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hide.me is best known for its generous free plan, but there’s more to this provider than that. Our hide.me VPN review has everything you need to know about the provider, from its ease of use and fast speeds to its strange protocol choices and unreliable unblocking ability.
Key Takeaways: What Is hide.me & Is It a Good VPN to Use?
hide.me is safe and easy to use thanks to the app’s excellent design and succinct descriptions of how each feature works.
hide.me offers a nice suite of advanced features such as StealthGuard, SmartGuard, Bolt, dynamic port forwarding and auto connect.
hide.me unblocks Amazon Prime Video, Max, Hulu and BBC iPlayer but fails to find a way around Netflix’s and Disney Plus’ geoblocks.
Facts & Expert Analysis About hide.me
Generous free plan: hide.me recently introduced unlimited data on its free plan and increased its free servers from five to eight, making it one of the most generous free plans.
Weird protocol choices: hide.me still supports weak protocols such as SoftEther, which it claims is fast and secure. Though SoftEther supports AES-256 encryption, the other encryption ciphers, including the default option, are weak and could therefore potentially be hacked.
Audited in 2015: Defense Code Ltd. audited hide.me in 2015 and certified it as a no-logs VPN. However, the provider’s no-logs policy and infrastructure have not been audited since.
hide.me recently expanded its distribution of servers and upgraded its server infrastructure in multiple countries to boost connection speeds and reliability. The provider also rolled out Bolt and multi-hop features on some platforms. This comprehensive hide.me VPN review will cover how these changes impact the provider’s performance.
We performed a series of extensive security, streaming and speed tests to determine how hide.me stacks up against some of the best VPN services. In our last review, hide.me proved to be safe and private, but many of its advanced features were available only on the Windows platform.
Our latest testing results showed that hide.me upholds top-notch security and privacy. Additionally, some of the advanced features are now available on other platforms. Read on to learn which features are available on your device and whether hide.me is apt for streaming and other online activities.
05/20/2021
Hide.me announced that the VPN has teamed up with Internex, a zero-knowledge cloud storage provider, to offer new Hide.me users 2TB of free Internxt cloud storage.
08/15/2022
Updated review to match changes in features and pricing.
07/06/2023
Added information about the new SmartGuard feature.
05/09/2024 Facts checked
The review was rewritten to reflect hide.me’s recent server upgrade and new features. The various categories were refreshed to match the results of our most recent hide.me testing.
What Is hide.me VPN & Who Is It For?
hide.me is a virtual private network (VPN) that eVenture Ltd — an IT security company based in Malaysia — launched in 2012. Even though it offers both free and paid versions, the provider is best known for its free version thanks to the unlimited data offer, which is a rarity among free VPN providers.
hide.me VPN Review: The Cloudwards Expert Opinion
Samson Kiarie is a writer for Cloudwards. His writing and research focus on VPN comparisons and reviews.
hide.me’s free version is its unique sales proposition, and the removal of the monthly data cap endears it more to users on a tight budget. However, the paid version doesn’t deserve a spot in the top VPN tier because its array of advanced features is not available on all platforms. In addition, hide.me doesn’t unblock all streaming sites.
hide.me offers the basic features we’ve come to expect of reliable VPN providers, such as a kill switch and split tunneling. It also offers an impressive suite of advanced features, like SmartGuard, Bolt, auto connect and stealthguard.
Basic Features: Kill Switch & Split Tunneling
hide.me offers a kill switch on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS apps. The kill switch shuts down your internet connection when the VPN connection drops to prevent accidental traffic leaks that could expose your identity or real IP address.
In addition, hide.me offers app-based split tunneling on Windows, Mac and Android devices. The feature enables you to set up some apps to leverage VPN security while letting others directly access the internet.
Auto Connect
Auto connect is an always-on protection feature that lets you configure hide.me to launch or disconnect when it detects a Wi-Fi or ethernet network. The feature is available to free and paid users on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.
hide.me Bolt
Bolt mitigates slowdowns and internet service provider (ISP) throttling associated with Windows user datagram protocol (UDP). The way it works is simple. When you activate Bolt, it channels your traffic through the transmission control protocol (TCP), sidestepping any UDP issues.
When we last reviewed hide.me, Bolt was still in the beta testing phase. The provider has since rolled out the feature to paid users on Windows. When we tested Bolt, it showed significantly improved download and upload speeds and slightly lower latency for our three test locations. Based on these results, it’s fair to say Bolt works as intended.
