56 thoughts on “Hide My Ass VPN Review”

1. Hi James,

   Thanks for your review of our service.

   Although overall you are happy with our service, I would like to clarify some concerns mentioned in your post.

   1) Connection speed

   If you are connecting from the UK to our UK VPN node then you should not experience much speed decrease at all (if any). But you sound like you are connecting from the UK to our USA VPN server to watch USA TV shows. We recommend European users to select a server node on the East of the USA (Currently Washington DC or Pennsylvania with New Jersey coming soon) as the further data has to travel the more chance you will experience some speed loss; always try to select the server node geographically closest to you.

   We then recommend you do a speed test for the file: http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test as SpeedTest.net does not perform well behind a VPN at all, I’m not sure why to be honest though, but HTTP file download tests are much better.

   2) Disconnection issues

   This I agree is the biggest fault of our service, but rest assured we have found the bugs and are in the progress of fixing these issues for version 1.7. It is a problem with Windows only: when there are two routes to the same destination, the system uses something called routing metric (a number that’s assigned to the route) to decide which route to take. If the number is lower, the route is preferred. Initially when OpenVPN is connected, it removes the default route on the system that goes via the regular interface, and replaces it with a route that goes via the VPN, however, on Vista, when the DHCP lease ends and it renews the lease, it automatically adds the original route, so the issue is that we cannot stop vista from adding the original route and connection issues occur.

   Expect version 1.7 to be launched within 7 days from the date of this post which fixes disconnection issues.

   3) New technology notes

   We are also pleased to announce we will be offering a PPTP service, which is a VPN protocol already built into Windows. Our tests show it is 10-30% faster than OpenVPN, although OpenVPN is considered much more secure. So it is a balance of speed or security and our combined OpenVPN and PPTP client (in the works) will let you to switch technologies with ease.

   ——————————-
   Thanks,
   Hidemyass.com

2. Hey HMA, thanks for the comment, I will do as you suggest and do some speedtests using an HTTP download and will definitely post the results here.

   I am pretty excited for your new PPTP service, I am sure you can check back here when that is released for a review.

3. Hi there, how do I use the hidemyass service with an iPad?

4. Pingback: Hide My Ass PPTP Review | James Says...

5. I too suggest an iPad/iPhone solution.

6. “I’m not sure why to be honest though” Thats a classical lie.

   That statement from HideMyAss frontman is a blatent misstruth or if you want the truth its a LIE.

   He is in the business AND he SAYS “I dont know why…..” Yeah of course he DONt.

   What he means is he KNOWS but wont tell you. I have tried the system using both examples above and know that using the HMA VPN system to the states OR ANYWHERE else DOES impact on your speed FOR sure.

   ~As to how much I am not at this moment absolutely sure, I cannot for sure like say its HALF or a THIRD loss of speed but it is substancial.

   I tell the truth.

   gbovs

7. Hi gbovs

   I know ecactly what you are saying, I have done a follow up review and have done it to various locations (all tests where done from the UK) here is the link if you are interested.

   http://www.jamessays.co.uk/technology/hide-my-ass-pptp-review

8. i can’t acces HideMyass because there are any filter in my country. Do you know how fix it ?

9. Thanks for all your comments. I’m now thinking of going with Identity Cloaker. Has anyone out there tried it? How is it?

   Thanks, Rick

10. Thanks for the review. I’ve been looking into VPN’s and VyprVPN and HMAVPN seem to be well liked. Havent decided yet but I’ll be referring to your review while deciding.

11. This is a great program until you run into trouble. Then the sopport doesent help you at all. I have been trying to solve a problem for the last month now, but they are totly unwilling to do anything about it…. Don´t buy this!

12. Nice easy to use software, upload speed is capped at 165KB/s which I find very annoying especially since my upload speed is 4 times this. So if you are looking for a decent up speed don’t bother with this. Download speed is pretty fast though I was hitting 3-4k KB/s I have only come across a few other VPN that have faster speeds (and I have been through a lot).

13. Thank you for being candid with your review. After reading this and all the comments and am not certain if Hide My Ass is right. Hence, I am off to read your new article about this service with the link above.

14. Using the VPN for some time now, a beautiful piece of SW. Works like a charm.
    No complaints what so ever. All the best to the tech guy Jovan.

15. Can a proxy or vpn used so my employer cannot track my location when I log in remotely? I am not to familiar with proxy or vpn other than what I read on here.

