Hotspot Shield VPN Review 2024 – Features and Plans Tested and Compared

SmartVPN

For our Hotspot Shield VPN VPN review, we had to, of course, look at the VPN’s split tunneling capabilities. As background, split tunneling is a feature that enables you to exclude some apps from your VPN connection.

For this provider, split tunneling is known as Smart VPN. Simply go to settings, toggle on the Smart VPN option, and add the apps that you want the VPN to bypass.

We noticed that Smart VPN is available across Windows, iOS, Mac, and Android, which is great if you plan to use Hotspot Shield VPN across a range of devices.

Speed Performance

Hotspot Shield claims to provide the fastest VPN service available today. The provider is known for its unique Hydra protocol, which has previously won awards for its download speeds, which are an impressive 15% faster than NordVPN.

When it comes to upload speed, Hotspot Shield VPN is just as impressive, with an average of 20% drop-off with the Hydra protocol.

If you’re a diehard WireGuard protocol fan, you’ll also be glad to hear that Hotspot Shield VPN supports this protocol.

We found that we were able to keep at least 93% of our baseline speed, even when we connected to servers on other continents.

Free Version

If you’ve seen The Social Dilemma on Netflix, you’ll be familiar with the phrase: “If you’re not paying for the product, then you’re the product.” With that in mind, is Hotspot Shield VPN’s free offering too good to be true?

In our view, not at all. For our Hotspot Shield VPN review, we spent several days using the free version of the VPN, and we came to the conclusion that the free version would be fantastic for novice VPN users.

With the free version, you get internet speeds of up to 1 Gbps and access to servers in Los Angeles, New York, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. So, if you want a free VPN to unblock American Netflix and Hulu, Hotspot Shield VPN is definitely a great choice.

Of course, free VPNs do have their limitations, and the Hotspot Shield VPN free version lacks a kill switch and split tunneling and only enables you to connect one device at a time.

On top of that, you miss out on accessing the full potential of Hotspot Shield VPN’s server locations, including ones that are specifically optimized for streaming and gaming.

Then there’s the adverts. While free users get 500 MB of data per day, we found that we had to watch ads when we wanted to continue using the VPN. This can be a little annoying and interrupt your workflow, but at least the adverts are only 45 to 60 seconds.

Browser Extensions

Hotspot Shield VPN offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. We explored both browsers and loved the granularity they provided.

With the Hotspot Shield VPN extension installed, we were able to designate specific websites for constant protection through the proxy, even when the proxy connection itself is inactive.

We also liked how easy and intuitive it was to customize the list of websites that we didn’t want to route through the proxy.

All in all, if you get the paid version of Hotspot Shield VPN, the browser extensions are definitely worth exploring.

Optimized Servers

If you’re one of the 46% of people out there who use a VPN for streaming, then this provider might be for you. Hotspot Shield VPN specifically markets itself as a VPN that’s optimized for gaming and unblocking streaming platforms–and it certainly delivers.

It offers specialized servers depending on the user’s needs. We tried accessing Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and Disney Plus from a range of different countries with these servers, and the VPN worked a charm every time.

On top of that, there was no lagging or buffering, making our streaming experiences very enjoyable and without borders. Similarly, with gaming, the specialized servers worked wonders, with exceptionally low ping.

Customer Support

If you’re a free user who needs customer support, your one and only option is the customer support website, which is chock full of answers to FAQs.

While it’s a shame that free users don’t get access to human customer service support, we have to say that the FAQs are written very well. They’re jargon-free, easy to understand, and offer step-by-step guidance.

For paying users, Hotspot Shield VPN offers a live chat feature as well as email support. We tested out the live chat feature by asking a product-related question and found it to be great.

While initially, we were put in touch with a chatbot, when we escalated our inquiry, the bot quickly put us through to a friendly agent in all of 30 seconds.

So, should you run into any trouble using Hotspot Shield VPN, you can rest assured their customer support will be on hand to help swiftly and expertly.

Virtual Servers

Hotspot Shield VPN has over 1,800 servers in 80 countries with coverage across Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, too.

Living up to its promise of being a premium VPN provider for streaming, this range of locations is fantastic for users looking to unblock streaming content.

An interesting feature we noticed when testing Hotspot Shield VPN was its use of virtual locations.

As context, a virtual location means that, even though you’ve selected a location in one country that returns that country’s, the actual server is actually located in another country altogether. Hence, the server location is virtual.

Virtual server locations have a number of uses. For example, if you’re in a country with notoriously poor connectivity or you’re worried about national surveillance, virtual servers can be extremely handy.

From our research, we found that Hotspot Shield’s Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Israel, and Malta servers all seem to be hosted virtually.

Encryption

Hotspot Shield VPN uses the AES-128-CBC cipher, which is well-regarded for being incredibly secure and has never been cracked. But, if you’re a VPN pro, you’ll know that most VPNs opt for the AES-256 cipher, which has a longer encryption cipher.

While the AES-256 cipher is more resilient to brute-force attacks than the AES-128, the latter is still incredibly secure and, importantly, more efficient: it’s faster than AES-256 and requires fewer resources.

Since speed is a top priority for Hotspot Shield, it makes sense that they would therefore choose AES-128.

