The Independent’s journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission. Why trust us?
Formerly known as HideMyAss, HMA was founded in 2005 and has been a subsidiary of the Czech cybersecurity company Avast since 2016. In an attempt to be the best VPN, HMA has 1,090 servers in 290 different locations, which is more than some of its competitors.
The provider is headquartered in London; with the UK being part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, this could be a negative for the privacy-conscious. However, it does follow a strict no-logs policy, which has been independently audited. All of its servers are encrypted with AES-256, which is the highest level of cyber-security, but it seriously lacks extra privacy features.
Rating: ★★★
HMA offers 1,090 servers in an outstanding 290 locations, including 210 different countries. It takes its users’ privacy seriously and follows a strict no-logs policy, which has also been independently audited. However, HMA is located in the UK, which is part of Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing alliance.
HMA’s privacy features are also not available for all of its customers. Features like split tunnelling and the kill switch are only available on certain devices. As well as this, there are very few VPN protocols available, whereas most providers have at least two or three.
Our reviewers are committed to bringing you the most accurate and up-to-date information so you can make an informed decision when it comes to buying a VPN. We will only recommend a VPN after hours of testing, extensive head-to-head feature comparisons, and after taking into account verified customer feedback and reviews, and the opinions of industry experts.
Our HMA VPN review score is determined by the following categories:
We researched and tested a total of 25 elements within these categories, including:
All of our VPN articles are fact-checked by our in-house team, so you can be assured our content is as accurate and up-to-date as possible. Read our article to learn more about how we review VPNs.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| AES-256 encryption | Headquartered in the UK |
| No logs policy independently audited | Few protocols available |
| Slow internet speeds |
HMA offers its customers more than 1,090 servers, and although this is not as high as most of its competitors, its unique server locations do make up for it. Its servers are located in 290 different places, which includes 210 countries; this gives users lots of choice. Its no-logs policy has been independently verified and the VPN is encrypted by AES-256.
With HMA, the maximum number of devices you can connect is 10, but users can also choose a slightly cheaper VPN plan with only five connections. In terms of privacy and security features available, HMA does not offer as many protocols as other providers, and some of its privacy features are only available on certain devices.
| VPN provider | Price | Free version? | Number of servers | Maximum number of devices | Netflix | BBC iPlayer | Disney+ | Amazon | HBO Max | Audit? |
| HMA | From £2.39/m | No | 1,090+ | 10 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| NordVPN | From £2.79/m | No | 5,500+ | 6 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| Surfshark | From £1.78/m | No | 3,200+ | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| ExpressVPN | From £5.25/m | No | 3,000+ | 5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
| CyberGhost | From £1.92/m | No | 9,700+ | 7 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Yes |
HMA offers two different types of paid plans, supporting either five or 10 device connections. The website’s pricing page only displays select plans; users who choose five connections can pay every 12 or 36 months, whereas the 10-connections plan allows for payment to be made every 12, 24, or 36 months. Like with most other VPNs, choosing to subscribe to the longest plan is always the most cost-effective.
There are a few other options available for the five-connection plan that aren’t clear on the provider’s website, but you can find these by clicking the “more plans” button below the listed payment methods – these include one-month, six-month and two-year subscriptions.
Customers can enjoy a seven-day free trial of HMA’s VPN (only five connections), and users who activate a paid plan have the option of trialling the service risk-free thanks to its 30-day money-back guarantee.
| Subscription term | 5 connections | 10 connections |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | £7.99 ($10.30) / month | N/A |
| 6 months | £6.39 ($8.24) / month (£38.34/$49.42 up front) | N/A |
| 12 months | £3.29 ($4.24) / month (£39.48/$50.89 up front) | £5.99 ($7.72) / month (£71.88/$92.65 up front) |
| 24 months | £3.39 ($4.37) / month (£81.36/$104.87 up front) | £4.99 ($6.43) / month (£119.76/$154.34 up front) |
| 36 months | £2.39 ($3.08) / month (£86.04/$110.90 up front) | £4.59 ($5.92) / month (£165.24/$212.95 up front) |
HMA offers fewer payment methods than other providers we’ve reviewed, and we were disappointed to see no crypto or Bitcoin payment methods available. Paying via digital currency is becoming increasingly popular for privacy and security reasons.
