Hotspot Shield review
Our Verdict
With splendid connection speeds, a uncomplicated interface and useful Netflix unblocking power, Hotspot Shield is certainly on the upward. Nevertheless, there are still a couple of bug holding it dorsum similar tricky manual installation, a lack of configuration and some minor session logging concerns.
For
- Good free version
- Works with Disney+, Prime Video, and iPlayer
- Like shooting fish in a barrel to apply
- Comes with iii extra apps for U.s. users
Against
- Logging concerns
- Catchy transmission setup
Tom'south Guide Verdict
With excellent connection speeds, a simple interface and useful Netflix unblocking ability, Hotspot Shield is certainly on the up. However, there are still a couple of issues property information technology back similar catchy manual installation, a lack of configuration and some minor session logging concerns.
Pros
- +
Good gratis version
- +
Works with Disney+, Prime Video, and iPlayer
- +
Like shooting fish in a barrel to apply
- +
Comes with iii extra apps for US users
Cons
- -
Logging concerns
- -
Tricky manual setup
Widely regarded as i of the all-time VPN services on the market, in the last year Hotspot Shield had been going from forcefulness to strength. While its functioning has somewhat plateaued betwixt competition taking the lead and Netflix clamping down on VPN use, it all the same remains a great option for many.
Boasting its in-house Catapult Hydra protocol and a variety of great features including its not bad kill switch and total P2P support, it's also got a variety of apps, so you can equip all your devices. Continue on reading our comprehensive Hotspot Shield review to find out where this VPN shines and where it lacks and make the decision on whether it's the right service for you.
Hotspot Shield 1-infinitesimal review
In terms of short-term pricing, Hotspot Shield isn't the near affordable, charging a hefty $ix.99 a calendar month on a rolling plan. The one-year plan will save y'all a little greenbacks at $7.99 a month, but the three-year programme is all-time value at simply $2.99 a month. That's seriously competitive with the very cheapest premium options out there.
Hotspot Shield mainly uses the Catapult Hydra protocol (IKEv2 is likewise available), and then there'south no OpenVPN for the desktop apps. Privacy purists might mourn that loss, but although not open source, Catapult Hydra is used by McAfee, Telefonica, Bitdefender and plenty of other reputable companies, and so we're fairly confident of its security. Thankfully, though, at that place'south OpenVPN support bachelor for routers, and the back up website has useful instructions of how to become this up and running.
Hotspot Shield does log a little more user info than other leading VPNs, and while we're reassured than none of that tin exist traced dorsum to the user, we're still pending an independent audit or, perhaps more so, a tightening upwards of the logging practices in general.
Once upon a fourth dimension Hotspot Shield's connection speed was its biggest selling betoken. Yet, with the introduction of WireGuard across its competitors, Hotspot Shield has remained much the same while others have taken off. Notwithstanding, its commitment of 400-410Mbps is both reliable and sufficient for most online activities.
Another blow to the VPN is its loss of access to Netflix. While the status of this is constantly changing, we were unable to unblock Netflix in our most recent circular of tests. For anyone looking to featherbed geo-restrictions on content on YouTube, BBC iPlayer, or Disney+, though, you're in luck. And, what's more than, information technology's configured for P2P, so it's a great choice for torrenting likewise.
Hotspot Shield'southward desktop apps are uncomplicated and easy to utilize, and while they don't offering the aforementioned configuration as some rivals, they're a great choice for those who just desire to get protected but. The mobile apps aren't quite every bit bully, and the iOS offering in detail lacks some useful features, but again, if all y'all need is speed, they're unproblematic to use, stable, and effective. What is interesting, nevertheless, is the fact
Customer back up is industry standard, with alive chat, email, and a noesis base. We weren't hugely impressed by the written guides, but unless you need an in-depth walkthrough of something technical, it's not a big problem.
Overall, Hotspot Shield is a fast, powerful VPN that's groovy for newbies and veterans alike, and while it lacks the configuration of some rivals, that won't matter to nigh.
- Click to head straight to Hotspot Shield'south website
Latest updates
Large news in terms of pricing: Hotspot Shield's longest plan has merely dropped from $2.99 to $ii.49 a calendar month – that might not seem like a lot, but information technology's now on a par with services like Surfshark, which has historically been known as one of the all-time bargains on the market.
Hotspot Shield on paper
Number of servers: i,800+
Number of countries: 80+
Platforms supported: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, Chrome, Tv, routers
Simultaneous connections: Five
Split tunneling: Yes
Kill switch: Yeah
Supported protocols: Catapult Hydra, IKEv2
Land of registration: Us
Support: 24/7 live chat, email, knowledgebase
Hotspot Shield toll: how much is information technology, and is in that location an Hotspot Shield gratis trial?
