HideIPVPN Review

The internet is becoming a more and more volatile place every single day. If you’re the type of user who needs an effective VPN for his browsing practices, you know that trying to find a decent VPN can be difficult.

Today, we’re going to help you out by giving you the low-down on HideIPVPN in this review. This is a VPN provider paired with Smart DNS, providing a broad range of services. Their main focuses are on IP hiding, online privacy, high speeds, and good geo-blocking bypass features.

HideIPVPN is a relatively safe option, employing two types of high-level encryption in order to protect your browsing. Despite its range of privacy features, HideIPVPN retains a good network speed due to its focus on delivering high-quality security without compromising connection quality.

Their prices are standard, with options for monthly, annual, and biannual subscriptions. HideIPVPN also has free trials available for both the VPN client and the SmartDNS service. Another interesting quality about HideIPVPN’s price structure is that they offer a range of prices based on where in the world you are, as well as a specialized BitTorrent VPN option.

HideIPVPN has apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Another cool thing that stands out about HideIPVPN is that their service is designed to unblock Netflix in other countries, as well. In addition to this functionality, HideIPVPN announced in 2009 that their premium VPN plans would be designed with software meant to bypass China’s Great Firewall.

These are the main aspects of HideIPVPN and we’ll go more in-depth further below in this HideIPVPN review.

Is HideIPVPN safe to use?

HideIPVPN uses two separate encryptions, AES 256 and RSA 4096. These are both robust encryptions that would take an inordinate amount of time to crack with today’s computing capabilities, ensuring you have a layer of powerful encryption between your data and any malicious agents.

HideIPVPN goes in-depth on their website about which protocols are the best for use with different VPNs, stating that WireGuard, OpenVPN, or SoftEther are your best choices. Customers now have a selection of seven different tunneling protocols in total:

• WireGuard
• IKEv2
• OpenVPN
• SoftEther
• L2TP
• PPTP.
• SSTP

It’s worth noting that you’ll need to manually configure WireGuard through an external app. You can find the details about the advantages and disadvantages of each protocol here.

When we performed a leak test to see if the VPN leaked any sensitive information, we found that although the HideIPVPN did not leak DNS information, it was vulnerable through IPv6. This is fairly standard when it comes to free options, and it may be different depending on the different protocols and locations used by HideIPVPN.

HideIPVPN also includes an effective kill switch for breaking your connection or closing specific programs when the VPN stops working. This is an important feature to go along with HideIPVPN’s other security features, as you may be using their service to hide activity that may land you in hot water.

The company is located in the USA and Moldova. They have 29 servers across 11 countries. Being based in the US puts them in the Five Eyes jurisdiction, which can be bad news for people using VPNs for sensitive activities. This means that data collected on your activity by the US government can be shared with the Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and UK governments as well.

While HideIPVPN promises not to log any of your data, they still promise to take measures to curb illegal activity is detected through their services. Their privacy policy also notes that they “store the name of your internet service provider, the website from which you visited us from, the parts of our site you visit, the date and duration of your visit, and information from the device (device type, operating system, screen resolution, language, country you are located in, and web browser type) you used during your visit.”

These are pretty standard things for the VPN to track in order to function. Additionally, there’s only a three-month retention period, after which the data is deleted.

Speed & performance

HideIPVPN recently added the lightning-fast and open-source WireGuard tunneling protocol to its suite. However, it isn’t available on the dedicated app yet. Instead, you’ll need to download configuration files and set them up with the WireGuard app. The process is pretty simple and we went through with it to test HideIPVPN’s speed in a number of locations.

Please remember that these results aren’t definitive and can be influenced by a wide number of variables. My baseline connectivity without a VPN resulted in 438 Mbps download speed and 361 Mbps upload speed. You can check out the full details in the table below.

Overall, performance was all over the place and varied quite a bit, yet did not dip too low to make it noticeable. For example, I was surprised that the German server performed slower than servers in the US. This discrepancy could be attributed to the fact that there’s only one German option available, while there are five US servers to choose from.

Another pleasant surprise was when connecting to Australia. Usually, VPNs perform quite poorly in this region, but HideIPVPN did not disappoint. Even connections to Singapore were pretty satisfactory.

In conclusion, it appears that it might take some switching around between the available servers if you’re after peak performance. Obviously, servers closer to your location will yield excellent results. Luckily, even further regions had great connections that are suitable for streaming or torrenting. This makes HideIPVPN a solid and fast VPN option.

