HideMyAss Review

The limited amount of data HMA does log is aggregated and not tied to any specific user.

None of the data recorded by HMA can be used to identify you.

HMA updated its logging policy to be ‘no-logs’ in September 2019, which means that it doesn’t log any identifiable data that can be used to de-anonymise your online activity.

This logging policy was verified by reputable cybersecurity consulting firm VerSprite, following an audit of HMA’s systems in August 2020.

VerSprite awarded HideMyAss a “low-risk user privacy impact rating” — the best possible classification. Third-party security audits provide real evidence of a VPN’s activities, so you’re not forced to rely on what a VPN service claims.

The only personal information HideMyAss retains is your email address and username, which is standard practice among VPNs.

For additional privacy, we’d like to see HMA introduce untraceable payment methods such as cash or cryptocurrency. We’d also welcome the implementation of diskless RAM servers to make data extraction impossible.

You can compare HMA’s logging policy to those of other VPN services in the table below:

HMA Is Based in the United Kingdom

HMA is developed by Privax Ltd. which is currently under the ownership of Czech antivirus firm Avast.

Despite the parent company being based in the Czech Republic, Privax Ltd is still located in the UK.

Normally this would be a terrible base for a VPN provider due to its intrusive data retention laws, however, HMA’s verified no-logs policy nullifies this.

As HMA does not keep logs, there wouldn’t be anything to share with UK authorities in the event of a court order or server seizure.

Increased Trustworthiness in Recent Years

Despite previous incidents of handing over users’ connection logs to law enforcement, HMA has taken the necessary steps towards becoming a trusted VPN service.

All of the cited court orders took place over 10 years ago, under different ownership, and with a more intrusive logging policy in place.

With its now independently audited no-logs logging policy, and excellent track record in recent years, we can recommend HMA as a private and trustworthy VPN.

HMA VPN’s streaming performance is subpar, only unblocking BBC iPlayer and Disney+.

While this isn’t awful, HMA can’t compete with the top streaming VPNs. For example, NordVPN can reliably unblock US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, Disney+ and more, without any buffering.

Another drawback to using HMA VPN for streaming is its inadequate device compatibility with TV-connected devices. HMA doesn’t have an app for Fire TV and there’s no Smart DNS tool for Apple TV and games consoles.

However, there is an app for Android TV and you can install HMA on certain routers – although this process can be complicated.

HMA Consistently Unblocks BBC iPlayer

We were able to unblock BBC iPlayer using HMA’s dedicated UK streaming server, ‘Donkey Town’. It can be found within the default server list with a ‘play’ symbol next to its name.

HMA’s dedicated streaming server for BBC iPlayer worked in our tests.

Using HMA, we streamed on-demand and live content from BBC iPlayer in HD, never experiencing any buffering or drops in video quality.

We’re impressed by HMA’s consistency but we’d like to see more dedicated UK streaming servers added to reduce the demand on Donkey Town. This would alleviate any disruption caused by congestion or server downtime.

No Longer Works with Netflix

Despite success in the past, HMA has not worked with US Netflix in over a year of testing. We’ve tried all of HMA’s dedicated streaming servers across multiple devices but they all failed to unblock US Netflix. As a result, we’ve decreased HMA’s streaming rating to 0.8 to reflect its decline in performance.

All four dedicated US streaming servers failed to unblock Netflix.

Though HMA has dedicated streaming servers for the UK and Germany, we couldn’t unblock those Netflix regions either. In fact, HMA VPN doesn’t work with Netflix in any location.

If streaming Netflix is a priority for you, we’d recommend using a top Netflix VPN, like ExpressVPN, which consistently unblocks 18 different libraries.

HMA Struggles to Unblock Disney+

HMA can unblock Disney+ but it takes several attempts to work. In our latest streaming tests, we had to switch between several HMA servers until we found one that works with Disney+.

HMA’s ‘Liberty Island’ server had the highest success rate for unblocking Disney+.

For greater consistency, we’d recommend using one of our recommended Disney+ VPNs. Surfshark performed best in our testing, unblocking Disney+ on every server in its network.

HMA Doesn’t Work with Hulu or HBO Max

HMA VPN is incapable of bypassing geo-blocks on Hulu and HBO Max. This has been the case for over three years of HMA VPN streaming tests.

Using a VPN with HBO Max and Hulu have become popular activities among VPN users. We tested NordVPN with both platforms, and it worked without a hitch.

