With over 500 million users, HotSpot Shield VPN (released by AnchorFree) is divided into two products: a free VPN service which is more like a proxy with bandwidth cap and a premium paid VPN named “HotSpot Shield Elite”. In this review, we’ll compare HotSpot Shield Elite network encryption, security features and speed against other VPN services. They’ve been in business since 2005 and have grown their user base at a high rate.

However, as is the case with many popular VPN companies, having the most customers doesn’t necessarily mean you have the best product. So the question remains, “ Is Hotspot Shield’s massive user base a result of a stellar VPN or stellar marketing?” And over the course of this review, that’s the question I hope to answer.

Hotspot Shield VPN General Info & Features Hotspot shield works on Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS. OVERALL RANK: #31st out of 74 VPNs LOG FILES: Some logging ENCRYPTION: 256-bit AES encryption PROTOCOLS: OpenVPN only LOCATIONS: 24 countries TORRENTING: Allowed NETFLIX: Working KILL-SWITCH: Yes BROWSER EXTENSION: Yes MAX. CONNECTIONS: 5 ROUTER INSTALL: Yes COST: $5.99/mo & limited free plan – 45 days money back Pros of Using Hotspot Shield 1. Fastest Speed (Except in the U.S.) On the right servers, Hotspot Shield is fast. In fact, when I tested Hotspot Shield on an EU server in Estonia, they performed faster than any other VPN that I’ve ever tested. I connected to several other servers and ran a few tests using the third party website, to ensure the accuracy of this review.

Here are the performance benchmarks I recorded while using Hotspot Shield’s VPN client on a 100 Mbps internet connection. Ping: 53ms. Download: 95.55 Mbps. Upload: 46.45 Mbps If you have read any of the I’ve done on this site, then you know that these results are impressive, really impressive.

Hotspot Shield regularly performed about 10 Mbps faster than any of their competitors on all European and Asian servers. Oddly enough, their United States servers inexplicably ran at speeds that were almost twice as slow as their competitors even though the company is based in San Francisco! If you plan on using servers primarily located in the European Union or Asia, then Hotspot Shield is the fastest VPN that’s currently available. However, if you specifically need access to a U.S. Based server, then you should probably opt for something like, PIA.

Incredible User Experience Despite my personal distaste of AnchorFree and their less-than-ethical practices, I’ve gotta hand it to them They created the most beautifully designed VPN that I have ever used. After a 2-minute installation process, you are taken to a software that looks like something out of a new James Bond movie where you can adjust your settings and VPN location with ease. While they don’t offer much in terms of advanced settings or customization (which I’ll talk about in the ‘cons’ section), what they do have is an incredibly simple, intuitive, and easy to use VPN software. Torrenting is Fully Supporte d One of the great things about Hotspot Shield is that, unlike some of their competitors, they completely and wholeheartedly support anonymous torrenting. Their network uses to ensure that all of the data being transmitted to and from your device is completely secure From everyone (except AnchorFree). Governments, ISP’s, nosey neighbors, so long as Hotspot Shield upholds their logging policy, none of them can access any of your browsing history or network activity. Since AnchorFree openly endorses and even, it’s safe to say that Hotspot Shield Elite is an excellent choice for the more avid torrenters for safe P2P experience.

Netflix Compatible (For Now) Although their Netflix compatibility is subject to change on a minute by minute basis, as of December 2017, Hotspot Shield does work with Netflix on U.S. Based servers. Streaming Netflix with Hotspot Shield is slightly more complicated than it is with ExpressVPN or StrongVPN, however, if you you can still find a server that will work. HotSpot Shield server unblocking Netflix:. Canada HotSpot Shield servers blocked by Netflix:.

