Hotspot Shield

Is Hotspot Shield really reliable? You can find answers to other questions, especially this question in our neutral Hotspot Shield VPN review. You may also be wondering if Hotspot Shield is free. There is a free version, but the premium version is examined on this page.

Hotspot Shield VPN Summary

Ease of Use

Hotspot Shield’s VPN applications are so simple and easy to use that they are very useful for beginners. For advanced users, there are very few advanced settings.

It’s really easy to set up Hotspot Shield’s browser extensions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Just go to the Chrome Web or Mozilla Add-ons store, download the extension, sign in, and connect.

Server Locations

You can experience very high speeds when connecting to Hotspot Shield’s nearby VPN servers. Hotspot Shield indicates that the number of server locations may vary from one supported device to another, because different servers are used for each application. Hotspot Shield has over 3,200 separate VPN servers in its network, which is a great number. These are a mixture of virtual and physical servers, but Hotspot Shield is not willing to explain which virtual ones are physical for “security reasons.. Hotspot Shield’s VPN server network covers 82 countries around the world. It is one of the largest VPN locations we’ve seen. Hotspot Shield’s VPN servers are well spread out, so there is very little space in the coverage area.

Speed ​​and Reliability

Hotspot Shield is one of the fastest VPN providers we’ve seen. We experienced impressive download speeds on all the Hotspot Shield VPN servers we tested. We experienced the highest speed when connected to the server in the country where we are tracking. Other than that, we have achieved quite good values ​​from nearby locations.

Before using Hotspot Shield:

When the Hotspot Shield is connected:

Download speed without Hotspot Shield 91.51Mbps

Download speed with Hotspot Shield: 90.63Mbps

Loss of download speed while running Hotspot Shield: 1%

Platforms and Devices

Hotspot Shield’s VPN will work on your smartphone or desktop or laptop. I have apps for this:

• Microsoft Windows
• Apple MacOS
• iOS
• Google Android

Nevertheless, the range ends here. Hotspot Shield does not support manual configuration. This means that you cannot use it on less popular operating systems such as Linux.

You can use Hotspot Shield on up to 5 devices at the same time.

Pricing and Opportunities

Hotspot Shield is quite inexpensive, especially if you prefer a longer VPN plan.

A 12-month plan is priced at an average of $ 7.99 per month, while Hotspot Shield’s 3-year plan is only $ 2.99 per month, which is very competitive. If you want to pay on a monthly basis, Hotspot Shield costs $ 12.99.

Encryption and Security

Hotspot Shield uses only Catapult HydraVPN as VPN protocol. It is unique to Hotspot Shield and there is not much detail about how it works. It looks like a secure private security protocol, but we don’t know exactly how secure it is. VPN applications do not offer the option to replace protocols with more familiar ones, such as OpenVPN or IKEv2.

Hotspot Shield offers AES-256 encryption (also uses AES-128), a VPN kill switch and protection against IPv6 and DNS infiltrations.

Customer Support

Hotspot Shield has a live support line that is active 24 hours a day. You do not need to log in to ask questions. Just visit their site and start chatting. Knowledge base and FAQs are nice to have but are very basic compared to other top-level VPN providers.

Do you recommend?

There’s a lot to say about Hotspot Shield: One of the fastest VPNs we’ve tested so far has a huge international server network. Very good for streaming and torrent. We recommend it for beginner users.