Snapshot
hide.me offers the most privacy focussed, secure, zero logs, free VPN going. With lightning fast speeds and an abundance of advanced security features, it excels at keeping your real IP address hidden. Free users can use up to 10GB of data per month whilst accessing servers in 5 different countries. With great user-friendly applications and awesome customer support, if you’re a low usage user and privacy is key, hide.me free is a no brainer!
Compatible with
Rating
Our score:
4.4
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Pricing
Price from:
$0.00
per month
Pros
- Protect 1 device with 10GB monthly allowance
- Super-fast speed of up to 80Mbps during our testing
- Connect to 5 worldwide server locations
- Kill switch, DNS leak protection, 256-bit AES encryption
- Multiple VPN protocols
- Strict no logs policy
- No card or payment details required to sign up
Cons
- Server network could be larger
- 10GB monthly allowance is low compared with other premium providers
- Can’t reliably unblock US Netflix or BBC iPlayer
Introduction
hide.me offers users the chance to try their highly secure VPN free of charge before potentially moving on and purchasing their premium package. With the free version of hide.me offering an acceptable 10GB of free data per month, users can access 5 server locations including the US (East and West Coast), Canada, Netherlands and Singapore.
There’s no doubt about it being one of the best options for both speed and privacy thanks to their custom-built hardware which delivers uncompromised speeds and consistent performance. Free VPN users will be glad to hear that they are no less protected any than those paying for their service, and thanks to one of the strictest zero logs policy going, unbreakable AES-256 encryption plus multiple VPN protocols, your IP address is well and truly hidden.
Their user-friendly app will suit any user, from complete novices to those more advanced and wishing to play around with different VPN settings, and unlike some other free VPN services, you also get really helpful 24/7 live chat customer support.
You can check out our full review here where you can learn about the many additional features and benefits you can get by using a paid for hide.me service.
Pricing
It’s totally free and doesn’t cost a thing! No catches or cons. You don’t even have to add any payment or card details on sign-up either which we’re a big fan of!
We’ve shown pricing for their paid plans below just in case you were undecided or curious about how much their paid services would cost, and for payment, hide.me currently accepts a wide range of options including all major credit and debit cards (including American Express), as well as PayPal. If you’re looking for additional anonymity, they also accept a vast range of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero and many more.
FREE
SAVE 61%
Features
The hide.me free service allows users to connect securely to their network of reliable tier 1 servers located in 5 worldwide locations found in North America, Europe and Asia. Delivering exceptional speeds paired with unlimited bandwidth, this is one of the fastest free VPNs currently available.
All free subscribers get a 10GB of data allowance per month which isn’t unlimited but should be just about enough for the casual users or those looking to test out the hide.me product before taking the leap into a paid plan.
The free offering is packed with the same awesome security features found in its full VPN product too. They deploy military grade encryption ensuring you are always hidden whilst using the internet (as long as your VPN is turned on!), and you can also use their handy split tunnelling feature which allows user to choose which apps are routed through the VPN and which don’t need protection. Handy if you’re torrenting using a VPN server in another country but want to shop online from home!
Additional handy security features such as the must have VPN kill switch, DNS leak protection and SoftEther ensure you can stay hidden from prying eyes and safely access any restricted or censored websites.
Platforms and devices
The free version of hide.me allows you to protect 1 device per account and their user-friendly apps can be installed on macOS, Windows and Linux operating systems as well as iOS and Android mobile devices. If using a Fire TV (Amazon Firestick) or Kodi is your thing… they’ve got you covered too, as well as Chrome and Firefox browser users. It’s also easy enough to configure your home router and protect your entire wi-fi network with the hide.me free VPN but the 10GB data allowance will be a major drawback here once again as we’re sure most users will fly through this.
Streaming
Hide.me’s free VPN offering isn’t an ideal choice for streaming. It’s almost impossible to overcome Netflix VPN blocks, and without any UK servers, you can’t use it for BBC iPlayer either. Add to this the small monthly data allowance of only 10GB, we’d avoid at all costs if you’re big intro streaming geo-restricted content.
