HidemyAss VPN Software Review

HideMyAss! is considered to be one of the biggest and most established VPN providers on the market. The company is based in the United States of America and has grown big over the last years. Many users already know hidemyass.com for their free proxy service and once you saw their mascot – a donkey with trench coat and sunglasses – you might keep their brand in mind.
HideMyAss! offers a huge number of servers, located in over 150 countries all over the planet, with a total number of around 105,000 IP addresses. Customers can connect through three different VPN protocols: OpenVPN, PPTP and L2TP. While their encryption level is not very high (with 128-Bit encryption only), the speeds of their servers are very good. Of course this always depends on the users own connection as well.

Their servers are located in these countries:
United States, Cyprus, Falkland Islands, Malta, Luxembourg, New Caledonia, Dominica, Qatar, Honduras, Bahamas, Venezuela, Palau, Saudi Arabia, Benin, Brasil, Spain, Israel, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Bermuda, Afghanistan, Gabon, Montserrat, South Korea, Romania, Guyana, Haiti, Costa Rica, Turks and Caicos Islands, India, Anguilla, Germany, Antigua and Barbuda, New Zealand, Vietnam, Namibia, Malaysia, Colombia, Cameroon, Christmas Island, Iraq, Mexico, Estonia, Kenya, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Slovakia, Oman, Argentina, Latvia, Saint Helena, Netherlands, Georgia, Vanuatu, Peru, Kuwait, Seychelles, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, Paraguay, Thailand, Philippines, Nicaragua, Montenegro, Tokelau, Albania, Cook Islands, Moldova, Barbados, Yemen, Macau, Grenada, Botswana, France, Uruguay, Nigeria, Panama, Serbia, Denmark, Lebanon, Ghana, Ecuador, Croatia, Norway, Jordan, Poland, United Arab Emirates, Suriname, Lithuania, Sweden, Japan, Aland Islands, Rwanda, Myanmar, Syria, Bolivia, Belarus, Russia, Jamaica, Greenland, Pitcairn Islands, Palestine, Portugal, Europe, Uganda, Kiribati, Aruba, Finland, Canada, Bahrain, Belgium, Belize, Italy, El Salvador, Taiwan, Iceland, Cayman Islands, Bangladesh, Brunei, Australia, Bulgaria, Guinea, Hungary, Macedonia, Morocco, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Greece, Ireland, Cuba, Cote d`Ivoire, Czech Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Guatemala, North America, Oceania, Hong Kong, Bosnia, Pakistan, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Lucia, Norfolk Island, Switzerland, Burkina Faso, Chile, Ukraine, Faroe Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, China, Niue, Turkey and Austria.

With this provider you can make a lot out of their many IP addresses and servers, since they allow unlimited reconnects to all of their servers, and they don’t have any bandwith limitations.
This might bring file sharing to many users minds, but we have bad news for those: Our recommendation is to avoid illegal activities while using the HideMyAss! VPN service. This has many different reasons:

  • the provider stores detailed log files
  • most of their servers are located in the US where the law enforces providers to disclose personal information for investigations
  • and last but not least: they already helped the FBI (at least) once, as they gave away user information about a Lulsec Hacker

Although you can pay anonymously with Bitcoin, there is no real anonymity possible when using HMA VPN because of the mentioned reasons above. And besides that, they only offer a few off-shore servers, most of their machines are located in the United States.

Ignoring the anonymity part, HideMyAss! is still a great provider for unblocking websites and streaming videos abroad, which would otherwise be blocked because of copyright issues. With the fast connections from HMA servers, customers are able to enjoy perfect streaming experiences.

Besides Bitcoin payment, customers can also disburse by Credit Card, PayPal, 2checkout, Dalpay, Cleverbridge, Payza, WebMoney and Google Checkout.
The HideMyAss! VPN software is pretty good, being one of the best VPN clients around. It comes along with a lot of useful features such as server and protocol selection, automatic IP changes and history, forcing applications to only work while VPN is connected, speed comparison between other HMA servers, proxy settings and more.
The software is available for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and also for the mobile platforms Android and iOS to enable Smartphone and Tablets to easily connect through VPN as well.

Installing HideMyAss! on Windows
To run the VPN client on Windows, the .NET Framework 4.5.1 or newer is required. For Windows XP users, the version 3.5 should be used.
After the .NET Framework is installed, the next step is to download and install the latest version of the HMA! Pro VPN. It can be retrieved from the HideMyAss! user panel in the “Software & Help” section.
It is important to run the setup with Administrator privileges, which can be done by right-clicking the setup-file and chosing “Run as Administrator”. Now follow the setup instructions to install the VPN client correctly.

Installing HideMyAss! on Mac OS X
First of all: To use the OpenVPN protocol on Mac OS X, the TunTap drivers have to be installed. The installation process is simple and instructions will help to get these drivers running.
After that, you are ready to proceed with the installation of the HMA! Pro VPN for Mac OS. To download the latest setup file, login to your HideMyAss! account and go to the “Software & Help” section. The installation process is as simple as the drivers installation. Only follow the instructions on screen.

Connecting with the HideMyAss! VPN software client
After the VPN client is installed, the HMA! username and password are required to establish a connection to the Virtual Private Network. After the credentials are entered correctly, the connection can be started by clicking the “Connect to VPN” button.

To change the server, simply select another one from the dropdown list or go to the “Country selection” tab on the left side, to chose from a server from the world map.
Congratulations, you are now surfing through a HideMyAss! VPN, hiding your own IP address. You can view the connection details on the dashboard screen of the VPN client.

Windows: https://support.hidemyass.com/hc/en-us/articles/202724006-HMA-Pro-VPN-client-How-to-download-install-and-use
Mac OS: https://support.hidemyass.com/hc/en-us/articles/202723766-Mac-client-installation-tutorial