffic shaping and in fact it actually increases your network traffic because of the encryption it uses and when i tried to get a refund under the terms and conditions my upload traffic had exceeded their 10gb limit to qualify for a refund so i am stuck with a service that does not do what i paid for
WTF are you praising PPTP for? As Sunde put it, PPTP is a political statement not encryption!! OpenVPN or bust!
@Argh Supporting only a single protocol limits your customer base. PPTP may not be the most secure but for most average users it is more than enough. The biggest factor of the PPTP support is what it brings to the table in regards to mobile devices. Many have native support fr PPTP and this is an extremely handy protocol to have. Plus many people just need to avoid geo-targeting and don’t need the encryption that OpenVPN or L2TP offer.
In China PPTP is blocked so I use SSTP protocol with http://www.boxpn.com . Speed is decent from China to US, and better to Germany. I guess it all because of China Telekom here.
Important FYI about hidemyass:
news reports indicate they recently gave up a LulzSec member via court order. Regardless of your feeling about LulzSec, hidemyass does log and can respond to court orders to provide information. You should keep this in mind when considering hidemyass. It will hide you realtime, but not from the government, governments, companies or individuals capable of obtaining a court order in the US.
In my mind this makes this service marginal at best. See:
news article at http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/09/lulzsec-hacker-exposed-service-he-thought-would-hide-him/42895/
And if the link is suppressed google news is your friend – article was on the “theatlanticwire” website.
Hi James,
I’ve noticed that the test carried out above was done through a Virgin Media 10Mbps connection. I’ve recently connected with them (10Mbps) and through my research I came across your review(s). My question is, do I need to do any other tweaks to get the VPN service up and running?
Reason I asked is because I’ve noticed that VM router (netgear) seems to be pre-installed with their software and also in the “Services” tab the following features below are enabled.
Firewall Features Enable
Ipsec PassThrough Enable
PPTP PassThrough Enable
Multicast Enable
Port Scan Detection Enable
IP Flood Detection Enable
Do you have this also?
Thanks and sorry for the long post.
Ian
I just joined boxpn (http://www.boxpn.com) and have to say. They are providing great service for this extremely low price. I use their UK server from Greece to stream BBC iPlayer and speed is well better for HD streaming. I can watch any HD content on BBC. Worth the price.
I am new to all this VPN stuff, I just wanted to thank you James for you reviews, I find them most informative. Cheers.