Hotspot Shield offers a surprisingly robust VPN for no charge. However, free users are limited to 500MB of data transferred per day and connectedness speeds of 2Mbps. What's more, Hotspot Shield itself blocks free users from accessing streaming sites like Netflix, then you'll be out of luck if you lot want to effort unblocking content.
Furthermore, yous need a premium subscription to admission ane-on-one client support or utilise Hotspot Shield on routers, smart TVs, or Linux. That said, these are relatively lenient restrictions relative to other free options, which is why Hotspot Shield is one of the best free VPN services available today.
If you're looking for a more powerful VPN, Hotspot Shield'due south paid subscription costs $9.99 per month when billed monthly. That's more than expensive than many other VPNs, but it's a decent deal if y'all're planning to use at to the lowest degree i or two of the other bundled applications, which include a countersign manager, antivirus, and a spam telephone call blocker.
The price drops to only $7.99 per month when billed annually, just the real savings come in the form of the three-yr plan, which charges just $2.49 a month. That's on a par with some of the best cheap VPN services nosotros've tested, and information technology's great value in the 1000 scheme. You lot can besides starting time Hotspot Shield Premium with a seven-day free trial, and there's a very generous 45-day money-back guarantee in case you aren't satisfied with the service.
What's more, though, is the fact that you'll get to keep that $ii.49 a calendar month price upon renewal, likewise. Some providers such as Surfshark and NordVPN crank up the price when your initial term ends, so this is really positive stuff in terms of value from Hotspot Shield.
Hotspot Shield likewise offers a Premium Family plan, which supports split up accounts for upward to 5 family unit members. Plus, unlike Spotify and some other services, Hotspot Shield doesn't require family members to alive at the same address, and then you could dissever the family subscription with any group of v people. Premium Family subscriptions cost $19.99 per month and don't come with whatever of the extra applications.
- Sign up now on Hotspot Shield's website for $2.99 a month
How private is Hotspot Shield?
In dissimilarity to most other VPNs, Hotspot Shield uses its own protocol, which is called Catapult Hydra. While Hotspot Shield now offers support for IKEv2 too, y'all won't be able to use OpenVPN on anything except routers.
Even though Catapult Hydra's changes are supposedly on the performance side, some users may prefer the inherent security of an open up-source platform that's bachelor to review. On the other paw, the Catapult Hydra protocol is used by Bitdefender, McAfee, Telefonica, and several other reputable brands, which goes a long way to demonstrate its reputation in the cybersecurity community.
Besides the protocols themselves, Hotspot Shield offers additional security through its other features. The automatic kill switch performed consistently throughout our testing, ensuring that our IP accost wouldn't be accessible in the event of a VPN error. Fifty-fifty closing the customer's local TCP connections wasn't enough to go around the kill switch or cause whatsoever other issues. One more bonus is that Hotspot Shield didn't leak our IP address when switching locations in-app – a remarkably common problem.
Unfortunately, Hotspot Shield tin can't quite provide the same peace of mind when information technology comes to logging. Its privacy policy explains that Hotspot Shield doesn't log "IP addresses, device identifiers, or any other grade of identifier in combination with your VPN browsing activeness." In other words, those data points may exist logged, just non in conjunction with your individual usage.
Afterward on, the policy clarifies the specific types of data that may be recorded and stored. These include your unique device hash, your IP address, your judge location, the length of your sessions, how much bandwidth you used, and which domains you accessed. Hotspot Shield claims that this information is anonymized, then it shouldn't exist traceable back to y'all, only that claim hasn't been tested in an independent audit.
How fast is Hotspot Shield?
Since the introduction of Catapult Hydra, Hotspot Shield had maintained the top spot every bit i of the top fast VPN providers. While it offers consistent and reliable speeds, nevertheless, other VPN services take been busy improving their WireGuard infrastructure.
Our procedure uses a number of different speed testing websites and services, and nosotros also test a dissimilar times of the day to ensure a good spread and to confirm the consistency of a VPN's connections.
During our UK tests, we saw speeds striking 280-300Mbps, dropping from its previous 360-380Mbps results. When running the tests on IKEv2, we saw a similar operation of 280-290Mbps.
In the US, the picture was slightly sweeter with figures of 320-340Mbps on OpenVPN. Of grade, Catapult Hydra i again delivered the standout results of 400-410Mbps.
Earlier this year that would've been an impressive, market-leading performance. However, at present this result proves to be adequately average in comparison to competition where we're seeing results well over 500Mbps (ExpressVPN 570-580Mbps) and the likes of IPVanish, NordVPN, and ProtonVPN pushing well over the 700Mbps marker.
That beingness said, these speeds are still nothing to be sniffed at and will offer you the kind of performance needed for most tasks - nosotros just wouldn't recommend for any heavy online gaming or 4K streams.
How skilful is Hotspot Shield for streaming?
