Background Avantgate Hidemyass

Hide My Ass! (HMA!) Is a UK-based firm, with Its claim to fame being its massive number of readers — it has over 400 million now. This supplier has seen its share of controversy with respect. It recently made upgrades in the hopes of winning back the loyalty of its readers and redeeming itself support to it. Avantgate Hidemyass

We took it For a test run to find out how much it’s improved and if it’s well worth the money.

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What Is a VPN?

When you activate a VPN, it generates an encrypted tunnel to Protect your data as it passes from your computer to a server. From there, your info exits onto the net that is open. It is a simple idea, but one with enormous consequences to security and your privacy.

It prevents anyone lurking Community from intercepting or observation your activity. While the airport or coffee shop Wi-Fi network appears safe (it might even be password-protected) it’s not reallysecure unless you’re using a VPN. For another thing, a VPN can stop your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from gathering information about your online activities so it could sell anonymized user information to the maximum bidder.

A VPN also makes it Challenging to correlate your Online activities together with your own identity. Since your traffic is exiting from the VPN company’s server, you seem to have its own IP address, effectively hiding your true location. It also forces even the most determined attacker to test and sort through all of the visitors from other users on the same VPN server to obtain what they are after. For all these reasons, and much more, you need a VPN in your lifetime.

Be aware that a VPN only encrypts your traffic till it exits through the VPN server. Provided that the site your data should be protected all the way along its journey. Additionally, while VPNs can offer a modicum of anonymity, a tool like the Tor network is much better at hiding your identity.

VPNs have long been used by journalists and activists To circumvent censorship in countries with repressive net policies. They are also useful if you are looking to circumvent geographical constraints on streaming content. A VPN can spoof your current location, providing you with access to geographically restricted content like BBC streaming or MLB TV. Some VPNs do not enjoy these activities (which might be in violation of terms of support or even local legislation ) and content providers like Netflix are also cracking down on users who snore their place and the VPN providers they utilize to perform it.

There is a good chance That you might have never laid hands on a VPN before. Do not worry if that’s the case! We have got a whole feature about the best way best to prepare and use a VPN. Avantgate Hidemyass

VPN Protocols

There are many ways. My Preferred method employs the OpenVPN protocol, which is famous for its speed and reliability. Additionally, it is open-source, and consequently has been picked over for potential vulnerabilities by anyone with the interest to do so.

Hide My Ass uses OpenVPN on Windows, with an older version That supports L2TP, and PPTP, also. Additionally, there are two different versions of the macOS app that, taken together, support IPSec (IKEv1 and v2), L2TP, and PPTP. Note that these old versions of this app have been phased out from the programmer. The iOS version uses only IPSec, and the Android app uses only OpenVPN.

That’s a Small hodgepodge, and I am frustrated that Hide My Ass does not provide OpenVPN on all platforms. Nevertheless, some of the matter is with the programs. Apple requires developers to jump through extra hoops if they wish to include OpenVPN in a program, but many are beginning to move in that way. I’d like to view Hide My Ass do the same, across the board.

Your Privacy With Hide My Ass

With any safety item, you want to be sure that the Company behind it’s going to be working on your best interests. This is particularly true for VPNs, which are intended to improve privacy and safety. If a VPN business is just as nosey as your ISP, there is not much point in using it.

While I examine VPNs, ” I read the Organization’s privacy policy And talk with representatives in order to better understand how your data is stored and used. In the instance of Hide My Ass, the company ought to be praised on its privacy policy. It states Hide My personal logs your own username, the timestamp of connection and disconnection, the number of information transmitted, your actual IP address, and the IP address of the server you linked to. This isn’t radically different from what is offered by other services. In fact, it’s quite like Golden Frog VyprVPN’s policy.

What is noteworthy is that Hide My Ass Will store this information for two to three weeks, while VyprVPN shops it for just 30 days. Other services hold less information, or else they eliminate it immediately. Hide My Ass states it retains this data for this particular time period so as to improve performance, prevent fraud, and stop bad guys from using the VPN to send spam. The organization, notably, also lists file sharing among the illegal actions it takes this information to stop, despite the company being fine by means of BitTorrent on certain servers.

It May be possible that this advice could be used To correlate a user’s identity to particular activity on the internet, but it would probably be very difficult. In spite of this information, an observer would have to know which VPN server to watch then compare this action from Hide My Ass’s logs, and have the ability to parse out the target’s visitors from everybody else using the same server.

The Hide My privacy policy also clearly states that it Doesn’t monitor or store the real content of your online activity. So, the service isn’t looking at your sites or the documents that you are downloading. That’s great, and just what you want to hear by a VPN company.

Before, some VPN companies monetized users by Injecting ads into their internet traffic. Hide My Ass states it doesn’t do that, and goes much farther. A business representative explained to me that the firm doesn’t profit from user data in any way.

