HideIPVPN Review – A Provider Who Accepts Bitcoin Payments

This month I had the opportunity to try out another new VPN Service. The service provider is known as HideIPVPN, well the name speaks plenty about the service they provide.

HideIPVPN provides their premium users with 5 country VPNs. Currently they have servers located in US,UK,NL,DE and CA. Along with the VPN service they also provide Smart DNS.

For this review I downloaded and installed their Windows Installer. So let us get started with the actual review process.

First of all the important FAQs.

FAQs

1. Does HideIPVPN keep logs?

According to their website FAQ, they only keep the connection logs for troubleshooting purposes, for a period of 3 days. This log doesn’t have your visited websites or downloads/uploads.

2. Dedicated IP or Shared IP?

They offer Static (Shared) IP.

3. Can you download torrents (P2P)?

You can only download Torrents and use other P2P applications on the DE and NL servers. They don’t allow P2P on the US/UK and CA servers.

4. How many devices can I use?

Simultaneously you can connect to 3 different Servers on 3 different devices.

5. Is there a Free package?

You can register a 24 Hour Free Trial account with complete access to all the premium features.

6. Which platforms can use VPN and Smart DNS?

The service runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, Game Consoles, Smart TV and Routers plus custom proxy settings.

7. Is there a Bandwidth Limit?

No. Unlimited and Un-metered bandwidth as per their website FAQ.

That was it with the most important FAQs about the company and the service.

Let us look at the Plans and Pricing of the service.

Plans and Pricing

HideIPVPN Premium VPN is competitively priced. They do seem to offer a lot more flexible plans as compared to other providers. In total they are offering 8 different plans, each of which is suited for users wanting different type of VPN service. Eg: VPN for only P2P.

VPN Plans

VPN Plans

The Smart DNS is another feature that HideIPVPN is offering, they offer this feature in 4 different plans. According to me this service is what you should consider if you want a fast and cheap access to blocked streaming sites.

Smart DNS Plans

Smart DNS is also offered as a bonus with 5 of the VPN plans. All of the VPN plans come with Free Proxy which lets you enter the proxy IP in your browsers and other applications like Skype.

One great thing I found about the payment system is that it offers anonymous payment mode. You can use Bitcoin to pay for the service which in itself is a great option for privacy concerned users who want to pay anonymously.

Other payment modes include the normal Credit Card/Debit Cards, Paypal, Google Wallet and PayPro.

As I mentioned before they offer a 24 hour free trial for anyone wanting to try out the VPN before shelling out their hard earned money. The trial plan comes with all access premium features.

You can register for the trial here : HideIPVPN Free Trial.

Along with the VPN, they are also offering a stand alone 7 days free trial for the Smart DNS service, access it here : Smart DNS Free Trial.

They have an Affiliate network that pays you 15% of each sale you make with your unique affiliate link.

Now moving on to the Security part.

Security

The company offers 28 Servers in total across different locations. 2 in CA, 9 in US, 9 in UK, 5 in NL and 3 in DE.

HideIPVPN offers the conventional security protocols offered by most VPN providers. They offer PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, OpenVPN and SSTP VPN protocols.

All the connections between your PC and the Internet are 128-2048bit encrypted.

The company is said to keep no data logs about your browsing habits but does keep a 3 day connection log for troubleshooting purposes. This doesn’t include any of your visited websites or any activities you perform with the VPN service.

Speed

I tested the VPN on a limited broadband connection using the Speedtest.net web service. You can notice that the service can successfully tap into around 80% of the ISP speeds. View the results below.

Before HideIPVPN.

Speed before VPN

Speed before VPN

After HideIPVPN.

Speed after VPN

Support

One of the great features about this VPN service is their Live Chat support. You can get instant answers from their tech support via the Live Chat support. Which I have seen is mostly Online and responds within seconds.

live chat

live chat

But the only other mode of contact is the Support Ticket. It would be great if they could offer Skype and Telephone contact info.

Setup

Step 1. Download your HideIPVPN client from here : HideIPVPN Setup.

Step 2. Start the installation process, it takes mere seconds to complete it. You will be asked to install the VPN Adapter, allow it.

Step 3. Login with your VPN credentials. You would have received these in your Email.

Step 4. Select a VPN location and click on connect.

VPN Connect

VPN Connect

Using the Proxy.

HideIPVPN also provides Proxy facility for its premium users. This allows you to use the VPN features as a proxy from within a single application such as Browser or Skype like app.

Step 1. In Firefox, Go to Options > Advanced > Network > Settings.

Step 2. Choose the Manual proxy configuration > Paste your IP/hostname and port number.

firefox proxy settings

firefox proxy settings

Step 3. Check the box below it and press OK.

Step 4. Visit any website and it asks for your VPN username & password. Enter that and continue browsing privately.

Application Killer

The Windows Application of HideIPVPN includes a very required feature called Application Killer. This feature helps you stay secure and maintain privacy even if your VPN connection drops accidentally.

With this feature you can add custom applications to the HideIPVPN software such as your Mozilla Firefox browser so that when your connection drops, the browser will automatically close and your browser won’t leak your actual IP and location.

You can also configure it to restart these apps when the VPN reconnects.

You can access this feature in the Application Killer Tab.

Application Killer Tab

Application Killer Tab

IP TestThis test will check if the VPN actually hides your IP or not. As you can see from the screenshots below the VPN functions properly.

Before VPN.

IP before VPN

IP before VPN

After VPN.

IP after VPN

IP after VPN

Smart DNS

HideIPVPN offers the Smart DNS as a Bonus with the VPN packages.

The Smart DNS service doesn’t change your IP nor does it encrypt your traffic. It simply changes your DNS to make websites look like you are browsing from a different location. This is used to unblock websites in your region like Netflix, Hulu and more. Smart DNS doesn’t slow down your connection hence it is suitable for Video/Audio streaming.

The Smart DNS is hence best option if you just want to stream Audio/Video without slowing down or encrypting your traffic.

The Smart DNS unblocks a wide range of websites. You can find the complete list here : Smart DNS.

Setup

Step 1. Download and install the VPN Client.

Step 2. Click on the Smart DNS Tab on the client before logging into the VPN account.

Step 3. Copy paste the Smart DNS Key from your Client Area.

Step 4. Once you login to the Smart DNS, you can choose between the US and Europe/UK DNS servers to enjoy your unblocked streaming.

Smart DNS Tab

Continue reading here: How to Get 23GB of Free Space on Dropbox

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