An expensive, but high quality VPN option

A few years ago, I had no idea what a VPN is was. Now, I immediately hesitate when I connect to a public WiFi network for fear of others prying eyes in my private electronic information. For those who don’t know VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if the computing device was connected to private network. VPNs were originally created to allow remote users and branch offices to access corporate resources. Several years ago, I worked with a communication company that had several private machines that connected to a VPN in order to transmit confidential material. This was before the practice of individual users were making use of VPN software. Today, there are several different options for VPN. I’ve been fortunate to be able to test out hide.me recently and while it is a little pricier than other options out there, I have to say, that I had the most consistent service with them. 

DETAILS & FEATURES

hide.me boasts that they are ‘one of the fastest VPN service providers’ in the industry. They are committed to develop applications that provide open access of the internet and protect privacy. hide.me has more than 1,400 servers in 57 different locations that are fully managed and maintained. Apps are available for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. hide.me is the first provider to offer IKEv2 VPN protocol and their service is certified to be a “no log” VPN. hide.me offers free plan with a large 2GB monthly limit. While the free option still gets you a private connection, the paid plans offer premium support and can be purchased for a little as $5.41 per month (prepaid for 2 years). 

What’s Included with Plans

• Geographically diverse network
• Best Privacy Protection
• Multiple VPN protocols
• Strong 256-bit AES encryption
• Highest possible speeds
• Apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV
• Strictly No Logs
• IP Leak Protection
• Automatic Kill Switch
• Unlimited server switching
• Split Tunneling
• Friendly Customer Support

USER EXPERIENCE

One of the first things I look at with VPN services is the cost of subscription. Most VPN services offer a ‘free’ option, but they always come with limitations. hide.me is no exception to that rule, but they have a substantially more generous free option than most other VPN providers. hide.me’s free version is fully functional and doesn’t even require credit card information to use it. Users can access five hide.me VPN server locations at one time (you can access up to 10 on a premium account) and you are limited to 2GB of data transfer per month. Other providers have stricter data limitations (i.e. TunnelBear limits free users to 500MB) or devices restrictions. In that respect, hide.me has a nice package wrapped up for users who want a free VPN.

While hide.me provides multiple platforms to use their service, I used the version for macOS and iOS. I recently went with my family on a vacation to Florida and had two very good opportunities to use the VPN service from hide.me. The first opportunity was at our motel on the island where we were staying. It was a small motel, but there were lots of other vacation rental homes nearby. The motel had a password-protected WiFi network, but the password was something that was very easy to guess. I had a few work projects and some homework to finish while we were out of town, I was nervous about connecting to this semi-secure WiFi network without a VPN. 

So, I eagerly clicked on ‘Enable VPN’ on the hide.me app and then happily surfed the internet anonymously. One of my favorite features about using the desktop version of the software is that a notification pops up when you connect that let’s you know that you are ‘anonymously connected.’ Once you receive that, you can feel free to go about your online business without worrying. When you connect, the app will automatically select the ‘best’ server to connect to. If you want to select a specific country’s server, you simply click on ‘change’ and then select the server location you want — I usually want a USA server — and wait for the app to connect. I never had any connection issues with hide.me. Every time I used it I was able to get a solid VPN connection and I never lost it unless I lost the WiFi connection. 

As I mentioned, I also used hide.me with my iPhone. While we were traveling, we found ourselves in several different tourist locations. Being in largely populated areas, again, I was nervous about keeping my information private. So, I opened up the app and got connected. It was easy and I didn’t have any issues with the connections I used. 

Many people want to continue using services like Netflix while connected to a VPN, but the provider won’t allow it. hide.me does allow it. I don’t know if the service always has, but I was able to view and watch Netflix titles while connected to the VPN. What is interesting though is depending on what country you are connected to will dictate what content you get. For example, when I was connected to a server in the Netherlands, I was able to watch Family Guy, which is not available in the US. Conversely, The Office is available in the US, but not the Netherlands. 

CONCLUSION

I really like hide.me’s VPN solution. It’s very easy to use and they have wonderful apps built up to support the service. The only real hang up I have about hide.me’s service is their pricing. They are a lot more expensive than other VPNs out there and that makes it hard to see the quality of the product. I feel like most people would look at the price of the service first and then the features of the service. hide.me’s service is well worth the cost, but it could be a barrier for some users. 

For more information, visit hide.me, Facebook, and Twitter.