The verdict? If you do end up using HMA, use the app as opposed to the browser extension. Although they’re only kept for 30 days, this is 30 days too long, in our opinion. This is a huge issue IP addresses and domain names are the main things that a VPN should never log. If you use the HMA VPN Proxy Unblocker, that browser extension that we mentioned before, they will keep your originating IP address, domain names, and the timestamps of your requests for 30 days. The browser extension, however, was another story, and not a fairy tale by any means. This is all well and good, although we don’t see they need to keep any information about the days we connected or the amount of data we used, even if it’s not exact. HMA also kept stuff like crash reports for two years as well as our account data like our usernames, emails, and payment information. They did, however, keep the days we connected to their VPN, and the amount of data we used while connected, rounded this information is deleted after 35 days. If you used the app like us, then HMA didn’t keep your original IP address, DNS queries, web activity, the exact amount of data you transferred, and the exact timestamps of connections. Now, HMA has both a VPN app as well as a browser extension that works on Chrome and Firefox, and the data-logging policies are different for both. The next area we look for in terms of privacy is, what else, the VPN’s privacy policy. However, if privacy isn’t a main concern of yours, it may not matter. We much prefer VPNs based in countries that are non-members to these alliances, so this is a pretty big drawback of HMA right upfront. That’s because the U.K is a member of the international surveillance alliances Five Eyes, Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes. Not great news: HMA is based in the United Kingdom, specifically London, which means that, under certain circumstances, the U.K federal government could force them to hand over customer data. For us, that meant connecting to a local, New York server, but we had a lot to choose from if we wanted to watch Netflix in a foreign country while still remaining at home. HMA has over 1,100 servers in more than 290 locations around the world, which includes over 190 countries. We tested HMA for all these factors and more below. As you might remember if you read our VPN guide, there are a number of factors that we look for in a VPN, from its privacy jurisdiction to its encryption methods. Maybe you'll have better luck (if nothing else, it's quick and easy to try.Let’s start with the VPN itself in terms of features. HideMyAss! free proxy is simple and straightforward, but it didn't unblock any of the big-name sites we tried. We found it correctly gave us IP addresses from our selected country, and it's likely the extension will get you into plenty of less well-protected sites. Still, this doesn't mean VPN Proxy Unblocker will fail everywhere. Most top streaming sites have strong VPN defenses, these days, and even the full HideMyAss! VPN couldn't unblock Netflix or Amazon Prime in a recent review (although it did beat iPlayer.) But it didn't unblock US Netflix, and we weren't able to access US-only content.Īlthough these are poor results, they're also not a great surprise. Our Netflix results were fractionally better, with the site allowing us to stream UK content from our UK base while VPN Proxy Unblocker was connected. And Amazon Prime Video spotted what we were doing, and displayed its standard warning message: 'Your device is connected to the Internet using a VPN or proxy service. When we tried it with BBC iPlayer, for instance, the site warned that it only worked in the UK, and refused to stream content. And after logging in, it kept recommending we buy the real VPN.Īccording to HideMyAss!, the extension 'unblocks any blocked website', but that wasn't our experience. Even when we logged in using that account, it still occasionally prompted us to enter a username and password to access a location. You must create a free HideMyAss! account to use the extension, for instance. Although HideMyAss! VPN Proxy Unblocker is easy to use, it had some issues and irritations during testing.
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