HideIPVPN is one of the smaller VPN providers, but the one with an excellent reputation.
It is a company registered in USA and serves customers from all over the world. However, it is worth to note, that its VPN philosophy is somewhat different that the one represented by the largest operators. Let’s see what we discovered in our HideIPVPN review.
We have setup an account with HideIPVPN to see if they deliver what they promise and what will be our general experience with this VPN provider.
HideIPVPN Background Information
HideIPVPN entered the VPN game in the beginning of 2009. Since day one they have focused on two key points.
- They have started with standard VPN service. Today, however, they offer full package VPN + Smart DNS + proxy service with support for all VPN protocols on all their servers.
- Give customers exactly what they need for a very competitive price. Be as user friendly and personal as possible.
Since the very beginning, they were helping people out with offer of free VPN accounts.
Even these days, if you are following their social channels and blog you can still win a free Premium VPN account.
As some other VPN providers, they do not keep any logs of your VPN online activity.
Major difference between them and EU registered VPN providers is the fact that US VPN companies, like HideIPVPN are not obliged to store such logs. However, companies registered in Europe DO HAVE TO store such information, as the law requires it.
So, if you are about to choose your next VPN provider, take this under serious consideration.
HideIPVPN Free Trial And Money Back Guarantee
These days an online service without such basic promise of quality would not survive on the market. HideIPVPN delivers great quality here, both in VPN service itself and in the trial offering.
First, you can go for full Premium VPN + Smart DNS trial.
Registering for this option gives you 24 hours of unlimited access to their best and most comprehensive package. You can test all their VPN servers, their VPN/Smart DNS applications for different systems and of course, Smart DNS service itself, which we must say works excellent!
Your second choice and again, we need to say it is very interesting, is choice of Smart DNS service only. The reason for this is that with HideIPVPN you can buy either VPN with Smart DNS service included in the package or Smart DNS only, with no VPN access.
If you will register for Smart DNS trial, HideIPVPN will give you whole 7 days of unlimited access.
In both cases, all you need to register for free trial is just an e-mail address as no payment details (like credit or debit card) are required.
Add to this 30-day money back guarantee and we have a superb offer that builds trust in the company.
Interface And Setup
As we have mentioned above, HideIPVPN offers free VPN applications for different platforms. Similar to other companies, you will be able to download a client for Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android.
They are all very easy to setup and use. Also, we like the fact that they look very similar. That means switch from one platform to another is smooth and easy.
VPN client for windows or Mac offers few features that we would like to point out as very useful and cool to be present (see Features section).
But before we get to that we need to say, that regardless of the platform used their apps were super stable, fast, and super easy to use.
Once downloaded either from their website or app stores with just few clicks you are good to go. All you need is your login and password.
After that all you need to do is to choose the country you want your IP address from and server itself.
Depending on the platform you will use, you will also have a choice of using different VPN protocols.
Important not though. HideIPVPN software for MacOS and Windows will also allow you to use their Smart DNS service.
This is very useful if you want to take your laptop away from your home network (where we suggest to change DNS settings on your home router). This way with just few clicks you can use the full, unblocking potential of the Smart DNS service they provide.
Overall, we like how both mobile and desktop applications work and look.
Those of you, who are a bit more advanced and who want to keep control will find detailed instructions of manual VPN setup for all available systems.
HideIPVPN Review Pricing And Plans
HideIPVPN offers 5 different VPN plans and Smart DNS as a separate service. It is very easy to find out what each plan stands for.
# VPN & Smart DNS
This is their top of the range plan, the one they recommend, as it includes access to 100% of all HideIPVPN features and services. It starts at $5.83/a month (if paid yearly) and goes up to $9.99 with monthly billing cycle.
This plans includes access to all 29 VPN servers located in USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Poland and Netherlands. You can use streaming, torrents, P2P and unblock any website and service available in those countries. Of course, you can use all VPN protocols as well as proxy servers in all locations and Smart DNS service.
If you do need such a big plan, you may choose more specific VPN packages. They are as follows:
#US VPN; #UK VPN, #Poland VPN and #P2P/BitTorrent VPN
All cost the same, starting at $3.33/month (in yearly billing cycle) and go up to $5.99 with monthly billing cycle.
As you can imagine there are some differences between those plans.
US VPN & UK VPN offer access to VPN servers in US or UK only. In both countries, you can use one of 9 VPN servers available. Access to proxy servers is of course present. Smart DNS service included in those plans will be restricted to US or UK only.
Poland VPN is a bit more restricted as it offers only two servers in the package, access to proxy as well as Smart DNS service, again restricted to Poland.
We have asked HideIPVPN why only 2 servers in this plan? Their answer is quite logic. They say that at present, those servers cope fine with the demand for bandwidth and number of customers. If the demand will grow they will add new servers. As they wish to keep the price competitive adding more servers that would not be used would mean splitting the higher cost over existing customers.
#P2P/BitTorrent plan
As the name suggests this plan was designed for torrent and P2P users. It offers access to 8 VPN servers. 5 VPN servers in Netherlands and 3 in Germany. You can use torrent traffic without any limitations in complete safety and anonymity provided by VPN servers.
Proxy servers are also included in this plan but not Smart DNS service. Presumably because there aren’t any interesting streaming sites in those locations.
HideIPVPN Payment Options
Payment options list look good, all the ones you’d want to use are present. That means you can pay via PayPal, Bitcoin, Credit & Debit cards, WbMoney, Alipay, Netteller and others.
Bitcoin payment combined with NO LOGS policy is the most private and anonymous combination.
HideIPVPN Features
This is where we think HideIPVPN stands out among other VPN providers. We were positively surprised with some standard features brought to next level.
In general, you can expect all the same features as offered and provided by other VPN operators.