To calculate HMA’s speed performance, we connected to several HMA servers around the globe and recorded our download speed, upload speed, and ping.

Here’s a table summarizing HMA’s speed test results:

As shown above, our download speeds dropped just 5% when connected to a same-city server.

HMA’s same-city speeds are exceptional with only seven VPN services recording faster download speeds on a local connection.

The lightning connect feature is available on all HMA apps.

HMA’s impressive speed performance can be attributed to its implementation of 20Gbps servers in 2019. This has allowed HMA to narrow the gap with the fastest VPNs on the market.

HMA’s international speeds are fast but don’t rank as highly as its local speeds. We recorded an average download speed loss of 20% connecting to South Africa and 21% connecting to Australia.

You can use the chart below to see how HMA’s local and international speeds compare to the fastest VPNs:

As you can see, HMA is able to compete with the fastest VPNs on short-distance connections but its international speeds aren’t on par.

These are still impressive speed test results and more than adequate for data-intensive tasks like 4K streaming, gaming, and torrenting.

Uses Secure VPN Protocols & Encryption

HMA VPN encrypts internet traffic using AES-256 encryption. This encryption cipher is virtually unbreakable and is used across all of HMA’s apps to keep your personal data secure.

The HMA Windows app supports WireGuard, OpenVPN, and Mimic. WireGuard and OpenVPN are trustworthy open-sourced VPN protocols that securely tunnel your internet traffic.

Mimic is a proprietary protocol developed by Avast RSO. This is a close-sourced protocol and our Avast review confirmed that it is too experimental to be used. We’d recommend enabling OpenVPN or WireGuard instead.

Currently, HMA VPN’s Android app only uses OpenVPN. Though this is a secure protocol, we’d appreciate the choice of WireGuard in a future update.

Both the iOS and Mac apps use the IKEv2/IPSec protocol. IPSec is an older VPN protocol, generally less secure and more prone to vulnerabilities than OpenVPN and patched WireGuard protocols.

We’d like to see HMA VPN implement WireGuard and OpenVPN on all of its apps. This would help improve the overall security of the VPN service.

Using Wireshark, a packet-sniffing tool, we ran tests to ensure the VPN’s traffic is truly encrypted. We can confirm that HMA securely encrypted our data transfers:

HideMyAss securely encrypted our network traffic.

HMA’s Kill Switch Prevents IP Leaks

There is a VPN kill switch available for the Windows, Android, and Mac clients. This prevents your data leaking if your VPN connection drops. The Windows client also includes an application-level kill switch which allows you to select specific apps to be disconnected from the internet.

Application-level kill switches are rare among VPN services, with even top-rated VPNs such as ExpressVPN failing to provide one.

We tested HMA’s Windows kill switch using our in-house kill switch test tool:

HMA’s kill switch passed all of our tests.

HMA’s kill switch is not available on iOS devices. This is disappointing and puts your personal data at risk. We’d like to see HMA rectify this in the future.

HMA VPN Leak Test Results

We ran HideMyAss through a series of leak tests and found it leaked our IP address on iOS (due to our VPN connection dropping).

HMA’s other software didn’t suffer IP or DNS leaks, though. This is in part due to HMA’s in-built IPv4 and IPv6 leak protection.

HideMyAss also owns and operates its own private DNS servers, which ensures your browsing activity is hidden from third-parties.

The screenshot below shows how the HMA app hid our real IP address, WebRTC, and DNS requests on Windows:

HMA VPN won’t leak any of your personal data on Windows.

This makes HMA the number one choice for VPN server locations, with servers available in 195 countries and 23 territories. Essentially, HMA has servers in every single country. This is unique to HMA and isn’t matched by any other VPN service we’ve tested.

HMA’s server locations are separated into continents.

Though its geographical coverage is impressive, HMA only has 1080 servers in its network. This is far below the number of top VPNs, like PIA’s 18,651 servers, and can lead to slower connection speeds from server congestion.

Other VPN services tend to concentrate their server network in a specific area, normally the US and Western Europe. This is not the case with HMA VPN — every region is accounted for.

For example, 68% of NordVPN’s server network is located in North America and Europe compared to just 32% with HMA VPN.

We were particularly impressed to see HMA cover regions of Africa and the Middle East far better than any other VPN service available.

