What Is a VPN?When you point your browser to a particular website, you're actually sending a request through the Internet to the server where the website is stored. It responds with the information you requested, which is displayed on your screen. All along this trip, others can intercept your requests, or simply watch what you're browsing and (potentially) hear what you're saying online. Most of the time it's a question of advertisers trying to monitor your behavior for targeted ads, but attackers might also be lurking on the network to steal your personal information, your passwords, and who knows what else.
A VPN is designed to guard against all that. When you connect to a VPN, you're creating an encrypted tunnel between yourself and the VPN's server. Your request is relayed from the server to whatever site or service you're trying to reach, and the information travels back along the encrypted tunnel. Your IP address is hidden, since anyone watching traffic on websites will see the IP address of the VPN server. Your information is also protected, because the encrypted tunnel makes it very difficult for an advertiser, an attacker, or even a three-letter agency to snoop on your traffic.
The most obvious place to use a VPN is when you're away from your home network—at a hotel when you're traveling, for example, or perhaps at the local coffee shop's public Wi-Fi. Unsecured networks like these are a favorite of attackers looking to swipe your personal information. VPNs are also a key tool for journalists and political dissidents operating in countries with oppressive Internet policies.
But VPNs can be fun, too. I know that sounds like a stretch, but it's true. A VPN can spoof your current location, giving you access to geographically restricted content like BBC streaming or MLB TV. Some VPNs don't appreciate these activities (which may be in violation of terms of service or even laws) and content providers such as Netflix are cracking down on users that spoof their location and the VPN services they use to do it.
Pricing and FeaturesIf you're looking to try out Hide My Ass before you buy it, you're out of luck. The service does not offer a free version or a free trial. If you're in need of a great free VPN, you can always try a free VPN instead.
Hide My Ass does, however, have a 30-day money-back guarantee and offers loyalty rewards for convincing others to sign up. That said, it costs $9.99 a month, putting it on the higher end of VPN services. Editors' Choice winner KeepSolid VPN Unlimited costs only $4.99 a month—or as little as $1.99 a week on a short-term contract.
If you're the commitment type, you can get a Hide My Ass subscription for $39.96 for six months or $59.88 per year. Those are decent prices for those durations, but it's worth noting that some VPN services like KeepSolid VPN Unlimited offer lifetime plans, if you're looking for long-term protection.
To buy a Hide My Ass subscription, you can use credit cards, PayPal, wire transfer, e-check, UnionPay, Diner's Club, or Cash at 7-11. You can also use gift cards from stores like Starbucks or GameStop. Using these will make your payments semi-anonymous. What you can't use is cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which are accepted by many VPN services like Private Internet Access, NordVPN, and others.
Unfortunately, the service's steep price seems even higher, given the stingy number of devices it lets you protect per license. Hide My Ass only lets you connect two devices to the service, and only when those devices are connected to different servers. That's fine if you just have a computer and phone, but plenty of folks have several devices and probably share them with family members, too. Most other services, like Editors' Choice winner Private Internet Access VPN, offer at least five licenses without restriction.
There is one limited way around the restrictions, however. If you want to protect all the devices on your network, you can use Hide My Ass's handy guide for installing VPN software on your router. Installing VPN on a router means that every single device on your network—from your laptop to your smart fridge—gets the benefit of VPN. Other companies, like TorGuard VPN, offer routers and even streaming boxes like the Apple TV with VPN preinstalled.
One of the most notable aspects of Hide My Ass is the sheer number of servers it offers. With over 100,000 available IP addresses spread across 900 servers in 300 locations covering nearly every country on the globe, you'll have no trouble finding a server that meets your needs. This is really remarkable, since several of the best VPN services leave out huge swaths of the globe, especially Africa, Central America, and South America. Hide My Ass has these regions—and the rest—covered. That said, Private Internet Access has the most servers of any service I've yet reviewed, at more than 3,000.
Despite its impressive geographic coverage, Hide My Ass has nothing in the way of specialty servers. Editors' Choice winner NordVPN, on the other hand, has a specific server type for high-speed video streaming, another that routes your VPN connection through the Tor network, others for p2p file sharing and BitTorrent, and yet another that provides double encryption.
Beyond these basic features, Hide My Ass doesn't have much to offer. You can change your IP address from the system tray, but the old version of the app had a tool that changed your IP address at set intervals. Other services, like Private Internet Access and Spotflux Premium, offer ad and tracker blocking, but Hide My Ass does not. If you need these kinds of advanced features, or even just the ability to change which VPN protocol to use, you'd best look elsewhere.