If you’re in the market solely for a VPN for streaming, we recommend you either purchase a full plan from hide.me where you can effortlessly stream HD content from Netflix, Hulu and other popular sites, or take a look at some of our other recommended providers and try one of those. It’s also worth visiting our best VPN for Netflix page here which lists the most popular VPNs for streaming.
Torrenting
The free version of the hide.me service permits P2P torrenting on its servers which is great! Its exceptionally fast download/upload speeds combined with robust security features will keep you totally safe. The 10GB data allowance will again be a major stumbling block however, so for users big into torrenting, their premium no limits service will no doubt be the much better option.
You should always have the protection of a VPN when torrenting and we recommend viewing our full guide here.
Speed
As mentioned throughout this review, hide.me is market leading for speed and claims to be ‘the world’s fastest VPN’. Whether they can truly claim this accolade or not is debatable, but we have found some remarkable results during testing with download speeds of over 80Mbps on local servers which is incredibly impressive for a free offering! Even when connecting further afield, speeds were still consistently high. This should assure our readers that you will have reliable and rapid speeds whenever you need them should you go with this service, but that’s before you run out of data…!
One final note regarding speed is for our gamer and P2P readers who will benefit from hide.me’s extremely low latency, providing them to be one of the most stable VPNs we have used.
Security
hide.me well and truly keep their users hidden! They use our favoured OpenVPN protocol and military grade AES-256 encryption so you can enjoy all the internet has to offer in total anonymity. They also use additional protocols including PPTP, L2TP, IPsec (IKEv1 and IKEv2), SoftEther, SSTP and WireGuard®.
Advanced security features also include DNS leak protection, IPV6 leak blocking and split tunnelling, as well as the additional VPN kill switch which acts as a fail safe preventing your unencrypted activities from being shared to your ISP in the event your VPN loses connection.
Also part of the package is SoftEther connections which also work well at bypassing any government censorship or blocks. With nearby servers in Asia, this is a popular VPN for users living or travelling in China allowing safe access to blocked applications and websites.
Applications
The team here really enjoyed using the hide.me app. Despite having some really advanced security features, their app is super slick and easy to use plus their user interface will suit both beginners and the more advanced VPN users.
The hide.me app can be downloaded on a whole host of popular devices such as iOS, Windows and Android, and works perfectly on the Amazon Fire TV (Firestick) or Android TV.
Customer service
From our experience, their customer support has been pretty faultless. They have both 24/7 online chat as well as email support in the event you should need some assistance and there are lots of online support guides and FAQ’s too so you can troubleshoot a whole range of VPN subject matters.
Log policy
hide.me offer one of the strongest zero log policies out there openly stating “We are dead serious about this one: we do not store logs of your online activity”.
Connection logs are immediately erased so can’t be tracked to an individual IP address and they literally store/have no data to handover in the event that it is requested from a law enforcement or a government agency.
We are totally behind their approach to logging and can confidently say we believe hide.me to be one of the best VPN providers for zero logs and keeping your internet activity hidden.
Jurisdiction
Located in the privacy heaven of Malaysia, hide.me is well out of the way of US and EU authorities. Privacy friendly, Malaysia doesn’t require VPN companies to log or store any data relating to user online activity, and with hide.me assuring us they keep no logs, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about when it comes to your data. They also have no connection to any government or international data sharing schemes.
The verdict
hide.me’s free VPN service is an excellent product in many ways with its unrivalled speeds and industry leading security features but is let down in part by its underwhelming 10GB monthly data allowance.
Like most free VPNs, unblocking US Netflix and BBC iPlayer is pretty none existent, however they win points back as they allow P2P torrenting on their free servers which many other providers simply don’t accept. As mentioned in our streaming and torrenting sections above, users looking at a VPN to utilise either of these areas would definitely be best considering spending a few dollars per month on a paid subscription without the worry of capped data.
Melvyn and the team at comparemyvpn.com would recommended the hide.me free service to all of our readers no problem at all, simply because you can use it for as long as you wish without catches such as data logging or annoying 3rd party ads, and the fact it contains all the same great security features found in its premium service.
If you enjoyed reading our hide.me free review and would like to learn more about their paid for service, please read our review found here.