Hide Me VPN Review

Even if you don’t currently have a VPN, you’ve probably heard of the term before – VPNs are now a common part of the digital landscape. The acronym stands for Virtual Private Network and a VPN is a tool that can help keep your IP address and other information safe online.  

There are plenty of businesses, online criminals, and even governments who like to spy on people for all kinds of reasons. Now some of the reasons are innocent and helpful, but others are dangerous and nefarious.  A VPN is the best means of stopping them from doing this.

There are a lot of VPNs on the market these days, but in this article we’re going to look at one: Hide Me VPN.  We’ll go through it in detail so you can decide whether it suits your needs.

Overview

You might not have heard of it before – it’s not one of the more prominent names on the market – but Hide Me VPN is a great choice that’s worthy of consideration alongside any of the big names.

Security Features

Since VPNs primarily exist to keep your data and information secure, you’ll probably want to consider the security benefits of any VPN before anything else.  So, how does Hide Me VPN  do when it comes to security?

Well, the first thing to say is that it uses AES-256 encryption, which is this industry standard.  It’s also used by financial institutions and government agencies, so it’s top-of-the-line encryption.

It comes with a kill switch, as well, which is something not all VPNs can claim.  A kill switch is a setting that cuts your device’s connection to the internet in the event that the VPN stops working or loses its connection for whatever reason.

This might sound like more of an annoyance than a help, but it’s a good thing because it means that there’ll never be a time when you’re connected to the internet without the VPN’s protection.

At least, that’s how it works in theory.  However, our tests showed that the kill switch isn’t the most reliable.  At times, we received error messages telling us that it couldn’t be enabled, which is disappointing. 

It also includes a split tunneling option, allowing you to send some of your traffic through the VPN while keeping the rest unsecured.  This allows you to keep the important stuff safe, while still allowing you to keep speeds up.

The VPN also doesn’t collect any troubling logs (i.e. information about the way you use your VPN).  It’s also based in Malaysia, a country safely outside the jurisdiction of the Five Eyes/Nine Eyes/Fourteen Eyes intelligence sharing alliances. 

These countries share intelligence and can request information from companies within their jurisdiction about their users, which is bad for privacy.  Since Malaysia is outside their reach, your information is safer.

Streaming

One of the other reasons that people often choose to use VPNs is because they can be used to circumvent region-locking restrictions. 

You’ve probably encountered restrictions like these before – if you subscribe to Netflix, for example, you’ll have noticed that the library in your country is different from the library available elsewhere. 

A VPN is the easiest way to get around this and allow you to watch whatever content you like, wherever in the world you happen to be.

Not all VPNs are created equal, however, so how good is Hide Me VPN at doing this?  As it turns out, pretty good indeed.  We had no trouble using it to unlock various Netflix libraries, as well as other streaming services like Hulu, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, and several others besides.  

In fact, of all the services we attempted to access, there were none that we had trouble with (at least not when using the paid version of the VPN – this doesn’t apply to the free version).

Speeds

Of course, being able to unlock all the streaming services in the world won’t do you much good if you can’t get good enough speeds to watch anything on them without hours of buffering.  

Any VPN will drop your speeds a little bit, because the encryption processes that keep your information safe don’t happen instantly.  However, we’re pleased to say that we got very respectable speeds from Hide Me VPN in our tests.  

What’s particularly impressive is that we were able to keep great speeds even when we connected to servers a long way away from our actual physical location – this is something that usually drops the speed by a lot.  We were still able to stream TV and movies in HD, though, which is a real achievement.

The ping (latency) was also pretty low, meaning that this VPN would be a suitable one to use while online gaming.

Servers

The VPN offers 2000 servers spread across 46 countries.  There are other VPNs that offer more than this – up to 7000 or more in some cases – but 2000 is more than enough, especially for a VPN that’s much less well-known than the big names.

This is important because usually, servers that are close to your physical location will offer you better speeds, and having a larger number of them naturally makes it more likely that you’ll have multiple servers close to you.

It also makes it less likely that servers will slow down due to overuse. You might find that some distant servers slow you down a bit, but it’s better on that score than a lot of other VPNs.

Europe and North America are well-represented, as is usually the case with VPNs.  There are fewer servers in Africa and South America, though Asia is somewhere in the middle.

Subscription Plans And Pricing

There are three different subscription packages available for the paid version of the service.  These are one month, one year, and two year subscriptions. Aside from the price and duration, these are the same – there are no features possessed by one and lacked by another.  

This means that the two-year subscription represents the best value for money overall, since it is the cheapest on a month-by-month basis, despite representing the highest overall outlay.  

Whichever of these three you go for, you’ll get the ability to use the service on up to ten devices simultaneously, which is a fair way beyond the average.  It’s probably more than you’ll need, although some services allow unlimited devices. 

With the free version, you’ll only be allowed one connection.  

The paid versions allow you to use unlimited data per month, as is standard with any good VPN.  The free version limits this to only 10 GB, which won’t be enough for sustained use.  

As mentioned earlier, the free version also offers substantially fewer accessible servers than the premium version, making it less reliable.

The prices for the paid version are reasonable – neither particularly expensive nor notably cheap.  That said, make sure to keep your eyes open for special deals.  These can often change, but you might be able to get a better price if you catch one.

Free Trial

While there is no free trial of the VPN available, there is in fact a free version of it, as mentioned above.  There is also a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is fairly generous compared to a lot of other VPNs, some of which will only offer a few days or a week.

This means you still have plenty of wriggle room if you hand over your money and want to back out.

Payment Options

The company accepts payment from major cards, like MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. Other options include bank transfer, PayPal, and also Bitcoin, as well as many other cryptocurrencies.

The ability to pay with crypto is a nice touch, as it adds an extra layer of security for those who don’t want to leave any kind of electronic trail.

Platforms

The service acquits itself well here, as well.  It has native apps for a wide range of platforms.  Naturally, this includes the big four – Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS, but several others too.  It also caters for users of Linux, Amazon Fire TV, and others. 

You can also set it up on your router, so that any device connected to that router will be able to use its benefits.  There are also guides for setting it up on other devices.

Customer Service

You’ll be pleased to hear that Hide ME VPN offers excellent customer support.  This includes not only a wealth of videos and guides online that can walk you through the setup process and different aspects of the VPN’s functionality, but also a 24/7 live support function.  We found the responses to be knowledgeable. 

Even better, all of this applies equally to the free version as well as the paid version.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Hide Me VPN is a very high quality choice on the VPN market, despite not having nearly as high a profile as the big players like ExpressVPN or NordVPN.  

It offers a reliable security profile, impressive speeds, and an attractive list of subscription choices.  If you’re looking for a VPN, Hide Me is a very solid choice.