Ways to pay for HMA:
HMA offers a range of privacy and security features for its subscribers. These include a no-logs policy, which has been independently verified, and users can benefit from the highest level of encryption – AES-256.
HMA also has a kill switch and split tunnelling features available, but these are not available for all devices, which is where the service lets itself down. Adding to this, the company is headquartered in the UK, which is part of the intelligence-sharing alliance Five Eyes, and in 2012 HMA was requested to submit information about one of its users.
HMA’s lightning connect feature is a great tool that connects you to the fastest server available. This takes away the hassle of having to manually search through the server list in order to find the fastest one.
The IP shuffle tool acts as an added layer of security. The feature allows users to seamlessly change their IP address quickly, which is useful if you’ve been accessing sensitive information and are concerned that your current IP address could become known to third parties. This feature is available for all of HMA’s apps.
HMA’s built-in advanced DNS leak protection feature protects against IPv4, IPv6 and other DNS leaks. The advanced leak protection works to prevent data from being leaked onto the web – this is available for all of the provider’s apps.
When it comes to VPN servers, we were quite impressed with HMA’s server count and the locations available. It offers more than 1,090 servers in 210 countries, with 290 different locations. The company offers more locations than its main competitors NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark. However, HMA does disclose that some of its servers are virtual – this means these servers are physically located outside of the chosen country but use that country’s IP address. Virtual servers can be especially useful if the desired countries’ laws prohibit VPN servers, or if there are other laws to navigate.
All of HMA’s servers offer up to 20Gbps connection speeds, and the provider states they’re ideal for streaming and P2P connections.
HMA says it prioritises its users’ privacy and security by following a strict no-log policy, which is an important privacy feature that most VPN providers offer. Simply put, it means none of your IP addresses or data is logged or stored on any of the provider’s servers.
HMA’s no-log policy includes:
Like other leading VPN providers, HMA’s no-logs policy has been independently verified by cyber security consultancy VerSprite.
HMA is headquartered in London, which means the company will follow UK data laws, including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It should also be noted that the UK is part of Five Eyes, which is an intelligence-sharing alliance. This sparks some privacy concerns, and some of those came to light in 2012 when HMA was ordered to submit information about a user who had taken part in a cyber-hack. At the time, the company provided the data it held, saying illegal use of the VPN violated its terms of service.
However, the company’s no-logs policy has been independently verified and users’ data and sessions are not logged, so in theory, any future subpoenas should be fruitless.
Another privacy feature that is often offered by VPN providers is a kill switch, which is the ultimate layer of protection and one that most users look out for when choosing a VPN.
This additional layer of privacy automatically turns off a user’s internet connection in the event that your VPN connection cuts out. This protects IP addresses, the potential of any data being exposed and your real location being revealed.
HMA’s kill switch is unfortunately not available for all of its apps, which can only be seen as a downside. Currently, the kill switch is only available on its VPN for Android, Windows and MacOS.
Split tunnelling is a popular privacy feature adopted by most VPN providers, and it works by giving users the option to route some of their internet or app traffic through the encrypted VPN tunnel and choose which internet traffic to route outside of it.
Connecting to a VPN, no matter which provider you choose, affects users’ internet speed. As well as functioning for privacy reasons, split tunnelling allows you to not route all of your internet or app traffic through the secure encrypted VPN tunnel. By not routing all of your traffic through the VPN tunnel, you’ll require less bandwidth and could benefit from faster internet speeds.
Unfortunately, this feature is currently only available for HMA’s Android users, which is something you may want to consider before subscribing if you require split tunnelling for other devices.
Privacy is key when it comes to VPN providers – no matter what you require the service for, privacy will likely always be top of the list. Similarly to most of HMA’s competitors, its VPN is encrypted by AES-256 – the highest level of encryption that is so tough to crack it’s adopted by governments and often used to protect classified information.
Most VPN providers offer two or three different protocols, but HMA’s applications offer just one, and this differs depending on which device you’re using.
