Both Hotspot Shield and Hide My IP are VPNs that are both very effective. Hotspot Shield has a large amount of countries on the premium version, while Hide My IP sticks to only the general ones, like US, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, UK, and China. Hotspot Shield works wonderfully with Netflix, but Hide My IP delivers a better streaming experience due to its faster connection. On the other hand, Hotspot Shield is one of the best at hiding data, while Hide My IP is not as efficient, but still does a good job. Both are user-friendly, but Hotspot Shield is a bit more difficult to install and utilize in some cases. Even though Hotspot Shield works in more locations, Hide My IP actually offers support for more regions that are more difficult to get to, like South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. And when it comes to price, Hotspot Shield Elite costs a bit more, while Hide My IP offers come at more than double the price – but for a whole year.
Features
7.4
Pricing
9.3
Ease of Use
8.0
Reliability & Support
8.0
Features
8.0
Pricing
9.0
Ease of Use
9.0
Reliability & Support
8.6
Rating
Features
7.4
8.0
0.0
Pricing
9.3
9.0
0.0
Ease of Use
8.0
9.0
0.0
Reliability & Support
8.0
8.6
0.0
Reviews
Review by our expert
Alex (Shurf) Frenkel
Ex-Hacker and Technical Researcher
8.0
Hide My IP, as stated on its homepage, takes pride in concealing your online identity with the click of a button to access blocked websites and enjoy private web surfing. Hide My IP is a VPN software designed for desktop computers on the Windows OS and Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6. Does it live up to the standards of premium VPNs like NordVPN? No, especially since it's no longer able to unblock Netflix.
I like the Hide my ip lifetime VPN planHide My IP seems to be one of the few VPN services that you can use with a one time payment. I bought it 8 years ago (paid $29.95), and my license still works with the latest version. Most other vpns charge a monthly fee (Hide My IP does too, but it is for the premium plan).
I also like their Chrome extension, the only VPN provider I used that can still unblock streaming sites like netflix, using the extension's Floating IP feature.
I spoke with them a few times on their support line, they were more than helpful, I have been quite happy with them.
Latest negative user review
Alex
2.0
Hide My IP cannot be trusted- do not buy itWhen you subscribe with the premium annual subscription they begin degrading your access by month 2, then totally convert it to standard by months 3-4. At first we thought this was just a glitch, but after subscribing for the second time (Yes! We were naive enough to trust them again), the access limitation and account conversion to standard has happened again. While their product is good their practice is terrible. No stars for these thugs.
Hotspot Shield is a popular VPN service with over 650 million users and multiple servers in 55+ countries.
In fact, the website claims it is the #1 grossing app for productivity in the US App Store. (When we checked the App Store source, it actually indicated #8, which is still an impressive ranking.)
One of the features that make Hotspot Shield special is its unique Catapult Hydra protocol,
Fast VPN!Based on my trial tests, I am very pleased with the speed and access to streaming sites like Hulu and Amazon Prime. I knew I will get good speed in the US. I am impressed with the speed internationally. I haven’t tried additional services yet.
Latest negative user review
Alex
2.0
Hide My IP cannot be trusted- do not buy itWhen you subscribe with the premium annual subscription they begin degrading your access by month 2, then totally convert it to standard by months 3-4. At first we thought this was just a glitch, but after subscribing for the second time (Yes! We were naive enough to trust them again), the access limitation and account conversion to standard has happened again. While their product is good their practice is terrible. No stars for these thugs.
Hide My IP, as stated on its homepage, takes pride in concealing your online identity with the click of a button to access blocked websites and enjoy private web surfing. Hide My IP is a VPN software designed for desktop computers on the Windows OS and Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6. Does it live up to the standards of premium VPNs like NordVPN? No, especially since it's no longer able to unblock Netflix.
Hotspot Shield is a popular VPN service with over 650 million users and multiple servers in 55+ countries.
In fact, the website claims it is the #1 grossing app for productivity in the US App Store. (When we checked the App Store source, it actually indicated #8, which is still an impressive ranking.)
One of the features that make Hotspot Shield special is its unique Catapult Hydra protocol,
I like the Hide my ip lifetime VPN planHide My IP seems to be one of the few VPN services that you can use with a one time payment. I bought it 8 years ago (paid $29.95), and my license still works with the latest version. Most other vpns charge a monthly fee (Hide My IP does too, but it is for the premium plan).
I also like their Chrome extension, the only VPN provider I used that can still unblock streaming sites like netflix, using the extension's Floating IP feature.
I spoke with them a few times on their support line, they were more than helpful, I have been quite happy with them.
JoeR
10.0
Fast VPN!Based on my trial tests, I am very pleased with the speed and access to streaming sites like Hulu and Amazon Prime. I knew I will get good speed in the US. I am impressed with the speed internationally. I haven’t tried additional services yet.
Latest negative user review
Alex
2.0
Hide My IP cannot be trusted- do not buy itWhen you subscribe with the premium annual subscription they begin degrading your access by month 2, then totally convert it to standard by months 3-4. At first we thought this was just a glitch, but after subscribing for the second time (Yes! We were naive enough to trust them again), the access limitation and account conversion to standard has happened again. While their product is good their practice is terrible. No stars for these thugs.
Lftee
2.0
Great but file size, and where they keep it, is a problem***Hotspot shield*** is a **simple, affordable **and **great** software, did me a lot of service for free, even though *torrenting and privacy may not be reliable*, pretty much anything else you’d do using the internet (including streaming) works fantastically.
But, it has been almost a year I didn’t use it, and now when I was trying to clean some useless things from my C drive, I found **22GB text file** in my **C Drive **(or the Drive where Windows is installed or whatever you call it) **from Hotspot Shield, **I was **astonished** as I have never seen such a Huge text file ever even in Software development field… I was gonna uninstall it as I didn’t use it anymore, I just found a new reason to why…
Hide My IP is great for streaming and has very secure connections. Your Internet activities become encrypted and anonymous right from that moment. Even so, it is important to mention that they do keep partial logs. HotSpot Shield is a great VPN for streaming, with hundreds of servers in over 90 countries. Despite the fact that it keeps partial logs, this service has proven to be one of the most effective at hiding data, drastically reducing the risk of interception by employing military grade encryption. We therefore strongly recommend you to visit Hotspot Shield's coupons page and see their amazing deals.
Hide My IP is great for streaming and has very secure connections. Your Internet activities become encrypted and anonymous right from that moment. Even so, it is important to mention that they do keep partial logs. HotSpot Shield is a great VPN for streaming, with hundreds of servers in over 90 countries. Despite the fact that it keeps partial logs, this service has proven to be one of the most effective at hiding data, drastically reducing the risk of interception by employing military grade encryption. We therefore strongly recommend you to visit Hotspot Shield's coupons page and see their amazing deals.
The choice between these two is difficult. Both offer high speeds but Hide My IP is a little better for streaming services like Netflix. Hotspot is one of the best at hiding data, but Hide My IP has support for regions like South Asia, Middle East, and Africa. We can say that the winner is Hotspot Shield, as it protects data better, working as a more practical VPN. However, Hide My IP is still a great option too.
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Alex (Shurf) Frenkel
Katie Kasunic