This are:
- Instant VPN account activation
- Unlimited traffic on servers with bandwidth up to 1Gbps
- No traffic logs
- Help & support available 24/7
- No long-term contract
- 30 days full money back guarantee
- Free apps for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android
- Use your VPN account on up to 3 devices at the same time
- Access Smart DNS on unlimited number of devices at the same time
- 29 servers from US, UK, NL, DE, CA, FR and PL
- Enjoy Poxy servers and Smart DNS service for free with your VPN plan
- Highest security level with AES 256-bit and RSA 4096-bit encryption
- 5 VPN protocols – OpenVPN, SSTP, SoftEther, L2TP/IPsec and PPTP
This is pretty much VPN standard. There are some VPN providers offering less in terms of security for example. Also, there are those offering a bit more, mostly number of VPN servers.
However, it is worth to consider if it makes sense to pay more for such feature. If you can use up to 3 VPN connections simultaneously what difference does it make (other than the price!) if you have choice of 30 VPN servers or 300 VPN servers?
As long as they are in locations you want to use and as long as they are fast, everything is OK.
Basically, with services offering hundreds of VPN servers (often in very exotic locations) you pay for things you don’t use. Only you know if it makes sense in your specific situation.
But, as we just said it is also where HideIPVPN is better than others. So, what do we have in mind?
If you’ll decide to use their free VPN Windows software, you will notice first cool feature. An option to sort VPN servers by speed. What does it mean exactly and how does this work?
HideIPVPN offers all VPN servers with bandwidth of up to 1 Gbps. That is really a lot. Probably a lot more than bandwidth of your home broadband connection.
If so, why would you want to sort out servers by speed?
As you may or may not know, VPN connection between you (your device) and VPN server is not exactly direct.
Data you exchange through encrypted VPN tunnel pass through many other network servers and nodes. And the route might be a bit different each day and is different between your device and different VPN servers. The less such servers and nodes to pass through, the more direct connection is the better overall speed of your VPN connection.
Without “sort by speed feature” you’d need to check all servers in country you need IP from manually.
Connect, do speed test, disconnect, next server. This would be very time consuming. With this task performed automatically by VPN app within seconds you can see which server is currently optimal for your specific location. We really, really like this option!
Second thing we truly liked is called “App killer” and should be one of the very important for all those of you using P2P networks and torrents.
If you do not want to download/upload torrents under your own IP address, for obvious reasons, with many VPN services that means sitting in front of the PC to monitor traffic and connection.
After all, VPN connection can drop or your own broadband might stop working for a few seconds. In such cases, if you are away, it may happen that all your download will be done not under VPN protection but under your own IP. That means setting up multiple download and going to work/school might be out of the question. But not with HideIPVPN service.
If you use their VPN software and setup “App killer” VPN application will do the job for you! If anything happens to connection, torrent client will be shot down immediately. But it is only half of success as the app can try to re-establish VPN connection (as many times as needed) and once VPN is active again restart previously killed task. Isn’t that cool?
HideIPVPN Security And Encryption Standards
With HideIPVPN you can use any of the most popular VPN protocols OpenVPN, SSTP, SoftEther, L2TP/IPsec and PPTP.
You can also enjoy high security provided by AES 256-bit and RSA 4096-bit encryption.
Provider suggests SoftEther VPN protocol as number one choice where security and privacy is a priority. Worth to know is, that currently all VPN servers provide by HideIPVPN offer latest upgrade to SoftEther VPN protocol.
Also, free VPN software provided can secure your VPN connection from DNS leaks.
Privacy – HideIPVPN Review
As with any good VPN service, HideIPVPN takes anonymity and privacy very seriously. If it is the reason you are looking for a VPN service yourself, we can assure you that you will not regret choosing HideIPVPN.
HideIPVPN encrypted VPN connections will secure you and your data from any prying eyes. Be that your local ISP or any censorship system active in your country.
No logs policy, combined with Bitcoin payments and use of shared IP address of VPN server means you are quite secure and anonymous.
As we have previously said, the fact that company is registered in USA is a big plus as they are truly not required by law to store any traffic logs, unlike their EU registered competition.
HideIPVPN Speed Test
Speed and efficiency of VPN connection are very important factor when choosing right VPN service. We really like that all VPN servers in HideIPVPN offer are up to the same standard.
Also, as we have written above we love the fact that it is so easy to choose the best, the fastest VPN server when needed.
But, that is theory. We wanted to make sure reality checks here. We have tested few VPN servers. On all occasions, we have noticed that connections were stable and we also could not complain about speed itself.
Speeds we have achieved were more than OK for video streaming in HD. We didn’t notice any annoying lags where access to websites were considered. Here are results of our tests:
HideIPVPN Customer Support
This is another, VERY strong point in favour of HideIPVPN service.
Their customer support is extremely user friendly and professional. If you peek at their social channels you will notice that they treat every single customer like the most important one they have.
Each question is answered fully, honestly and patiently. We can say the same about their actual technical support available via support tickets or chat.
We need to say that this personalized, patient and friendly approach made a huge and of course positive impression on us.
Even difficult questions like the one regarding Netflix are answered fully and honestly within seconds. Policy of some providers here (which we do not like) is to avoid straight answer for as long as possible. Also, you may notice that in most cases questions like that asked publicly will only be answered in private conversation mode. Not with HideIPVPN.
HideIPVPN Review Conclusions
So, is there anything we did not like or can complain about?
Perhaps, at first, we thought that total number of VPN server available were not as good as it could be. And probably for some people, looking at numbers only this might be a deciding factor.
However, if your read our review of the service you should know that it is not the most important factor when choosing VPN provider. Just make sure you have a VPN server in the country of interest for you.
We were honestly impressed with whole HideIPVPN package.