The actual place of a VPN company also matters, as it Can notify what protections are given to clients. Hide My Ass works under the jurisdiction of England and Wales, also has its business headquarters in London. Notably, the UK at does have mandatory data retention legislation. That is not perfect. Many other VPN providers operate in countries without data retention laws, or in ones that have favorable privacy protections for customers. Avantgate Hidemyass

I don’t think it is likely to make a decision Concerning the advantages of a company based solely on its place. But, it is important to comprehend policies and the laws on the job in a company with this kind of intimate access. I encourage visitors pick a VPN service, and to consider this advice.

Servers and Server Locations

A key differentiator between VPN services is the amount of Servers that are available and their geographical distribution. A great deal of servers means you are more likely to find. For its part, Hide My Ass has a very commendable servers at its disposal. Nevertheless, Personal Internet accessibility, NordVPN, and TorGuard VPN have over 3,000 servers. These are my benchmarks for robustness from the VPN server category.

Geographic distribution of these servers is quite important. A great deal of locations means more to pick from for functions, but also ensures that no matter will always be a local server for the performance. Hide My Ass has an extremely impressive 286 server places across some 220 countries. It is easily the broadest record among the VPN services I have reviewed.

The list of accessible server locations Provided by Hide My Ass is noteworthy since it covers regions often ignored by other VPN businesses. It’s, as an example, server locations that are numerous across the continent of Africa–a rarity among VPN companies. It maintains servers in China, Russia, and Turkey, which have net policies that are repressive.

Some customers might be concerned about a company’s Use of virtual servers. These are software-defined servers that make a single physical server operate as servers that are several. Virtual servers can also be configured to act as if they are in one state when they are really in a different, which is an issue if you’re concerned about where your information is traveling.

A company representative told me that a 225 of the 286 server locations offered by Hide My Ass are all virtual servers. Only 61 of the host places are hardware, and 450 of Hide My Ass’s 876 servers are all virtual. That’s far beyond providers. NordVPN, Private Internet accessibility, TunnelBear, IPVanish, and TorGuard use infrastructure.

A company representative explained that bulk of the Firm’s physical server infrastructure is located in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Miami, New York, Prague, Seattle, and Singapore. This doesn’t quite jibe with what Hide My Ass lists on its site. I’d like to see future versions of Hide My Ass be clearer about when you’re connected to a virtual server.

Setup and interface

Getting Started with Hide My Ass! Is super simple and the upgraded programs are extremely user-friendly. You’ll be given a license key, As soon as you sign up for your own account. It is possible to use your own credentials (password and username ) to log into any program. For the purpose of this inspection, we’ve tested the Windows client as well as the iOS program. Avantgate Hidemyass

Desktop

As Soon as You’ve Launched the desktop and logged in, you will be greeted with the Success! screen. Click Got It! To get the main screen of the program. Here you have Freedom Mode: Location Mode, Instant Mode, and three options for modes.

In Immediate Mode, you can click the arrow And you’re going to be connected to the fastest server for your location.

In Location mode, that can be chosen by you You connect to. Click on Change Location to view your options. There is a drop-down list which enables you to select servers based on various criteria. We all will show you an state listing. Clicking the arrow to the left of each nation name will show you specific locations within this country.

Speedy Access shows you a list Recently connected to, in addition to some recommended choices. Streaming will provide you a selection of two servers suitable for unblocking popular streaming services such as Netflix, one at the US and one in the UK.

Peer to Peer shows You all that permit P2P filesharing. There’s the Favorites option; to mark a server you can click the heart to the right of the server name.

Going back To the main display, the one other option here is Freedom Mode, that is targeted at users who wish to bypass censorship. This mode will connect you to a host in the nearest country that’s deemed to be free of censorship.

You can Access the Settings by clicking the menu icon in the top left-hand corner of the main screen and selecting Preferences. Here, you’ll find three tabs: General, Network Security, and Kill Change. In the Generalscreen, you can change your startup options, like starting if the app starts or when you turn on your pc.

Additionally you Have a Personal Privacy section housing one alternative that relates to Quick accessibility in Location Mode. You can uncheck the box, if you want to conceal your history.

Next, We have the Network Security screen in which you may select settings for wifi protection that is automatic. It is also possible to turn on the IP shuffle feature which makes it harder for someone to detect where you are by periodically changing your IP address. One option in this screen allows you to utilize TCP with OpenVPN. This is only recommended if UDP is blocked or throttled. TCP is more secure, but UDP is typically faster.

The Tab will be the Kill tab, where you are able to toggle on this feature so that it works for all applications. You decide whether to apply it to people and can add applications.

This Is a program that is robust and it is definitely both aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-use.

Mobile

Many Providers will have a mobile app that is unrecognizable compared to the desktop version. However, HMA! Has streamlined its product, and also the iOS app looks nearly identical to the Windows version.