Dynamic Port Forwarding
Port forwarding allows incoming web traffic to bypass the network address translation (NAT) firewall and other security measures. This speeds up your connections for faster torrent downloads, uninterrupted online gaming and lag-free voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calling.
Unfortunately, by bypassing security measures, port forwarding leaves you vulnerable to cyberattacks and online threats, which is why we don’t usually recommend it. hide.me supports dynamic port forwarding, meaning the ports your device connects to open dynamically instead of remaining static.
SmartGuard
SmartGuard is a paid feature available on all platforms. The feature is packed with options to protect your privacy. Besides blocking ads, trackers and malicious websites, it enables parents to block websites and apps they don’t want their children to access. Unfortunately, SmartGuard doesn’t work with multi-hop or streaming servers.
StealthGuard
StealthGuard takes the typical VPN kill switch to the next level with two options. First, the ‘bind internet to VPN’ option blocks all network activity when the VPN is disconnected. This option remains active even when hide.me isn’t running.
Second, the ‘limit apps to VPN’ feature makes it impossible to access specific apps when hide.me is disconnected. It also limits background data usage and saves mobile data, which can be expensive — especially when traveling abroad.
Custom DNS
Custom DNS is an interesting option for seasoned users looking to use their own DNS servers. With this option, hide.me allows you to configure the primary and secondary DNS servers the VPN should use to redirect your requests.
hide.me presents a flat learning curve despite offering numerous advanced features. The well-organized design organizes the features in a single settings menu, making it easy for first-time users to find their way around. Plus, there are succinct descriptions of how each feature works to guide users when tweaking the configurations.
How to Set Up & Use hide.me
Once you install the hide.me app, you don’t have to change a thing to make it work. The key features are activated by default, but if you need more control over the VPN connection you can adjust some of the advanced configuration options. Here’s how to set up hide.me:
Set the App Launch Option
By default, hide.me launches on system startup. If you want to turn off this option, click “settings,” go to “general” and click “launch on system startup” to deactivate it.
Configure Auto Connect
To enable auto connect, open the settings menu and click “auto connect.” Click the “enable auto connect” option and set the default actions for secure WiFi, unsecured WiFi and ethernet networks. Be sure to add a list of secured WiFi networks.
Turn on Bolt
Click “Bolt ‘fast proxy‘” in the menu and toggle the “enable hide.me Bolt” button.
Set SmartGuard Options
Open the SmartGuard menu and click “enable SmartGuard” to see the options for this feature. Turn on all the relevant tools, such as the ad blocker, malware protection and parental filter.
Configure Split Tunneling
Click “split tunneling” and decide which apps you want to use with the VPN tunnel. Then, click “add” to add apps.
Configure StealthGuard
Open StealthGuard and peruse the relevant options. If you choose “limit apps to VPN,” click “add” to select the designated apps.
Select a VPN protocol
By default, hide.me uses an automatic protocol, which means it chooses a random protocol based on your network. To avoid using weak protocols, we recommend setting your protocol manually. To do so, open “VPN protocol” and select your preferred protocol.
hide.me on Desktop: macOS & Windows Apps
For this guide, we experimented with the Windows apps, but most of the info applies to the macOS app as well. The Windows app is the epitome of simplicity. The main page displays only the key features and need-to-know details, such as the connection button, the currently selected location, the connection status and a menu at the bottom.
Changing the VPN location is as easy as clicking “location” in the menu or the currently selected location. This takes you to the “locations” page, with three server categories: standard, streaming and multi-hop. You can switch between these categories and scroll to find your preferred server, or use the search function to find a location by country or city name.
The servers are listed in alphabetical order by default, but there’s an option to sort them by latency. You can also add specific servers to a “favorites” list, which appears on top of the standard server list for ease of access.
When you open the “settings” page, you’ll see all the features listed in the left-hand menu. Having all the setting options in one place makes it easier to find the feature you need to configure. Every feature comes with a short explanation of what it does, which makes the VPN less intimidating for newbies.
hide.me on Mobile: Android & iOS Apps
If you’ve used the desktop app, you’ll be at home with the mobile app and vice versa, as the interfaces and menus are nearly identical. The mobile app’s main page has a connection button, a selected server location and an expandable section with the connection status and the menu at the bottom.