United States. United Kingdom. Netherlands To date, you should be able to access Netflix geo-blocking with HotSpot shield.updated: 29’th of June 2018 Cons of Using Hotspot Shield 1. CDT Privacy Accusations & the FTC Investigation Hotspot Shield has always been a rather suspicious company. Considering that they are a U.S.-based VPN provider that was launched using $52 million of Series C funding from investment giant Goldman Sachs, and whose parent company is partnered with several advertising and marketing companies I wouldn’t exactly describe the company as “Above Reproach”. However, after a recent filing from the CDT and a proceeding FTC investigation, I’ve begun to realize that the term “Ethically Ambiguous” is probably a more suitable description. Here’s a snippet from the press release issued from Center for Democracy & Technology regarding the formal complaint they filed against Hotspot Shield.

Considering the 500 million+ users who rely on Hotspot Shield for their online security, has some serious implications. Although David Gorodyansky has called these claims “Unfounded” and stated that he “Does not agree” with the filing, the facts do not seem to be in his favor. Until the FTC concludes its formal investigation, I can neither confirm nor deny these accusations, however, I will say that I would be astonished if Hotspot Shield leaves this battle without a few scars. Questionable Privacy and Logging Policies AnchorFree is openly associated with a number of third-party advertising companies who make Hotspot Shield free possible. While this is a pretty common practice for a free VPN service, when you start digging into the privacy policy, things get troublesome. Here’s an excerpt from their privacy policy to illustrate my point. Image taken from: Even if you ignore, the fact that the term “personal information” is intentionally ambiguous throughout their policy and apparently does not include your personal IP address, this is a fairly worrisome statement.

A CSIRO study concluded that Hotspot Shield uses tracking codes to gather information about their user’s and then sells this information to advertisers. They also found that Hotspot Shield would regularly redirect user traffic through one of their affiliate networks in order to profit from purchases that their customers made while using the VPN. Even though their logging policy offers some reassurance by stating that: “all browsing information or other similar information relating to your online activities transmitted by you to our servers when using Hotspot Shield is cleared after your VPN “session” is closed.” I’m hard-pressed to say that I trust Hotspot Shield with my personal data. Ticketed Customer Support It is abundantly clear to me that all of Hotspot Shield’s resources have been funneled into only three things. Creating a stellar list of servers that perform at lightning fast speeds. Designing a beautiful user interface. Finding ways to legally (or otherwise) exploit an ambiguous privacy policy to profit as much as humanly possible.

Vpn Download For Mac

As you’ll notice, great customer service isn’t on that list. While Hotspot Shield offers an admittedly exhaustive list of troubleshooting resources and guides, their customer support team is all but nonexistent. If you are having an issue, the only way to get in contact with their support team is through the dreaded support ticket. And once your ticket has been submitted? You should probably go and pour yourself another cup of coffee and sit back with a good book because you will be waiting for a long, long, long time. I tried submitting a technical support query for this review three days before I started writing this post.

Much to my chagrin I still haven’t received a reply! After skimming through some other reviews, I found that this experience was pretty ubiquitous. In fact, I read several customer complaints claiming that it took Hotspot Shield more than one week to respond to a simple troubleshooting error. Considering the hefty price tag associated with their Elite VPN service, this is a very considerable offense. OpenVPN Only and No TOR Compatibility With a user base that is as large and diverse as the one boasted by Hotspot Shield, you would imagine that they would create a product that is equally diverse and adaptable to any need or circumstance.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Not only does Hotspot Shield not offer compatibility with The Orion Router or any other third party proxies (an incredibly useful feature in draconian countries like China and North Korea), but they limit all users to the OpenVPN protocol. Although OpenVPN is my default VPN protocol it’s not an all-in-one solution.

Considering that they have more than 500 million users, you would think Hotspot Shield would offer at least a few other VPN tunneling protocols for those rare (but inevitable) instances in which OpenVPN simply won’t cut it. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case.

DNS Leak Through Chrome Extension To make things worse, their Chrome extension leaks your DNS. We did extensive tests on multiple VPNs and Hotspot Shield was one of many VPN providers who leaks your DNS through their extension. It’s nothing major, and probably gets fixed soon, but for now they’re leaking Here’s some information on how to, however.

Hotspot Shield Pricing, Plans & Facts As far as paid VPN providers go, Hotspot Shield’s pricing is definitely on the more expensive side of the spectrum. In fact, at $5.99 a month for their 12-month package, they are only a couple of dollars cheaper than my own favorite VPN,. And way more expensive than budget VPN like. The only difference between each plan is the length of time for which you can use Hotspot Shield’s VPN services. Here’s how their different pricing plans break down.