That said, HMA’s city-level server choices are almost entirely limited to North America and Europe:

• Australia (2)
• Canada (3)
• France (2)
• Germany (2)
• Russia (2)
• Spain (2)
• UK (2)
• US (65)

The benefit of city-level servers is less congestion and faster speeds. HMA’s choice of 65 US locations specifically helps to bypass US sports blackouts.

Like most other VPN service, HMA has put its city-level servers in the usual countries. We’d like to see city-level servers in Asia, Africa, and South America.

You can use the table below to see how HMA VPN’s server network compares to other VPN services:

HMA uses many virtual server locations

HideMyAss is able to offer servers in so many countries, because it uses virtual server locations alongside physical ones.

Unlike a ‘physically located’ server, a virtual or “fake” VPN server location provides an IP address in one country while the server is physically located in another.

The screenshot below shows that when we connected to a Kenyan HMA server, the real physical location of that server was in an Avast server park in Hallandale, Florida.

HMA’s ‘Kenyan’ VPN server is actually located in Hallandale, Florida.

Virtual locations allows HMA to assign IP addresses for geo-locations where hosting physical VPN servers is difficult (e.g. China).

However, it can lead to slower internet speeds than expected. This occurs when you’re connecting to a VPN server supposedly close to you, but it is in fact physically located far away.

To install and begin using HMA VPN, create an account on the HMA website and choose one of its pricing plans. From there, download HMA onto your preferred device and enter your login details.

For us, this entire process took around 10 minutes to complete and we didn’t encounter any issues.

On desktop, the HMA app launches a second installer following its initial download. This downloads quickly and only happens on your first time launching the HMA Windows or Mac apps.

HMA VPN hasn’t updated its app design since 2019. Despite this, its apps are still easy to use, with a streamlined and intuitive user interface.

Below is an in-depth overview of our experience using HMA VPN on every major operating system:

Desktop & Laptop (Windows & Mac)

HMA’s Windows and Mac apps adopt the same easy-to-use interface but differ in available features.

Upon launching HMA for the first time, you are given a quick tutorial on how to use the app and what its features mean. This is particularly helpful for VPN beginners.

Additionally, the side panel can be expanded at any time and contains comprehensive explanations for HMA’s advanced settings.

You can start your VPN connection by simply toggling the central button to ‘ON’. There’s no need to open your settings or server list to do this.

Once connected, you can click the ‘shuffle’ button next to your VPN IP address if you want to quickly get a new one. We like this feature but we wish the option to change VPN protocol was alongside it. It’s annoying having to open an entirely new window to do this.

HMA’s desktop apps make it easy to view all 195 server locations. VPN servers are split into categories including: continent, P2P-optimized, and streaming. You can also use the search bar to locate a specific VPN server location.

However, we don’t like how the settings open in an entirely new window and blocks the home screen of the app. It isn’t obvious that you have to close this window to return to the main app, either.

Within the app’s settings, the option to change VPN protocol is filed under ‘Advanced’ and not ‘Connection.’ This is unintuitive and may confuse VPN beginners and experts alike.

We also don’t like that you can’t resize the HMA app on Windows or Mac. This made it difficult to use the app alongside a second window, such as a torrenting client.

Mobile (iPhone & Android)

HMA’s mobile apps are easy-to-use with a sleek, uncluttered UI. You can connect to a VPN server by tapping the connect button on the home screen.

Both apps support the Lightning Connect feature (optimal location on iOS) if you want to connect quickly without a specific server location in mind.

The iOS app is the least functional of all HMA’s apps – providing almost no configurability and options.

In fact, ‘connection rules’ is the only setting and is limited to basic toggles relating to cellular data and trusted WiFi networks.

There’s no VPN kill switch, protocol selection, or split tunneling.

The Android App offers far more advanced features and configurability than its iOS counterpart. These include IP shuffle from desktop, kill switch, TCP-only mode, and split tunneling.

You can quickly access these features by tapping the tabs at the bottom of the homescreen.

We are disappointed to see that HMA hasn’t added any mobile-only features to either of its apps. There isn’t an option to switch to a dark mode interface and HMA doesn’t take advantage of any iOS or Android integrations.

The end result is apps that don’t feel optimized for mobile. Instead, HMA’s mobile apps are identical to their desktop counterparts in almost every way.

Android TV App

HMA VPN’s custom Android TV app retains the user-friendly design of its desktop and mobile apps.

You can use the Lightning Connect button to quickly connect to the nearest available server or you can choose one of HMA’s 195 server locations.

There’s a search function to make server navigation easier as well as tabs for each continent.