Hands OnThe Hide My Ass VPN Android app has a bright, colorful design that has finally made it to the Windows app. I had no trouble installing the Windows version on my Lenovo ThinkPad T460, which runs Windows 10.
The app presents three scenarios to help you get online quickly. The first is Instant Mode, which simply looks for the fastest, closest server and connects you. This is great for day-to-day use, and will likely reduce the impact of the VPN connection on your Web browsing experience. It's a great feature, but I wasn't able to connect to the Hide My Ass server in Manhattan for reasons unknown.
The second is Location Mode, which lets you select whatever server you desire. You can search the extensive list by country or city, and save favorite servers, too. To get online, I searched for a New York server and selected one in Albany. The fast server selection of Location Mode is very handy, but doesn't offer specialty servers or information about the traffic load on the servers. You're on your own. IVPN and NordVPN, among others, provide stats about each server to help you decide.
The third and final mode is Freedom Mode. Click it, and you'll be connected to a VPN server in what Hide My Ass calls the "closest free-speech country." When I tested the feature in my Manhattan corner office, it connected me to a server in Montreal.
Netflix Via VPN?People looking to access region-locked content with Hide My Ass might have a hard time doing so. While connected to an Australia-based VPN server, I wasn't able to load programs on Netflix. The streaming service failed to load when connected to a New York server, too. Other services may or may not work with Hide My Ass, but it's worth noting that Netflix is one of the most aggressive when it comes to blocking VPN users. NordVPN, on the other hand, has stated that it will work to ensure that subscribers will be able to access Netflix over VPN.
Speed TestNo matter the VPN service you use, your connection will be slower when the VPN is switched on. But not all VPNs have the same effect on your Internet experience. To test this, I compare the average results from both speedof.me and Ookla's speedtest.net to find the percent change between the VPN being on and off. (Note that Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, which also owns PCMag.) Because networks are notoriously fickle things, I take the baseline measurements immediately after testing VPN speeds.
For my first test, I select a VPN server in Australia or as geographically distant from my current location as the service offers. Using the Ookla speed test tool, I select a test server in Fairbanks, Alaska. The test is meant to be difficult, mimicking using a VPN while far afield.
Hide My Ass delivered very middle-of-the-road latency results. I found that it increased latency by 270.4 percent, which is only slightly slower than when I last tested the service. PureVPN currently has the best latency test score, increasing latency by only 188.8 percent.
On the download test, Hide My Ass slowed download speeds by 23.1 percent. That's a fairly average result, but there are several VPN services that actually improve download speeds when connected to international servers. PureVPN had the most noticeable impact, yielding download speeds 166.6 percent faster than my baseline measurements. That's a tough act to beat, and no service has yet come close.
Upload speeds are always tricky for VPNs and Hide My Ass is no different. In this round of testing, the service slowed uploads by 34 percent, which is a slight improvement since the last time I looked at the service. NordVPN has the least impact in this test, slowing uploads by only 31.1 percent.
Most people, however, will probably prioritize speed over an international connection. That's why I use the speedof.me tool while connected to a local VPN server. Speedof.me automatically selects the closest test server, which is usually in New York state. I usually let the VPN client choose the best server if the option is available, but for some reason I could not connect with Hide My Ass's Manhattan server, and I connected to a VPN server in Albany instead.
Connected to a local VPN server, I was surprised to see that Hide My Ass increased latency by 29 percent. That's a far cry from IPVanish, which increased latency by only 4.2 percent—the best score I've yet seen in this test.
I was very happy to see Hide My Ass perform so well in the download test in this configuration, where it slowed downloads by only 3 percent. It's the best result I've yet seen for this test, but that could easily change.
Hide My Ass comes very close to having the best upload score as well, reducing upload speeds by only 1.3 percent. But PureVPN actually improved download speeds by 4.7 percent.
Of course, these numbers don't really do justice to the hands-on experience. Latency time, for example, is measured in milliseconds. VPNs slow things down, but most are entirely tolerable, and I found the same with Hide My Ass. If anything, it felt zippier than many other services I've tested. When connected to a local server, even media-heavy pages loaded quickly.
Conceal My DonkeyWith its tongue-in-cheek name and friendly, colorful interface, Hide My Ass has amassed quite a following. The number of VPN servers offered by Hide My Ass and its impressive speed-test scores show that the app is more than just a pretty face: It's a solid competitor.
If you're new to VPNs and are looking for something simple and attractive, it's hard to beat Hide My Ass. But if you're looking for advanced features or extended capabilities like specialized servers, Hide My Ass comes up short. It's also not hard to beat Hide My Ass in terms of price. That's why I recommend users also look at our Editors' Choices, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, and KeepSolid VPN Unlimited.
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