Monthly: $12.99. 6 Months: $53.94 ($8.99/mo). 12 Months: $71.88 ($5.99/mo) Furthermore, if you’re located in EU, you’ll face heftier prices of 6.99 euros/mo.

I wonder why they do that Although their plans are a little pricey, they are all backed by a generous 45-day money back guarantee, which is the best guarantee that I’ve ever seen in the VPN industry. From what I have read around the web, this refund is pretty painless to collect meaning that if you do try out Hotspot Sheld’s premium VPN services and decide that they aren’t for you, you can quickly receive your money and continue your search for the perfect VPN provider. As far as the payment goes, you can use all major credit cards, PayPal and even wire transfer.

However, they don’t provide any anonymous payment methods, such as Bitcoin. Ease of the VPN software: Easy to use VPN app. Hidden fees & clauses: None found. Upsells: No upsells.

Best Free Vpn For Mac

Instant access after payment: Took 5min to get access to download files (after buying the software) Do We Recommend Hotspot Shield? The answer to this question is complicated. As a service, Hotspot Shield is superb. They offer lighting fast speeds, an incredible user experience, and plenty of great features to keep any VPN enthusiast happy. However The company behind the service has been involved in so many shady dealings and ethically grey activities that it’s hard for me to give my seal of approval, especially considering the current CDT allegations. They also don’t work with the combination of TOR. I think there are better VPNs at similar or even cheaper prices, such as NordVPN or ExpressVPN.

Until now, Hotspot can be used to hide your IP address but isn’t the best option for complete privacy. Add your own Hotspot shield review Have you ever used Hotspot Shield before?

If so, what was your experience like? I’m always interested to hear what other enthusiasts have to say about the VPNs that I review! Let me know below. I have had so many problems getting rid of Hotspot shield. First, when it came time to renew and I did not want to renew it, it hijacked my screen forcing me to put in my payment info.

Drivers canon rebel xti free download canon drivers for mac pro. The only way I could stop it was through task manager and shutting down the application. Then after I canceled about 7 months later I see a charge of 35 dollars for hotspot shield which I don’t even have installed. How they got my new visa number I do not know. I’ve never had this happen to me with any other subscriptions. Avoid hotspot shield. As a Hotspot Shield user, I have to tell you that I liked the old Hotspot a lot more.

I had an elite subscription and 90% of the time the connection was super fast and I knew that my connection and informations are secure. Plus all of the locations were unlocked. Now, after the update I am using the free version and I can say that you have only 1 location and that’s Optimal Location. It’s a lot slower than before, but the interface looks cleaner.

So should you use it, or shouldn’t you? From my experience, I can tell you that if you are going to spend more time using VPN, then buy the elite subscription because the connection is super fast and you have a wide variety of locations. If you spend very little time using VPN then go with the free plan.

In conclusion, you should use Hotspot Shield VPN and buy the elite subscription if you spend a lot of time using VPN, and if you don’t then either go with the free plan or use another free VPN! I have had a mostly positive experience using Hotspot Shield, which I use on Chrome. When accessing certain sites, all I need to do is click the shield extension icon on my toolbar, then click the button to be connected to the VPN. It’s fast, free and super-easy. There’s a couple of things I’m not too crazy about, though. Sometimes I can’t access certain other sites once I’m connected. I occasionally have trouble accessing Google – though not every time – and some sites repeatedly log me out if I’m connected.

Usually, I just have to disconnect and reconnect to get back on track, so it’s a little bit annoying. That said, I would still absolutely recommend Hotspot Shield, as its positives outweigh those little negatives. I needed a VPN when I wanted to test my website to see what it would look like in different parts of the world. I was given a 6 month promo code for premium, so I signed up for it. I downloaded it to my mac and it was actually quite easy to setup. However, after setup, the program wouldn’t open, so I restarted my mac and it did.

