Used to be great - now it gives a US IP address. Not sure why this is happening. Going to have to uninstall it now. Doesnt work for iPlayer. I was happy with the adverts but now they are trying to leverage the popularity of iplayer.
Hola Unblocker works fine. I'll think a while about continuation for 30 USD a year Expat Shield beaten hands down by Beebify. So hard to use, we wrote Beebify. Expat Shield was a pain to install, bombarded us with ads and spam, and made watching BBC not worth the hassle. So we wrote Beebify to run in any top-5 browser, load instantly, and present a simple list of over currently available BBC TV downloads. No email address or signup required, and it updates its list in the background.
Click one button to download an episode. Just Great!. Overall, Hotspot Shield has created an excellent user experience with its native apps. The main issue is a lack of advanced settings, especially in non-Windows versions of the app. MacOS users, for example, will find their only options are turning on push notifications and enabling automatic connection. Important: If you are using the Windows Hotspot Shield client you need to update to the newest version of the app, as older versions have a security vulnerability.
The Windows app displays a central connect button, your selected VPN server location, and the amount of data transferred during the VPN session. You can quickly connect to a server with a single click, or manually select a server location by clicking on the sphere in the top-right corner.
To access the settings menu just click the cog symbol. If you want a more tailored VPN experience , you can play around in the General settings menu, where you can choose to start the VPN on launch and auto-connect. This works a bit like split tunneling. From there you can even choose specific cities in some countries.
The MacOS app is much simpler, with none of the advanced features that make the Windows app so comprehensive. Once you start the application and press connect, your virtual location will be displayed below.
The settings menu also follows a similar pattern to the Windows client, with settings to automatically connect when your device turns on or when you connect to certain network types. Likewise, the iOS application is just as simple as the other clients. It displays a large connect button, a list of locations, and very few advanced settings.
However, you have to subscribe to a Hotspot Shield Elite account before you can benefit from live chat. You should be able to find answers to basic questions in the knowledge base and FAQs section , which is fairly comprehensive and simple to navigate. Hotspot Shield is relatively cheap, especially if you select a longer VPN plan. But it is far from the best value VPN we've reviewed.
You can choose from four different-length subscription plans with Hotspot Shield Premium. Each plan comes with the same features. While these prices are reasonable for what Hotspot Shield has to offer, there are certainly cheaper VPN services out there that still offer a premium service.
Hotspot Shield provides a day money-back guarantee , which is generous, but it does involve submitting a form for review. Whether you receive a refund or not is up to Hotspot Shield, so canceling before your plan ends is not exactly risk-free. This is a great alternative to the subpar free VPN service, but it does require you to submit your payment details. But over a month it can add up to quite a but of data. Torrenting works on the free app, but the data limit prevents you from downloading any large files.
This helps contribute to the overheads of the free app but can feel very intrusive, especially considering Hotspot Shield shares certain information like your city-level location with third-party advertisers.
As we discussed earlier in this review , Hotspot Shield Free has been involved in a handful of privacy scandals, including injecting affiliate links into user traffic for profit and overstating the security and anonymity provided by the service. While Hotspot Shield is now under new management and the logging policy has been rewritten, some of its previous privacy concerns still remain.
The VPN offers impressive speeds, a sizable international server network, and an extremely simple interface. In addition, the browser extensions leak location data, and the privacy policy is not ideal for users primarily seeking high-level anonymity. For privacy purposes, there are certainly better VPNs available. However, given its speeds and unblocking capabilities, Hotspot Shield could be a good choice for those looking to stream Netflix on a regular basis.
Read IPVanish review. Simon is a recognized world expert in VPNs. Read full bio. Our Verdict Overall Rating: 8. We dissect the logging and privacy policies of every VPN. According to its terms and conditions, Hotspot Shield Elite collects the following data: Your IP address — encrypted, only for the duration of your session, and not linked with your activity while using the VPN. Your approximate geographical location — derived from your IP address and used to connect you to the nearest VPN server.
Connection timestamps — used to monitor, support, and optimize VPN services, and stored for three years. Bandwidth used per user, per session — used to monitor, support, and optimize VPN services, and stored for three years.
Device-specific information , such as device identifiers, browser types, device types and settings, operating system versions, mobile, wireless, and other network information such as internet service provider name, carrier name and signal strength , and application version numbers.
How Fast is Hotspot Shield? Speed ratings are calculated using upload speeds, download speeds, and ping latency. International Server Speeds To test international speeds we repeated the same process while connected to servers in Germany, United States, Singapore, and Australia. Is Hotspot Shield Safe?
Hotspot Shield streams Netflix and more Streaming. Streaming Rating 9. We were also able to access the following five Netflix libraries: Australia Brazil Canada Japan UK As with the US library, we just selected the country location and were able to watch geo-specific content immediately. Hotspot Shield is a very strong streaming VPN, but how does it compare to alternatives?
Torrenting Is Fully Supported Torrenting. Torrenting Rating 5. We calculate the average download bitrate of every VPN using a bespoke torrenting setup. Hotspot Shield offers 1, servers in 80 countries Server Locations. Server Locations Rating 9. The global spread and coverage of the VPN server network is the most important factor here.
We also consider the number of city-level servers, plus how many IP addresses are maintained. Censorship Rating 7. Device Compatibility How is device compatibility rated? Close A quality VPN should maintain functional, fully-featured applications and extensions for as many platforms and devices as possible. The mobile apps aren't quite as great, and the iOS offering in particular lacks some useful features, but again, if all you need is speed, they're simple to use, stable, and effective.
What is interesting, however, is the fact. Customer support is industry standard, with live chat, email, and a knowledge 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 great for newbies and veterans alike, and while it lacks the configuration of some rivals, that won't matter to most. Hotspot Shield offers a surprisingly robust VPN for no charge. However, free users are limited to MB of data transferred per day and connection speeds of 2Mbps.
Furthermore, you need a premium subscription to access one-on-one customer support or use 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.
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 also offers a Premium Family plan, which supports separate accounts for up to five family members. On the other hand, 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. Later on, the policy clarifies the specific types of information that may be recorded and stored. These include your unique device hash, your IP address, your approximate location, the length of your sessions, how much bandwidth you used, and which domains you accessed. While it offers consistent and reliable speeds, however, other VPN services have been busy improving their WireGuard infrastructure.
During our UK tests, we saw speeds hit Mbps, dropping from its previous Mbps results. When running the tests on IKEv2, we saw a similar performance of Mbps. Of course, Catapult Hydra one again delivered the standout results of Mbps. Earlier this year that would've been an impressive, market-leading performance. That being said, these speeds are still nothing to be sniffed at and will offer you the kind of performance needed for most tasks - we just wouldn't recommend for any heavy online gaming or 4K streams.
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