Once you’re Logged in, you’ll get to the display, which is essentially exactly like the primary screen in the desktop program. Here you can choose from Location Mode Instant Mode, or Freedom Mode.

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The Only real difference is that if you select Location Mode, your options are presented in a different manner. You’ve got three tabs: Countries, Cities, and Favorites, but missing are the options found in the such as Streaming, Peer to Peer, and Quick Access.

To Get into the streaming servers from the app, you’ll need to visit the Cities list and locate the Liberty Island server under US, New York. Even the UK Town server can also be located on this list for access to UK Netflix and BBC iPlayer.

Moving on, The settings to the program can be retrieved by clicking the menu icon at the top left-hand corner of this screen and select Settings. There you have two choices: Personal solitude and Link Rules.

In The Link Rules segment, it is possible to correct wifi security preferences and decide whether to auto reconnect when wifi or cellular connections are interrupted.

The Personal solitude section just has 1 option: Share usage data with third parties for analytics, which is your consent to”allow app and device use data to be shared with third parties for analytics.” Bear in mind that this is permitted by default so that it may be among the first things that you want to turn off.

In General, This is a sleek and intuitive app, but many users might be missing extra features such as a kill switch and the choice to switch protocols.

Servers and performance

The Hide My Ass! Network includes over 850 servers covering more than 190 countries. A number of these are virtual servers, but a consumer support representative was unable to inform us how many. Avantgate Hidemyass

As we Discussed earlier, HMA offers many options for choosing the right server, including different modes and the ability to mark servers as favorites. Are indicated using a symbol that was P2P.

We analyzed Servers for functionality in the UK and the usa in terms of downloading, streaming, and surfing. When browsing, there were no substantial problems, besides there being an obvious slowdown in page load times when attached to a UK server. This is not uncommon for geographically distant servers (the evaluations were completed in Toronto, Canada), but could be frustrating, particularly for users who have already slow net rates.

We didn’t See any lag or buffering whilst streaming 1080p with any of the test servers and could play online games with no difficulties.

HideMyAss! and Netflix

Hide My Ass! unblocks Netflix! But do not expect to simply connect to any Server and go. When we analyzed servers that are random using US Netflix with the desktop client, we had no chance at all. But if you select the Streaming choice in the dropdown within Location Mode, then you will see two choices: a US server (USA, New York, Liberty Island) along with a UK server (UK, Donkey Town). Be aware that in the mobile program, you’ll have to find these within the Cities list in Location Mode.

Connecting Server gave us access without difficulty to Netflix. Linking to the UK one allowed entry to BBC iPlayer as well as UK Netflix. Many providers just concentrate on supplying US Netflix access, so it is refreshing to see one which strives to give entry to the UK library also. What’s more, BBC iPlayer is breaking down on VPN usage, so the capability to unblock this service is a wonderful perk.

If you are Looking for Amazon Prime Video, you might need to go elsewhere. HMA! Is having trouble unblocking this support at this time and a customer care representative informed us that there isn’t any estimated timeframe for when it may be functioning.

HideMyAss! in China?

Hide My Ass! Doesn’t work reliably in China. It used to, but HMA! Answers in service forums have suggested that the service will function for a few users. You could try your luck, but if you need a China VPN, you’d best look elsewhere.

HideMyAss! Speed test performance

For any VPN That is compatible with our test methods, we conduct speed tests which were designed to be as empirical as possible. We use a test server to connect to VPN servers in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Usa, and Germany. For every place, we download an evaluation file (50MB in size) in the US server. This is done four times per day. The typical rate for each test is listed and the data is displayed.

You can see From the easy graph below HMA! Compares to the other VPN services we’ve been analyzing. In regards to median speeds, while it doesn’t have the fastest rates, it is near the front of the pack.

By clicking on the Detailed tab, you can see that the spread in results isn’t as tight as some of the evaluation VPNs. This usually means in regards to speeds you might observe some inconsistency.

It’s Important to note that these tests aren’t definitive and may only serve as a general indication of the performance you may see. The internet’s volatility adds a substantial factor of randomness. What is more, you will likely see possibly smaller or discrepancies, and longer wait times using a slow link. Avantgate Hidemyass

Customer Services

For those who need Any help while setting up or using the service, HMA! Has a few options for you to select from. Clicking the Help tab on the website, you’ll find a Getting Started section along with also a Knowledge Base. These each house articles related to setting up questions. There’s some crossover so before searching for other options, that you might choose to explore both.

Additionally, You’ll locate a Community button which leads to a discussion section. This is segregated into various subjects; while some are active, some appear to be out of date. Under that, there are a number of general FAQs.

If you do not Find what you’re searching for, or you simply need a reply, you can click the live chat button. The service is educated and prompt, and agents were able to solve. At one stage, a representative was not able to answer some security questions and advised he’d escalate the issue. This was responded to in.