16. The service works quite well, except I have to reconnect 10 minutes on the dot every single time no matter what I do. It doesn’t disconnect, but there is no more traffic. So now I just change my IP every 10 minutes. Not sure where the problem is. Tried different computers, router config, etc. and had the same issues. In terms of the speed, I have hit speeds of 30 megabit (I’m on a 50 megabit line) with no issue depending on the torrent. Uploads are not capped from what I can tell. I usually uplooad with 3 megabit and that seems to give me the best performance on the down. Connections to VPN gatgeways are always reliable. Never, every had any issues connecting and I connect a LOT since I change my IP every 10 minutes. Secure IP bind seems to work as well.

17. I have been using boxpn (http://www.boxpn.com) for about a year for my VPN service and very happy with it. For 3.75 $ a month I’m getting a very good speed in US. I have a 25Mbit comcast and I’m getting about 22Mbits with boxpn network. These guys are very helpful on support. Thank you.

18. I purchased a 1 month gig just to try it out. After about a week fooling around with it I’m left with mixed feelings. I can normally snag 850k downloads barefoot. With HMA, the highest download rate I’ve achieved so far is 700. Now, I could live with that, but it’s not consistant. In fact, HMA download speeds seem to fluctuate greatly from time to time. I live in the SW USA and there are a dozen servers within a few hundred miles – speed varies greatly among these servers. I don’t mind sacrificing a little speed for anonymity, but bandwidth is expensive and my time has to be worth something. I don’t know. I’ll continue to use it at least until the end of the month…we’ll see.

19. According to HideMyAss.com, “…services such as ours do not exist to hide people from illegal activity. We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies if it has become evident that your account has been used for illegal activities.”

    The service stores logs for 30-days when it comes to Website proxy services, and they store the connecting IP address, as well as time stamps for those using the VPN offerings. Emails seeking comment on HideMyAss.com’s level of cooperation with the FBI, as well as to confirm what information was made available, were not returned.

20. I’m a little new to vpn use but I have no shortage of business knowledge. I contracted HMA’s service to procure a secure connection to my USA based services while I travel abroad. I accessed my Paypal account using HMA’s service with the result that Paypal found that to be suspicious and place my account on “limited” status until i verified it. Of course the warning not to use HMA to connect to Paypal came AFTER I had already attempted it and even though I verified my Paypal account within two days, there was a “charge back” to HMA without my knowledge.

    HMA said there was a dispute placed on the order. I did not dispute it and in trying to rectify the situation (I was perfectly willing to use any other method of payment HMA would like), HMA said I would no longer be welcome to contract their services.

    There are a million other VPN services out there that actually want my business and I am more than happy to give my business to someone else.

21. Quick follow-up to my 9/23 post. Have had HMA for a couple of weeks now and while I do get speed fluctuations (particularly in the afternoons/evenings) I do like it overall. And they’ve always been pretty quick to answer my questions. HOWEVER…I’m VERY turned off about HMA’s log keeping practices. No, I have nothing to hide! But paying for a so-called “anonymous” service just to be tracked doesn’t jive with me – for ANY reason! While still not as fast as I’d like it to be, I use TOR as a backup to HMA…just for those times I need to tell HMA to butt out! In summary, I’m still exploring my options and may not renew my subscription with HMA if I can find another service with better privacy etiquette.

22. Does this VPN work with posting multiple ads on Craigslist? Does Craigslist block ads posted from servers outside the U.S. and accept ads posted from U.S. ips? Does HMA have plenty of U.S. ips?

23. I have used their service, but found a number of times of drops using various IP address across the U.S., especially when connecting to social sites, after clicking away I discover in the HMA dialog box that the service had dropped and my real IP address was revealed! I would not recommend HMA, also keep in mind they are a one man circus show there. A guy by the name of Juan runs the entire show; it can take up to a week to get a response and I have the emails to prove it! Billing was another mess up…. they totally messed up on the billing and suspended my account because they couldn’t find where the charge went through but then had to copy my statement and send that to them. Connecting to areas such as CA, Fl, and Portland areas it was very slow, and I have cable internet, the fastest my provider offers. I give HMA one start out of four for their service and zero stars for customer service. There are others out there that provides the same service, and their customer service is great.

24. As far as I can find out the HMA service in Australia is abysmal, and no one else even has servers here. Will be sticking to free proxies for now I think.

    Any recommendations anyone?

