Hide.me VPN Review: Will It Hide You?

Hide.me is a VPN service that’s been round for some time and which works heavy on the advertising, claiming many firsts and positioning itself as the very best in lots of fields. I took a tough have a look at Disguise.me and its claims to see the way it stands as much as scrutiny.

The quick model is that Disguise.me has rather a lot to supply. It’s quick, will get via to streaming providers, and does all this at an inexpensive value. Nonetheless, I really feel a bit iffy about its privateness, and I don’t like the way it fiddles with the reality in a few of its advertising materials. The result’s a service that makes it into our roundup of the best VPNs, however solely on the decrease rungs.

Disguise.me at First Look

Disguise.me gives purchasers for an enormous variety of working techniques, on par with ExpressVPN. There are apps for Windows, Mac, iPhone/iPad, Android, and even Blackberry. Linux users may also set up Disguise.me, although all they get is a command-line interface. There are additionally browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge, plus installations for routers and NAS gadgets.

When you’ve settled in your app of selection and put in it, you’ll be greeted by a display that I can solely describe as drab. Whereas it will get the job carried out, it’s a far cry from the colourful shows I’ve gotten used to reviewing all these VPNs. No map like with NordVPN, no tight design like with Mozilla VPN, only a deeply meh shade scheme.

That mentioned, it’s not an important factor, and no less than Disguise.me’s designers didn’t go overboard with the bells and whistles like Proton VPN’s did. I’ve to say, all of it works very well: simply click on on the “allow VPN” button and also you’ll join, and at lightning velocity, too.

Nonetheless, there’s an annoyance. For some cause, the designers determined that the server choice display ought to be in one other tab, accessed through the underside of the app. Which means to pick out a server, it’s worthwhile to go to a different menu, choose it, then return to the primary display and join from there. It’s a bit of irritating, and it appears pointless.

Fortunately, this can be a singular difficulty, as all different menus and screens observe extra typical knowledge. For instance, the settings are clearly laid out on a single display, with tabs for subsections on the left. The settings are additionally very versatile. A great instance is the split tunneling function, which helps you to select whether or not to run the VPN for all applications, or as an alternative embrace or exclude a set choice.

I prefer it when you may select between alternative ways to implement choices, and it speaks effectively to Disguise.me that it allows you to fiddle like this. One other good instance is its multi-hop function, which helps you to join any server to any server. Although I’ve my doubts in regards to the utility of those double VPN-type connections, it’s good that you simply’re not locked in.

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Disguise.me and Netflix

Like different VPNs, Disguise.me boasts that it might make it easier to get through to streaming platforms like Netflix. It has servers arrange particularly for this objective, that are accessed via a separate menu additionally on the backside of the app.

I’m glad to say that I examined all of those servers and all of them labored—I received via to Netflix each time. I’m guessing that Disguise.me is utilizing residential IPs or another sort of networking wizardry to make it work. Regardless of the case, it’s spectacular. Even higher, there’s barely any drop in velocity, so there are not any countless buffering screens for Disguise.me customers.

Pricing

The principle factor is that the service will price this a lot in perpetuity. There don’t appear to be any nasty surprises while you renew your subscription, like with Surfshark or NordVPN to call however two.

In addition to the 15-month plan, you can too go month-to-month—which is a nasty thought by way of price—or pay $35 for six months, which additionally doesn’t appear price it. When you like Disguise.me, I might simply pay the complete value because it beats each different high quality VPN on the market, apart from Private Internet Access, which is $80 for 3 years. That mentioned, I like that you simply’re not signing on for 3 years, so which will give Disguise.me an edge.

Disguise.me’s Free Plan

For some, the most important draw to Disguise.me is its free plan, which gives 10GB of bandwidth without charge. It’s fairly spiffy, although I prefer it lower than Windscribe’s free plan. For one, Windscribe gives extra servers—10 versus 8—and in addition higher speeds.

Nonetheless, you may’t argue with a free lunch, and I like how Disguise.me doesn’t ask you on your e-mail tackle. Merely obtain the app, and off you go. That mentioned, should you do create an account utilizing your e-mail tackle earlier than downloading the app, you get a five-day free trial of the complete plan.