How to download and install HideIPVPN

HideIPVPN uses a similar design and layout on their website compared to other VPNs.

Their design is fairly standard, and the website has a lot of bite-sized, accurate information on how VPNs work and how HideIPVPN can accomplish these tasks for you.

There’s also a blog that is accessible for users, providing accurate and interesting articles and updates on VPNs, how they work, and how HideIPVPN is progressing as a company. If you just want to get right into downloading the client, navigate on over to the pricing area via the button near the top-center.

The pricing page goes into detail about their different plans, but there’s a link for a free trial if you scroll down a bit. The client will ask you to register and receive login information through your email. This is a kind of tedious little step, but it’s nothing too major.

One interesting thing that users will notice is that once you actually download the installer, it installs the entire client automatically, in under a minute. No need for you to agree to any terms or even hit “Next”. This is nice for users who might like simplicity, but it might be a red flag for users who like to have more control over the particulars of the installation process.

How to use it

Using the client itself is fairly straightforward – HideIPVPN runs in a quaint little window, with a big “Connect” button to start the VPN, and a drop-down menu to choose your location. The client minimizes to the system tray if you close it, and it has sections with settings to control the app killer or request support.

The setting page allows you to choose login options, minimization options, toggle DNS leak protection, as well as other goodies. The cool thing here is that HideIPVPN allows you to choose your VPN protocol from a drop-down menu.

Apps & extensions

HideIPVPN supports Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. There aren’t any major red flags about any of their apps, and they also provide free alternatives for Windows, iOS, and Android.

It’s always nice when a company offers free versions. Although HideIPVPN’s coverage is good, they don’t have support for smaller platforms such as Amazon Firestick. A good thing to keep in mind, as well, is that HideIPVPN’s client only supports connections from up to three devices, which is more limited than some other VPN services.

HideIPVPN and Netflix

The good news is, HideIPVPN is great for unblocking Netflix. The company actually mentions this on their website and encourages users to use their services for accessing Netflix programming not available in their own country.

Our own tests for HideIPVPN have shown that it is, in fact, able to unblock Netflix US content with no problems.

Using HideIPVPN for torrenting

Torrenting is allowed and, in fact, encouraged by HideIPVPN, who claims that their client is effective at safeguarding your torrenting practice from prying eyes. Since torrenting has become a more and more volatile activity over the last little while, this is a nice assurance to get.

That being said, HideIPVPN allows torrent traffic on certain servers, such as:

• Germany
• Netherlands
• Luxembourg
• Lithuania

What about China?

In 2009, HideIPVPN announced that it had made changes to their service that would allow Chinese users to bypass the Great Firewall, as well as solve the DNS spoofing problem that plagued some of their Chinese clientele.

The client approaches this problem by giving users access to settings that, unfortunately, are only offered with their premium subscriptions.

They actually added additional configuration options that will allow Chinese users to safely and effectively bypass the Great Firewall.

It’s difficult to find information on whether or not HideIPVPN works in other restricted areas, but they have this article on the topic, which encourages users to use the client in certain areas of the world.

Support

HideIPVPN offers extensive passive support on their website, which takes the form of comprehensive FAQ pages and blog articles about various VPN topics. They also offer direct support through a ticket system.

Although it can be a bit of a pain to have to file a ticket in order to speak to a support representative, their actual customer support reviews show pretty good customer satisfaction in this regard.

Pricing

HideIPVPN has an interesting price structure focused on different areas of the world. This is nice if you don’t want to pay a standard fee when you only want to cover a small area to connect from. There are also options specifically for torrenting, which protect users intending to use the VPN for peer-to-peer file sharing.

• The 24 month plan is their best-selling option at $2.59/month
• The monthly plan is for $6.99/month
• The annual plan costs $3.99/month

Another good thing to note is that HideIPVPN accepts payment through all major methods, including PayPal and Bitcoin.

There is also a free trial available for their premium service, as well as free versions of their VPN for Windows, iOS, and Android.

The bottom line

HideIPVPN is a very versatile host with good price points for what you get. They don’t have any package deals for teams of people, and their renewal pricing is much more standard than their discounted startup prices. Still, the protection you get is reliable, and the company can provide you with excellent coverage for exactly what you need. So far the only downside with HideIPVPN is customer support, but that’s rarely a dealbreaker for tech-savvy users.

All in all, HideIPVPN is a relatively comprehensive option for achieving privacy with a specialized plan. While it’s not breaking any ground just yet, it’s a solid option if you’re looking for a less-known and performative option.