During our testing, we were able to stream US Netflix and BBC iPlayer directly on our TV screen without any issues.

The Android TV app runs on all Android-powered Smart TVs and streaming devices. You can also use the VPN on a Chromecast with Google TV device.

The Android TV app includes useful settings such as split tunneling, a VPN kill switch, and IP Shuffle.

We tested HMA VPN using the qBittorrent client and were able to download a torrent file without any issues.

Our bitrate remained above 9MiB/s throughout the download.

We recorded an impressive average bitrate of 9.6MiB/s, making HideMyAss faster than most VPNs for torrenting.

HMA’s speeds are partly due to its dedicated P2P servers which are available in eight locations, including both US coasts.

It’s unlikely HMA owns all of its P2P servers as the service openly rents servers from third parties. This carries some privacy and security risks as it’s trusting your torrenting activity to another party. However, HMA claims that it maintains full control over the management of its rented servers.

Additionally, HMA’s first party ownership of all its DNS servers ensures that any torrent sites you visit can only be viewed by the VPN service.

In the past, HMA suspended any user account that received a DMCA notice for torrenting copyrighted material. However, since the launch of its improved logging policy, HMA VPN no longer has a way to track your torrenting activity.

This means you can safely use HMA VPN to torrent.

If HMA VPN wants to compete with the top torrenting VPNs, we’d like to see port forwarding introduced to maximize its already fast torrenting speeds. We’d also appreciate more P2P-optimized servers to accommodate users in different parts of the world.

Although all of HMA VPN apps are easy to use, there are major differences between the operating systems. The Windows and Android apps are polished, fully-featured products, whereas the iOS and MacOS apps are more stripped-back.

Here’s a summary of the key differences between the HMA VPN apps:

10 Simultaneous Connections

Using a single HMA subscription, you can connect up to 10 devices to a VPN server at once. This is well above the industry standard and more than enough for a single user.

However, this is only available on HMA’s more expensive pricing plans, with its cheaper subscriptions capped at five devices.

If you need an affordable VPN that accommodates multiple users, we’d recommend Surfshark. It supports unlimited simultaneous connections for just $1.99 per month.

Streaming Device Support

Unlike ExpressVPN, HMA does not offer a dedicated router app. Instead you have to manually install HMA onto your router, which can be difficult, or buy a costly pre-flashed router with HMA software.

Disappointingly, HMA doesn’t offer a Smart DNS tool, so the only way to use the VPN on your Apple TV or games console is to install the VPN on your router.

Similarly, HideMyAss doesn’t have a native application for Fire TV devices. There is no Android .apk file, either, so you can’t side load it onto your Firestick. Again, the only solution is to set up a VPN router.

HMA VPN does at least have an app for Android TV. We tested HMA’s Android app and were impressed by how easy it was to use and set up.

Inaccurate & Unreliable Customer Support

For a paid service, HMA VPN has one of the worst customer support teams we’ve encountered.

The lack of new content on its website since 2021 and the fact that the copyright for HMA expired in 2022, has led us to suspect that HMA has altogether removed its support team.

Its live chat has also been discontinued, despite advertising the opposite, and multiple members of the testing team have experienced wait times of up to six months for a response from email support.

Thankfully, HMA is backed by an extensive online knowledge base, which includes detailed guides, FAQs, and even video walkthroughs.

Although, the written guides can vary in quality with one article wrongly stating that HMA only supports OpenVPN.

We were also disappointed to discover that HMA has shut down its community forum.

Supports Split Tunneling & Randomized IP Addresses

Split tunneling is available on HMA’s Android app. This lets you designate which apps enter the VPN tunnel and which operate normally without any protection.

We appreciate the inclusion of this feature but its exclusivity to Android is disappointing.

There’s also the ‘IP Shuffle’ feature, which assigns you a new IP address in the same location if your current IP is suddenly blocked. This is useful for bypassing IP bans and avoiding potential trackers.

Sadly, this feature isn’t available on iOS.

This is a poor selection of advanced features, and we’d like to see HMA add more in the future.

Technical Features We’d Like to See

Many of the technical features we expect from a premium VPN service are absent from HMA’s apps.

We suspect that no further features will be added as the HMA development roadmap has been discontinued on the provider’s website.

That said, here are some features we’d like to see added to HMA VPN if its development team is reinstated:

To close the gap on the very best VPNs, HMA VPN needs to add these features to its apps and ensure feature parity is maintained moving forward.