When you’re solely utilizing the free plan as a approach to take a look at if Disguise.me is the proper decide for you, chances are you’ll wish to take into account this route, as an alternative. Alternatively, Disguise.me comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Pace

Disguise.me’s speeds are spectacular. As common, I tested its speeds by first testing my very own in Cyprus, which got here in simply north of 100Mbps, then testing 4 areas all over the world—foregoing my common Israel for Greece as Disguise.me doesn’t have servers within the land of milk and honey. The outcomes communicate for themselves.

These outcomes are glorious, on par with the quickest VPNs on the market—solely Mullvad beats it. Even connecting to the opposite aspect of the world to locations like New York and Japan, Disguise.me solely loses a fraction of its velocity. The streaming servers are simply pretty much as good, too, the one letdown is the ping, however that’s uniformly terrible when utilizing a VPN.

These outcomes nearly—nearly—make you wish to consider the unfaithful advertising Disguise.me has put in its FAQ page, the place it claims VPNs solely affect connection speeds in sure circumstances. That is patently false, VPNs do slow you down, it’s only a matter of how a lot. It’s deceptive to assert in any other case, and I’m upset that Disguise.me resorts to this type of factor. Normally, it’s solely untrustworthy VPNs that share messaging like this.

Nonetheless, you may’t argue with these glorious outcomes, although remember that they don’t prolong to the free servers, which underperform fairly badly. For instance, the free German server gave me a velocity of simply 10Mbps. Then once more, that’s to be anticipated since free servers will expertise a heavier load, which is the most important think about VPN slowdown.

Safety and Privateness

Lastly, let’s check out one thing I’m not too impressed with. For some cause, Disguise.me makes it sort of exhausting to seek out its privacy policy. I discovered some anchor textual content left in older weblog posts, however the precise authorized doc and any hyperlinks to it have been gone. I ended up having to go to assist for it, who, to their credit score, answered me in lower than quarter-hour.

The privateness coverage is just like most others of its sort in that it guarantees that Disguise.me keeps no logs of any sort, nor does it hold any private info on you apart from your e-mail tackle—one thing you may keep away from with a free account. After all, it’s going to cooperate with law enforcement when compelled to take action, however since there’s no knowledge, there’s nothing to share.

As with all VPNs, you’re taking these assurances at face worth. Nonetheless, there are not any information of there having been any scandals involving the service, so all of it appears above board. That mentioned, I’m nonetheless left a bit of uneasy: whereas I just like the plain language of the privateness coverage, it’s buried below mountains of self-congratulatory advertising materials.

For instance, Disguise.me prides itself on being the primary VPN to ever bear an exterior audit in 2015—a declare that I can’t confirm—however then doesn’t hyperlink to the audit itself, there’s solely a press release. Additionally, there’s no phrase whether or not or not an audit has been carried out since, solely hyperlinks to Disguise.me’s transparency experiences.

These transparency experiences, which element how typically Disguise.me acquired info requests, are a superb factor to have. I a lot favor them over warrant canaries or simply bland assurances. Along with the privateness coverage, they need to assuage my emotions of unease, however the advertising cant is laid on so thick at occasions it’s exhausting to shake.

Is Disguise.me’s Free VPN Protected?

Fortunately, Disguise.me’s safety is much more clear-cut: it’s strong. Whereas operating my velocity checks, I additionally made certain to check for leaks and located none. Whereas Disguise.me gives a smorgasbord of the best VPN protocols to select from, it defaults to WireGuard, making it each quick and protected to make use of.

Additionally, in a breath of contemporary air, Disguise.me has its kill switch on by default, one thing which ought to be normal however isn’t. The results of all this can be a VPN that’s protected to make use of in relation to exterior threats, although inner ones are, for now, a bit of extra intangible.

Ought to You Subscribe to Disguise.me VPN?

One of the best ways to explain my emotions about Hide.me is “ambiguous.” On the one hand, it’s quick and good for streaming, providing an honest interface and good pricing. On the opposite, although, the best way the VPN supplier typically hides particulars about the way it works or simply outright midleads about what it might do provides me pause.

Consequently, I believe Disguise.me is a good selection for those who want a VPN primarily to unblock Netflix and sometimes spoof their location for comfort’s sake. For extra critical functions,  I might advocate Mullvad or IVPN, as an alternative.