The “settings” options are all on one page, but there are fewer options to tinker with — advanced features like StealthGuard, port forwarding and Bolt aren’t available on mobile. One cool addition on hide.me’s mobile app is dark mode, which is helpful for users looking to minimize eye strain and fatigue.
hide.me offers native apps for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and Linux. It also works flawlessly on Android TV, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. Plus, if you don’t want to download the app on your devices, you can install browser extensions for Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
The only issue is that hide.me doesn’t offer a smart DNS feature, so you can’t install it on devices that don’t natively support VPN apps, like old smart TVs. However, you can install hide.me on DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato and AsusWRT-Merlin routers to protect such devices.
hide.me offers a generous 10 simultaneous connections, which is ideal for device-heavy households. However, in an era where providers like Surfshark and Private Internet Access (PIA) are offering unlimited simultaneous connections, hide.me’s allowance is abysmal in comparison. Free users get one simultaneous connection.
hide.me Pricing: How Much Does hide.me Cost?
90 % – Excellent
Even though hide.me isn’t on our list of the best cheap VPNs, its paid plans are affordable. It also ranks well from a cost-benefit perspective thanks to its suite of advanced features and excellent performance on the speed, security and privacy fronts.
Pricing Plan Breakdown
hide.me offers three pricing tiers: monthly, one-year and two-year plans. The monthly plan costs $9.95, which is on the higher end of the VPN pricing spectrum. Extended plans offer significant discounts — for example, the one-year plan works out to $3.75 per month.
The two-year plan will set you back $2.69 per month, making it hide.me’s best deal. hide.me used to offer 2TB of encrypted cloud storage from Internxt, but a support agent informed us that this perk has been removed. Check out our guide if you’re looking for a VPN with cloud storage.
hide.me is best known for its free plan, which offers access to servers in eight countries and one simultaneous connection. The free version used to offer 10GB of free data every month, but the provider has removed the data cap. It now offers unlimited data on the free plan, making it ideal for data-intensive activities.
In addition, each paid plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee, which gives you ample time to test the paid features risk-free.
hide.me supports several payment methods, including credit card, PayPal, Google Pay, Amazon Pay and Bitcoin.
hide.me VPN Connection Speeds
85 % – Very Good
hide.me is not the world’s fastest VPN despite its claims, but it’s not far off. During our testing, hide.me reached 94.6% and 88.1% of our unprotected download and upload speeds, respectively. The latency increased by 25 times, which is the only downside.
hide.me Speed Test Results
Nearest Server Speed Performance
Location
Download
Upload
Latency
Thika, Kenya
9.8
9.97
18
South Africa
9.8
9.91
142
hide.me’s near-distance speed is excellent. It matched our unprotected download speeds and lost less than 1% of our upload speeds. The ping rate increased seven-fold, which isn’t the worst latency increase we’ve seen.
Distant Servers Speed Performance
Location
Download
Upload
Latency
🇿🇦 South Africa
9.8
9.91
142
🇬🇧 UK
8.87
8.82
373
🇺🇸 USA
9.17
7.9
577
🇸🇬 Singapore
9.34
9.77
357
🇧🇷 Brazil
9.5
7.72
715
🇦🇺 Australia
8.94
8.54
540
Global Average
9.27
8.78
451
On long-distance connections, hide.me delivered excellent performance. Distance didn’t impact download or upload speeds. There were even instances of the farthest servers delivering faster speeds than those close to us.
For example, the Brazilian server delivered the best download speed (reaching over 96% of our unprotected speeds) despite being the second-farthest location. The fast speeds make hide.me one of the best free VPNs for Brazil. On the other hand, the U.K. server delivered the worst download speeds, even though it was our second-closest location.
All in all, hide.me delivers fast local and long-distance connections. The VPN is ideal for any speed-intensive activity, but since download speed is its forte, users looking to stream videos or download large files will benefit the most.
Notes From the Lab: Our Detailed Speed Analysis
Since hide.me isn’t part of our automated speed test, we ran the tests manually. We selected six server locations on different continents and tested their speeds on a 10 Mbps connection. We first tested our unprotected internet speeds and then tested the six locations, starting with the geographically closest one and moving farther away from our test location in Kenya.
For the tests, we used the WireGuard protocol, which is faster than hide.me’s other options. We also had Bolt activated to experience its performance-improving capabilities.
Security: Is hide.me Safe?