Streaming services take started to crevice down on VPN connections over the last few years, and it'south getting harder to find ones that can consistently circumvent region controls. Unfortunately, Hotspot Shield has fallen victim to Netflix's crackdown on IP addresses tied to VPN services. However, that doesn't hateful it's not a great streaming VPN as long equally you're non too fussed about Netflix.
It's fair to say streaming unblocking does fluctuate, so Hotspot Shield could exist back in the game soon, but in our most recent round of testing Hotspot failed to unblock any Netflix libraries. This is disappointing though, unfortunately, not unsurprising either. While some VPN are able to admission at least the U.s.a. Netflix library, only ExpressVPN and ProtonVPN have managed to fully get effectually Netflix'southward geo-restrictions.
Thankfully, that's the only hurdle in Hotspot Shield's way and nosotros were able to access overseas YouTube content, as well as the more tricky sites with more robust anti-VPN measures similar BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime number Video, and Disney+.
How good is Hotspot Shield for torrenting?
While the Hotspot Shield website understandably doesn't say much about torrenting, all Hotspot Shield servers support P2P connections. That applies to the Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows clients, making Hotspot Shield a solid torrenting VPN for near users.
If you're new to torrenting, the Hotspot Shield noesis base provides helpful information on the benefits of VPNs for torrenting and a few strategies that can assist you stay safe while downloading torrents. In that location are no restrictions or bandwidth limits, so y'all can use Hotspot Shield for torrenting like you would use information technology for any other kind of internet activity.
On top of open access to torrents, Hotspot Shield'due south Smart VPN characteristic makes it easy to carve up-tunnel your activity or ship only certain types of traffic through the VPN. Unfortunately for those looking to stay anonymous end-to-cease, though, Bitcoin isn't supported as a payment method.
How good are Hotspot Shield'southward desktop apps?
The Hotspot Shield Windows ten VPN and Mac VPN clients take a clear, accessible interface, and they're significantly easier to use than some of the other VPNs we've reviewed. After clicking "On," nosotros were typically able to connect to a server inside 2 or three seconds, one of the shortest connexion times that we've seen from a VPN.
In one case yous connect, y'all'll be able to see your server'south location, forth with your latency, load times, IP accost, data usage, local network, and transfer speeds. The customer's presentation allows you lot to check your connectedness status without being overloaded by information.
Hotspot Shield's Settings section has diverse options that will satisfy more knowledgeable users in a style that avoids overwhelming those with less technical experience. For case, you can configure Hotspot Shield to connect automatically on public networks or exclude certain types of traffic that you don't want to go through the VPN.
Hotspot Shield also supports a serial of keyboard shortcuts for piece of cake access to specific tools. Control-Shift-C, for example, either connects to or disconnects from the VPN. Plus, yous can access support resource in just a few clicks if y'all take whatever questions about the desktop customer.
How good are Hotspot Shield's mobile apps?
The Hotspot Shield Android app has a decent set of features, simply its iOS counterpart is far more limited. While Android VPN users can enable a kill switch to protect their traffic, that option is missing from the iOS version. Unfortunately, some tools are missing from both versions—for example, neither the Android nor the iOS app supports the IKEv2 protocol.
Similarly, the Hotspot Shield iOS app doesn't offering automatic connections or automatic startup when you turn on your device. There isn't fifty-fifty an easy way to connect to the server that'southward best suited for your location. Furthermore, the app hasn't received many recent updates, and so information technology's hard to say whether information technology will gain any functionality in the about futurity. There are far more than comprehensive options to consider if you're looking for an iPhone VPN.
To be off-white, though, both apps have everything you need to connect to the internet safely, and many users won't notice the lack of advanced settings in the iOS version. Only exist sure to check out our guide to the best mobile VPN if you want a VPN that offers more than support for smartphones and tablets.
What customer support does Hotspot Shield offer?
The online support heart provides helpful answers to various questions nigh Hotspot Shield, and support articles are embedded in the apps and clients themselves. The articles aren't quite as thorough or informative as other back up resource that we've seen, still, and they aren't as well organized as they could be. For example, the starting time article for getting started with the Windows client covers the process for referring other users to Hotspot Shield.
Fortunately, y'all can quickly get in touch with an amanuensis via email or live chat. We were connected to a Hotspot Shield representative over live chat in less than a infinitesimal. They can aid y'all with any issues that you weren't able to resolve in the support center.
Hotspot Shield: Final verdict
Hotspot Shield remains to be a reliable VPN that is nifty for streaming (as long equally you're not after a Netflix VPN), and safely downloading torrents. Combine it with a affordable longer subscription, for many information technology'll be a great option.
Unfortunately it has dropped in our rankings it terms of its speed results due to improvements to its competition, and Hotspot Shield'south logging policy won't satisfy privacy purists, just these are arguably minor problems for the average user. While Hotspot Shield can't dethrone ExpressVPN as our top overall recommendation, it's still a corking VPN to consider using in 2021.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/hotspot-shield-review
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