Security and privacy

Hide My Ass! Is based. The UK is also a Five Eyes (and Fourteen Eyes) country, so it is part of an alliance that enables monitoring by external authorities. Plus, it is home to the Snooper’s Charter which imposes regulations on British ISPs that impact user privacy.

For many VPNs, data retention laws in their home country aren’t really an issue. That is because they function using a real no-logs policy whereby no traffic or connection logs are kept by them. They can’t be tied to a single user, even if they do maintain link logs.

Unfortunately, HMA! Isn’t among these VPNs and contains a privacy policy which users will discover off-putting. For one, when using the service, you can expect your IP address will be logged, along with timestamps and the amount of information used. This is a big no-no for VPNs generally. The truth is that information can and has been used to track the action of individuals although an IP address is not universally considered to be information. IP addresses are used to help find and convict criminals. While we don’t condone actions that are criminal, we are pro-privacy, also this coverage simply does not cut it. Avantgate Hidemyass

Additionally, Hide My Ass! Logs the VPN IP address Connected to a session. This is the IP address when it is visited by you that a website operator can see and document. Considering both the real and VPN IP addresses are logged, between the end and VPN website logs, it might be possible to piece together each of a user’s internet activity. You might have seen news of a 2011 FBI case involving HMA! Where it handed over logs that were utilized to track a hacker down. This is a black marker for privacy.

One way to Make this less of a problem and to perhaps confuse matters a bit would be to make the most of this IP address shuffle attribute. When enabled in the Network Security screen of the desktop program, your IP address is periodically switched by this out for a different one. It wouldn’t make you untraceable but could put in a layer of obfuscation.

Privacy Problems apart, on the security front, Hide My Ass! Fares pretty well. It uses 256-bit AES encryption, which is deemed military-grade. This perfect forward secrecy and is in combination with 4096-bit RSA keys. It employs exactly the OpenVPN protocol over UDP by default, however you can switch to TCP within the client. PPTP, L2TP, IPSec are also available, depending on what program you’re using.

The versions boast a built-in kill switch which can be tailored To work for programs that are specific. The internet connection will be killed by A kill switch if the VPN connection drop for some reason. This feature is not available in the mobile programs

A live chat Customer service representative advised us that there is not any DNS leak protection. However, a different company representative assured us that there is actually DNS and IPv6 leak protection, but no WebRTC leak protection. Indeed, when the service was tested by us we didn’t observe any DNS leak issues other than leaks that are WebRTC. HMA! Whereas personal ones will be preferable from a privacy standpoint, Does utilize DNS servers that are public.

1 handy Attribute that Hide My Ass! Provides is wifi protection, which is customized at the in the Network Security part of their or the Connection Rules tab of the app configurations.

Characteristics and pricing

Hide My Ass! Provides one merchandise with prices you sign up for. It is definitely not among the cheapest services which might be an immediate turnoff for some users. A 12-month planwill put you back $6.99 per month, which can be higher than the average cost for a similar term. What’s more, a great deal of top VPN providers will offer an extended plan; for example, a two- or three-year term with discounts. Avantgate Hidemyass

If You’re not prepared to sign up only yet, HMA! Does offer a six-month plan for $7.99 a month or you could cover a monthly basis for $11.99 per month. These rates are a bit above average if you compare to competitors.

Payment Choices include PayPal credit cards, and UnionPay. Regrettably other along with bitcoin cryptocurrencies are payment methods. There is a generous 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can have your payment deducted if you’re not fully satisfied with the service.

So what do You get for the money? Hide My Ass! Has a community of more than 850 servers in over 180 countries. Some are devoted to accessing streaming websites and specific servers permit P2P filesharing (read: torrenting). All plans have unlimited bandwidth and you may connect up to five devices concurrently. Apps are available for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android. The VPN may be configured with Linux and a few routers. Pre-configured routers can be found as an alternative.

From a Security perspective, HMA! Offers perfect forward secrecy, encryption wifi security, along with the programs come with a kill button. On the other hand, the logging coverage problems that plagued the service stay, so privacy remains an issue.

Summary

For the most part, HMA! Offers a great support. It has a network of servers, infinite bandwidth, and speeds. It’s in a position to unblock popular streaming services like Netflix UK Netflix US, and BBC iPlayer. Additionally, it offers strong security, apps, and customer support.

On the Surface, it seems like HMA! Would be a good alternative for torrenters, without a information Caps and a few servers. However, the issues with the solitude Coverage are any other, as well as a concern for those seeking to torrent privacy-conscious users. Indeed, this is the only for this Provider, but it’s a big one. Other issues include the inability to operate Reliably in China and the somewhat hefty price tag. Avantgate Hidemyass

Click here to sign up for Hide My Ass! Today!