85 % – Very Good
hide.me stacks up well against the most secure VPNs on the market. It offers the security features you’d want in a VPN, including secure protocols and encryption ciphers. However, it’s one of the few providers that have yet to get rid of weak protocols.
Besides the five protocol options, hide.me offers a fallback configuration feature on its desktop apps. With this option, you set a primary protocol and a fallback protocol. The app mostly relies on the primary protocol, but if that fails, it automatically switches to the fallback option.
Notes From the Lab: DNS Leak Test Results
The OpenVPN, WireGuard and IKEv2 protocols hid our IP address and DNS requests in every server location we connected to. However, the VPN failed to establish a connection when using SoftEther and SSTP. These issues prevented us from testing these two protocols’ DNS protection capabilities.
hide.me’s OpenVPN, WireGuard and IKEv2 protocols passed our WebRTC leaks. As was the case during our DNS leak test, the SoftEther and SSTP protocols couldn’t connect, which prevented us from testing their WebRTC protection capabilities.
hide.me Security Issues
hide.me is generally secure, but two aspects of its VPN protocol choices worry us. First, its support of weak protocols leaves room for security lapses.
This is especially worrying when using hide.me’s automatic protocol option. In this mode, the VPN picks the best protocol based on your network. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. In fact, in most cases, the VPN tends to pick a protocol primed for optimal performance.
However, in some cases, hide.me might pick a weak protocol such as SSTP when it detects firewalls. SSTP’s SSL/TLS layers add overhead and latency to the connection and could lead to slowdowns. Worse still, the protocol has vulnerabilities that could leave you exposed.
Second, hide.me supports the SoftEther protocol, which the provider claims is one of the most powerful options. Since hide.me is vague about what makes the protocol fast and secure, we had to look for details on the softether.org website. The protocol uses six different encryption ciphers:
RC4-SHA
RC4-MD5
DES-CBC-SHA
DES-CBC3-SHA
AES-128
AES-256
Aside from AES-128 and AES-265, these encryption standards are based on broken algorithms and can be hacked. We don’t recommend using the SoftEther protocol because you don’t have control over which encryption standard it chooses.
Privacy: Is hide.me Private?
80 % – Good
hide.me adheres to a strict no-logs policy and has had no breaches or controversies related to user privacy, which strengthens its reputation as one of the most trustworthy VPNs.
Privacy Policy: Does hide.me Keep Logs?
No, hide.me doesn’t collect, store or share connection logs, browsing history, connection timestamps, websites you visit or any activity related to your VPN session. According to the privacy policy, the only information the provider gathers is your email address, which is stored in encrypted form.
The provider states that it complies with any court orders from a recognized legal authority, which isn’t uncommon. Remember that companies are required to abide by the governing laws in their jurisdiction. Thankfully, hide.me emphasizes that despite complying with court orders, it doesn’t have any information to share.
hide.me publishes a transparency report detailing the number of legal requests the provider has received since 2013. Though hide.me responded to most of the requests, it has never handed over user information because it doesn’t store any.
Defense Code Ltd. audited hide.me in 2015 and certified it as a no-logs VPN. However, this was the first and last time hide.me’s logging activity was independently audited. Given that there have been changes to the VPN’s infrastructure and privacy policy, it’s difficult to tell whether the results of the 2015 audit still hold.
hide.me is based in Malaysia, which is a favorable country in which to incorporate a VPN because it doesn’t have mandatory laws requiring VPN providers to log user data. Another plus is that Malaysia doesn’t belong to the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes or 14 Eyes alliances.
The best VPN for streaming has good unblocking ability and fast download speeds. Though hide.me has incredibly fast download speeds, it’s not one of the best streaming VPNs because it fails to unblock some popular streaming sites.
Can hide.me Unblock Netflix?
No, hide.me doesn’t unblock Netflix, as we discovered during our testing. Both the U.S. standard server and the streaming server returned a “wrong password” error, which is common on VPN services that can’t unblock Netflix.
Other Major Streaming Platforms
During our testing, we unblocked Max and Amazon Prime Video with the U.S. standard server and the streaming-optimized server. Though the U.S. streaming server got us into the Hulu library, the standard server couldn’t find a way around Hulu’s geoblocks.
The story was the same with BBC iPlayer; though the U.K. streaming server managed to circumvent iPlayer’s restrictions, the standard server couldn’t. In addition, Disney Plus geoblocks proved too tough to crack for both the U.S. standard server and the streaming server.