    TIA

25. I agree with Don on the slow speed. It’s mostly unusable and the software (GUI) is not yet as mature as I’d like.

    The 30 day money-back guarantee is NOT a 30 day guarantee, it’s a 1)GB (upload and download) limit guarantee. You won’t be able to assess whether the product is suitable within a 10GB limit so be warned.

26. Don’t bother with HMA.

    When trying to hook up via the software, I can’t get through 99.9% of the time due to the damn ‘authentication failed’ message. I always check the un & pw, even change it – but to no avail.

    Think I’ll demand a refund after xmas!

27. I tried boxpn and speed is excellent in New York. Here : http://www.boxpn.com

28. I’ve been using HMA Pro in Mexico for 3 months and have been very happy with it. I got it mainly to be able to access Hulu and the big US Networks. But what I found was that my download speeds are up to 3 times faster than my Mexico provider. This morning I was getting 1.2 to 1.6 Mbps downloads and after connecting HMA VPN my download speeds were 3.1 – 3.3 Mbps as tested thru Speedtest.net. Even though I don’t need a vpn for watching some movies/tv online I run them thru HMA VPN because they buffer much faster.

29. I tried using HMA software for my Virgin 100mb download and it significantly slowed my speeds downy to around 15-20mb which is no good for me.

30. Im with HMA since 6 months and it work like a charm!

31. I had used HMA for a month and noted that their OpenVPN does not connect in UAE. Waste of money.

32. HMA sucks. Their support is damn near non-existent. I bought 1 month of service to try to sample it, and god has it been a headache. I was automatically tagged as fraudulent even though I paid with paypal, confirmed my e-mail address, and have practically begged for e-mail responses. To be untagged as fraudulent, they want scans of utility bills, my ID, my credit card, and maybe some other stupid shit. A company that specializes in your ANONYMITY wants this much information over $11. So far, I hate HMA, they’re proving to have one of the worst setups I’ve ever encountered. I wont be using HMA. HMA sucks.

33. You need to search for SSTP supporting vpn provider for UAE. I guess strongvpn, boxpn and purevpn supports SSTP protocol.

34. can you get HMA to work with an IPAD 2?

    Thanks

35. I’ve been using HMA from South Asia for 2 years now, with great results. Hands down, the best part is the customer service. I have not had many issues, but when I have, they responded to emails very quickly. Sometimes, literally, within 2 minutes- and these were not auto-generated emails, but real people typing. I recently had an issue because I repurchased from overseas and they sent me an email asking me to verify my account details (rather than just accept a suspicious charge). I failed to respond to the email, so my account was disabled. They were very flexible working with me to quickly get my account re-established. Awesome. HMA will always get my future business because I know that I can reach out and get answers. Their great customer service is unmatched, though White Canyon is a close second.

36. Seriously, I just read the negative review above and I’m stunned. I’ve literally gotten multiple customer service people emailing me back within 15 minutes on the same initial question. I’ve never had to wait even 8 hours for a response, much less a week. As far as the speed goes, I’m currently connecting from South Asia, to Utah to northern Europe, back to Utah and back to South Asia and I was able to download 180MB in the time it took me to type the 7 lines above. It seems pretty fast to me. The only time I’ve noticed slow speeds was when skyping with someone trying to run 15 bit torrents at the same time. As far as dropping service- yeah, that will happen when the intermediate server is not available. I’ve found that HMA immediately finds another. In fact, it has done so while I’ve typed this- I’m now connected through D.C. (with no intervention on my part).
    I have really benefited from HMA. Being an American overseas, I couldn’t use my IPOD, Kindle, or other devices without it. It’s been quite easy and largely transparent.
    I have written far more negative reviews than positive and I’m extremely quick to criticize poor customer care, but this company has been an awesome help to my family and incredibly responsive. Try it!

37. I used this provider just over a year ago for their UK VPN service. I really didn’t have any complaints other than being a little slow at times.

    I recently signed up with them for their Australian VPN servers in Brisbane. I wanted to watch some of the excellent SBS Giro d’Italia coverage. Unfortunately the servers were so slow it wasn’t worth even downloading the coverage. 3 hours to download 100Mb!! Appalling. Support suggested trying their OpenVPN client but that was worse. It wouldn’t allow me to download at all! I dug around on their forums and found the speed of their Brisbane has been an issue for at least 6 months. They’ve done nothing about it. I’ve heard the Singapore servers have similar speed issues.

    I thought I hadn’t lost anything since they have a 30-day money back guarantee. HAHAHA … yeah right!! They said I’d been a previous subscriber and wasn’t eligible! I asked them to explain (several times) but have heard nothing back. No refund, no explanation.