I connected to the nearest server, which was London, just to test, and it worked a treat when I went to look at my IP. I tried different servers and they all worked.

The only thing was they were slow, as if a lot of people were using them, which is fair enough for a big company, but with the amount of money they have coming in, they could invest in either faster or more servers. Apart from that, the program was easy enough to use, and my experience so far has been satisfactory, I still use it now and then.

Embed this Program Add this Program to your website by copying the code below. Preview Preview. A highly advanced and widely respected VPN package Developed by, Hotspot Shield is arguably one of the most effective VPNs currently on the market. As with any VPN service, there are several key metrics that need to be addressed.

Hotspot Shield has consistently scored higher than many of its competitors in terms of efficacy and security. For example, the Hotspot Shield app boasts a lower latency period than other providers such as ExpressVPN and TunnelBear. It also offers one of the highest malicious URL detection rates on the market. Hotspot Shield leads the way in terms of streaming speeds, having overtaken major competitors including Avast and Norton Wi-Fi. When we add in additional features such as the automatic deletion of user-based IP addresses and the ability to simultaneously employ multiple server connections, it becomes clear to appreciate why IT professionals opt for this bespoke software. Keeping the needs of the user in mind Hotspot Shield is much respected for its user-friendly design.

VPN connections can be activated with a single click. In the event that a server fails, a kill switch will automatically disconnect from the internet so that the user's real IP address and other sensitive information is not revealed due to a dropped VPN connection. Live technical support is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

Another important point to mention is that up to five different devices can be connected simultaneously. Hotspot Shield can work in conjunction with iOS, Mac and Android operating systems. In terms of connection speeds, users will also be very pleased. This service provides more than 2,500 servers located in 25 countries. This essentially signifies that a network will always be available. Such a universal sense of connectivity is perhaps the reason why Hotspot Shield has ranked the highest in terms of torrent speeds. With average download velocities of 0.54 megabytes per second, this service is faster than major competitors including Avira Phantom VPN Pro and NordVPN.

A trusted provider when nothing but the best will do As AnchorFree has developed other well-known software packages such as Betternet Free VPN, it should come as no surprise that Hotspot Shield has proven to be quite popular. It has been downloaded more than 600 million times and it currently ranks as one of the top 50 apps for Android and iOS systems. While perfectly suited for development & IT professionals, it is just as useful for those who desire a superior sense of security when surfing the Internet. There are no limits in terms of ISP restrictions or throttling and all clients can enjoy a 45-day money-back guarantee. Hotspot Shield is the most trusted VPN for internet freedom, security, and privacy, rated “by far the fastest VPN” by PCWorld. Whether you’re streaming videos, downloading, gaming, or using social media, you get unlimited access even where it’s restricted by public Wi-Fi content filters, ISPs, and other institutions that censor the internet. With unlimited data, you can access all your favorite content from all your devices as much as you want.

Military-grade encryption ensures your personal information, including your IP address, remains private, while advanced security protects you from viruses and other online scams. Hotspot Shield is fast, secure, easy to use, intuitive, and excels in every category. Independent IT-Security institute, AV-Test, rated Hotspot Shield as the #1 app for speed, security, and ease of use.

This comprehensive test consisted of Hotspot Shield and 11 other VPNs, some of which were enterprise grade. Hotspot Shield was by far the fastest performing VPN tested, averaging 2x faster downloads than the competition.

This is all made possible by Catapult Hydra, a proprietary VPN transport protocol. With over 30 patents, the unique technology optimizes multiple server connections that are stronger and faster over long distances, resulting in some of the fastest speeds available. By Anonymous It doesn't work!!

Im in China and I need this software so I can access website like facebook and youtube. So, I have just paid $2.

99 for this software, but it never work. When I run this program, it's never able to find a server. And the most ridiculous thing is that the free version and the paid version is basically the same file to download.

Same file name and both are 766 kb in size. And the trouble shooting function doesn't work too. So why do I need to pay for it if there is no advantage to download the paid version? Fix this problem or I want my money back!!

Reviewed on July 16, 2010. Articles about Hotspot Shield.