When we found our way into a streaming library, we watched movies and TV without lag or buffering thanks to hide.me’s excellent speeds. Some videos took longer than expected to load, but apart from that minor issue, the streaming experience was seamless.
Streaming App:
Status
hide.me VPN Server Locations
60 % – Fair
The last time we reviewed hide.me, it had servers in 75 locations worldwide. In January 2024, hide.me announced the addition of new locations across several continents, bringing the total to 82 server locations in 55 countries.
Europe is home to the majority of hide.me’s server locations, with 35 servers in 30 countries. Asia comes in second, with servers in 11 countries. hide.me’s servers are reasonably distributed, and we like to see that it covers regions like Africa and the Middle East.
Most of the countries offer a single server location. Only Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands offer city-level servers. The U.S. has the most server locations, with 16, which is music to the ears of sports fans looking to bypass sports blackouts in the country.
Global Distribution of VPN Servers
Region:
Countries
Locations
North America
3
21
South America
4
4
Europe
30
35
Asia
11
11
Africa
3
3
Oceania
2
6
Middle East
2
2
Total
55
82
Beyond the standard servers, hide.me offers other server categories:
Streaming servers: There are streaming-optimized servers in 20 countries. These servers are optimized to unblock streaming services in their respective countries.
Multi-hop (double VPN) servers: These route your traffic through two locations for an extra layer of protection. hide.me doesn’t offer preset multi-hop servers. Instead, the provider lets you pick the entry and exit servers in your preferred countries to create custom multi-hop configurations.
Fixed IP servers: hide.me offers fixed IP addresses in 31 countries. When you connect to a fixed IP server, you’ll always get the same IP address. However, the fixed IP can be shared among other users. If you want an IP address that’s exclusively yours, get a VPN with dedicated IP servers.
hide.me’s infrastructure is made up of all physical servers. This means that each server is physically located in the indicated country. Learn more in our full virtual servers vs physical servers guide.
hide.me Customer Support
95 % – Excellent
hide.me offers a knowledgebase, an FAQ section, and live chat and email support. The knowledgebase and FAQ sections are the ideal self-service support channels. The knowledgebase articles are grouped into different categories, which makes it easier to find the right guide. You can also use the search function to quickly find relevant guides.
The live chat is the fastest way to get in touch with a human agent. We used the live chat to seek clarification about hide.me’s free 2TB cloud storage with Internxt and received an answer in less than a minute.
The email is also a reliable channel to request support for issues that require human agent intervention. hide.me responds to support tickets within about 24 hours. You can create email support tickets directly from the app. Just select “support” on the settings page to create an email ticket without leaving the app.
The Verdict: Is hide.me a Good VPN Service?
hide.me is a good VPN service, but it certainly hasn’t done enough to deserve a spot in the top echelon. There are positive aspects, such as its superb speeds and suite of advanced features. The provider offers excellent privacy and can deliver top-notch security if you manually select secure protocols.
That said, hide.me has some pervasive drawbacks that require fixing. For example, its unblocking ability and server distribution need improvement. In addition, the provider needs to eliminate the less secure protocols and make the helpful advanced features available on all platforms.
Until hide.me makes these changes, we recommend checking out some of the more consistent VPNs. NordVPN is our top choice, but worthwhile alternatives include Surfshark and ExpressVPN. You can also read our hide.me vs CyberGhost comparison.
Have you used hide.me? What did you like or hate about the VPN service? Do you think the scores in our categories accurately reflect hide.me’s performance? We’d like to hear about it in the comments. As always, thanks for reading.
FAQ: hide.me VPN Review
No, hide.me doesn’t sell data. The VPN service adheres to its strict no-logs policy and has never been in hot water for meddling with user privacy.
Yes, hide.me has a 100% free version, but it comes with usage restrictions such as limited speeds and access to servers in only eight countries.
eVenture Ltd., an IT company based in Malaysia, owns hide.me.
A well-versed writer on SaaS and tech topics, Samson Kiarie’s passion is keeping abreast of the industry’s cutting-edge practices. In his writing, he focuses on the practical aspects of software systems to create straightforward and honest reviews that inform and engage the reader. When he’s not writing about tech, Samson spends time playing soccer with his son, Jayden, in the backyard. Also, being an ardent soccer fanatic, he watches English Premier League games on Saturday and Sunday afternoons to feed his addiction to football.
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