    Appalling support! I will never sign up with them again or recommend them to anyone.

38. Hide My Ass keeps logs, and in fact longer than most avowed privacy services.

    “VPN SERVICE:

    ▪ What data we collect: We will store a time stamp and IP address when you connect and disconnect to our VPN service together with the IP address of the
    individual VPN server used by you. We do not store details of, or monitor, the websites you connect to when using our VPN service.
    ▪ Why we need this data: We do this so that we can monitor the performance of our Site, for example it enables us to sort server nodes by the amount of
    Users connected, to limit your account to one concurrent IP address per VPN connection (to prevent shared accounts), resource analytics (to carry out usage
    analysis for administrative purposes) and to prevent abuse. This data is stored on our system for no more than two years unless we are required, for legal
    reasons or under exceptional circumstances, to retain this data for an extended period. ”

    http://hidemyass.com/legal/privacy/

    What it means is (1) Two years logging if not legally required; (2) Even more than two years if legally required.

    This is even longer than a normal ISP.

    I can’t recommend them. Rather choose one of the Swedish VPN providers who don’t log.

39. Beware…Gora is a HMA employee…

40. I have been having tons of issues with my HMA in China and worst of all, I can’t even find a number or email address to contact them because they are blocked so you can’t get on their website.

41. HMA is slow on customer support but you will get it anyway.

42. HMA blows chunks! Unless your happy with your internet not being able to reach 1/2 the pages its a bad joke! I’m glad I didn’t buy this junk. They actually tried to argue with me that not being able to browse does not mean their software is faulty. Who wants software that wouldn’t work on the internet? Just because it changes your IP is not enough. Rude service too!

43. I bought HMA & was not able to make it work; I also send HMA emails but unfortunately no reply till today.

    My recommendation: DON’T BUY

44. I am in china. the ‘Buy Now’ button does not work with me. How do I contact Hidemyass to purchase?

45. To everyone who says HMA is a waste of money, and that there are lots of better VPN providers out there – why don’t you actually name some of those better providers to save us all some time?

46. HMA used to be good for me, was working great and fast when i was at my home country, i managed to connect to any server freely….. but since i came to china it was only working a 1 week. After 1 week i only had problems, Reconnection problems, unable to connect at all, program crashing when connection to servers.
    Support told me a few things to try fix it …. but didn’t work…. on my laptop, on a different computer, on mobile, on different wifi/hotspot…
    Before when things were good , reply from support was very fast, 1 or 2 hours, but now since i started getting problems, the reply take more than 48 hours on average…

    My conclusion is than HMA is great is you are not in china, if you in china , it is quite useless. Hope it gets beter in future, but now i am trying t get a refund for the remaining time left with them, and waiting for …….replies from them..

    Another thing is that i made a review on there website but seems they will not publish it , since it is not so positive for them…

    My conclusion is : If you are in china or plan to go China, DO NOT GET HMA, if you out of china and don’t plan to come to China, then you CAN Get HMA.

47. Poor customer service. I don’t know how such a well known brand could be this poor compared to others. Comparing their service to strongvpn’s is like comparing that of a 5 star hotel to a budget motel. If you dont believe go to their forum and see all the complaints. Even Astril and Ipvanish (only ones i tried) are more professional.

    Strongvpn is faster and their customer support is faultless. You get 24 hr live help online and they never ditch you. They are friendly and professional, follow up immediately via email even when u get disconnected and most importantly, offer good solutions.

48. From a technical perspective the product works almost flawlessly. My ax to grind is with billing. For the 2nd consecutive time my service has been cut off because my payment to Plimus, HMA’s billing agent, was not credited. It took me weeks of emails to straighten out the last time. The onus of proving I had paid was entirely on me. One hand does not talk to the other. Goodbye HMA.

49. lmsyg – thanks for your recommendation of Strongvpn. I said the same things about HMA when I first got the service over a year ago. Their email support was excellent. Things went to hell in a handbasket though. Once I get my refund from HMA I will give Strongvpn a try. Thanks.

50. Worst VPN service so far, yes worst. I don’t care about the speed or the software if they have a shitty support and weird policies. I paid for one month and was able to use it only for the first 3 days. Then my account is suspended and I couldn’t get the verification code to my cell phone. Now they’re asking me to upload a copy of my ID and utility bill? for real? anyway am glad it was one month subscription and not one year. Avoid at all cost.

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