Hotspot Shield Protocols

Hotspot Shield offers users the flexibility to select between two distinct protocols: their in-house developed Hydra protocol or the widely recognized industry standard, WireGuard.

The creation of the Hydra protocol by Hotspot Shield was driven by the recognition that conventional protocols such as IPSec and OpenVPN often grapple with performance and latency issues like slow-loading web pages and seemingly unresponsive applications.

In our evaluation, we discovered that Hydra consistently delivered exceptional speeds of 99Mbps, even for long-distance connections. Notably, it was also efficient in terms of bandwidth consumption.

In addition to the proprietary Hydra protocol, Hotspot Shield provides support for the WireGuard protocol. WireGuard is another lightweight alternative to OpenVPN.

Both protocols offer excellent security, and you can switch between the Hotspot Shield VPN tunnel with ease at any time–it just comes down to personal preference.

Kill Switch

Hotspot Shield VPN’s apps include a kill switch that blocks your internet connection in the event the VPN drops, preventing any IP leakage.

Undoubtedly, kill switches are a very important part of securing the user experience, so we wanted to put the Hotspot Shield VPN through its paces.

One thing to note is that if you’re mulling between Hydra and WireGuard, Hotspot Shield VPN’s kill switch is only available with the former. Given that Hydra offers excellent speeds and security, this shouldn’t be an issue but is worth noting for WireGuard fans.

We ran a number of tests to gauge how effective the kill switch is, simulating crashes to see if the kill switch sprung into action–and it did every time.

While the kill switch is reliable, it’s not enabled by default, and figuring out how to enable automatic kill switch protection isn’t as intuitive as we’d like it to be.

Firstly, you’ll need to head to the settings tab to turn the kill switch on. Importantly, if you want the kill switch to continuously work, you’ll need to switch your protocol setting from automatic to Hydra by default.

Otherwise, you risk connecting to WireGuard and losing the kill switch functionality.

Logging

Like all good VPN providers, Hotspot Shield VPN has a no-logging policy. However, while compiling our Hotspot Shield VPN review, it became apparent that the free version does include some logging.

This is because the free app makes use of advertisements. For these to be relevant, Hotspot Shield logs your city location for advertisers, along with your advertising ID and International Mobile Equipment Identity.

So, if privacy is your main concern, the free version of this app should be avoided.

Saying that, once we used the paid version, our privacy concerns dissipated as the provider didn’t log activity and deleted your IP address after every session.

The other thing to note is that unlike ExpressVPN or NordVPN, Hotspot Shield VPN doesn’t accept payments in cryptocurrency. For the ultra privacy-conscious out there, this means Hotspot Shield VPN probably isn’t an option.

However, if your main objective in using a VPN is to unblock streaming content and increase your internet speed, Hotspot Shield VPN is a great choice.

Windows

Hotspot Shield’s Windows application has a user-friendly interface that welcomes you with a dark panel, showcasing a large On/Off button that you click to start your session.

We liked how intuitive the interface appeared. Even novice VPN users will find it easy to use the application.

Initiating the VPN connection is a swift process, taking all of two seconds. Once connected, a map displays your virtual location.

Alongside it, there are various widgets that show several connection details, including your server’s IP address latency, data usage, and more.

While this information might appear a bit overwhelming to non-technical users, it’s more there as background info and can be useful for more proficient users.

Accessing Hotspot Shield’s settings is also a breeze in the Windows app. Here, you’ll find the protocol options and options to configure the app to launch at startup and auto-connect.

Mac

The Mac and Windows apps are very similar. Both have modern, user-friendly designs and a wealth of handy features. We used Hotspot Shield VPN a few years back and were disappointed to find it didn’t have split tunneling on Mac.

However, it appears the company has innovated since then. We were pleased to find the split tunneling feature available, along with the kill switch and protocol options–making the Mac version as good as the Windows one, which often isn’t the case amongst VPN providers.

Android

The Android app has the same modern, intuitive interface as the Windows and Mac versions. Securing your connection is a straightforward process, with just a simple tap of the Connect button.

As with the desktop interface, the Android app offers a wealth of connection statistics for those who like to delve into the technical details.

The Android app is undoubtedly impressive and robust. It’s got support for both WireGuard and Hydra, split tunneling, and seamless integration with Android’s system-wide kill switch.

Additionally, when we headed to the Connection Center, we realized we could configure the app for automatic connections on Android startup.

For more recommendations, see our resources on the best VPN apps and the best VPNs for Android.

iOS

Consistency is obviously important to Hotspot Shield VPN. The iOS app is, again, nearly identical to the other clients: modern and intuitive to use. Plus, while many iOS VPN apps can be a little bare bones, we were impressed with Hotspot Shield VPN for iOS.

It features split tunneling, a kill switch, and an always-on feature, all of which make online browsing from an iPhone or iPad much more secure and private. For more details, see our best VPN for iPhone guide.

Linux

Hotspot Shield VPN does provide support for Linux, but the command-line interface is undoubtedly technical. While you get access to the breadth of the provider’s server locations, the Linux app does not possess features like the kill-switch or always-on feature.

For alternatives, see our guide to the best Linux VPNs.