HMA’s protocols:
A typical VPN comes armed with a bunch of privacy and security features in order to protect your online identity. By connecting to a VPN, a significant amount of your bandwidth is consumed by your connection, and this affects your internet speed.
With that being said, we have tested how much our speed was affected by connecting to one of HMA’s VPN servers. There are three main components to check with or without using a VPN: download speed, upload speed and latency (ping).
In order to perform a fair speed test, our researchers tested their internet speed without connecting to HMA – this established a baseline speed. From here, we could test the speed while connecting to varying servers and work out the degradation speeds for both download and upload. To conduct this research, our reviewers used the Ookla Speedtest.
| Download speed (Mbps) | Upload speed (Mbps) | Latency (ping) | Percentage of base download speed | Percentage of base upload speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No VPN | 74.24 | 18.59 | 12ms | ||
| UK to UK | 68.91 | 17.14 | 14ms | 93% | 92% |
| UK to US | 68.36 | 15.03 | 102ms | 92% | 80% |
| UK to Aus | 4.55 | 6.56 | 248ms | 6% | 35% |
Our researchers found that overall, HMA’s VPN affected our download and upload speed quite considerably, and for the Australian server the results were very poor.
In fact, connecting to the Australian server is the worst-performing speed result we have seen in comparison to other VPN providers we’ve reviewed. Our download speed was a mere 6 per cent as fast as our non-VPN connection – this is far from ideal. The upload speed wasn’t much better either, according to our tests, at just 35 per cent as quick as our non-VPN speed. Both of these results are well below average degradation, and we even performed the Australian server speed test more than once at different times of day to make sure we were correct.
Not surprisingly, connecting to a UK server was quick, and both our download and upload speed were minimally affected. Our download speed was 93 per cent and our upload speed was 92 per cent as fast as the non-VPN connection. Both of these are comparable to some of the top VPNs we’ve reviewed, and we consider them to be excellent results. The latency (ping) was also only 2ms slower, which is ideal for audio and video streaming.
Connecting to one of HMA’s US servers gave us mixed results. Our download speed was 92 per cent slower than the non-VPN connection, though this is similar to other services we’ve reviewed and considered to be of excellent speed. The upload speed, however, dropped by 20 per cent. This speed is still acceptable, but there are plenty of other VPNs we’ve reviewed that had better US upload speeds.
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) is an open-source tool that allows your browser to form connections with the websites you visit. WebRTC is responsible for high-quality network, audio, and video communications.
In order for two devices to communicate, they need to know each other’s IP addresses – this is where the issues with security and privacy arise. Although it’s a very useful tool, it can leak real IP addresses.
A WebRTC leak test can show if there is any potential exposure of your real IP address. Our researchers tested to see if our IP address was being leaked when not connected to HMA – and it was.
When connected to HMA, our real IP address was hidden and there were no potential leaks, meaning our identity and data were protected.
Most VPNs protect customers’ data by adhering to a no-logs policy, and HMA is no exception to this. With any company that aims to protect sensitive data, it’s always reassuring to have this verified by an independent audit.
HMA’s no-log policy has been independently audited by cyber-risk firm VerSpite, which declared the provider as a low-risk user privacy impact company and therefore clarified the provider keeps no logs from its users.
Throughout HMA’s time in business, there have been a couple of notable instances where their privacy policy has come under scrutiny. The provider has been taken over by other companies twice. In 2015, it was acquired by AVG, which was later acquired by Avast in 2016. Both companies are well-known antivirus companies.
In 2012, the UK government sent HMA a court order demanding it send information about Cody Andrew Kretsinger’s use of the VPN to hack Sony as a member of Lulzsec hacking – a computer hacking group that claimed responsibility for several high-profile attacks. HMA provided the information it held on Kretsinger.
At the time, HMA claimed that if the information was requested by another country it would not provide it, but since it is headquartered in the UK, there was no other choice.
HMA has apps that work on the following computers and devices:
HMA’s desktop app’s interface window is quite large compared to some other VPNs we have reviewed. The only reason we didn’t like the size is that it would get in the way if you wanted to have this open in front of your browser screen.
The blue design is quite likeable, but the quirky animals are not, in our opinion. For those who don’t know, HMA’s icon is a donkey wearing sunglasses, and this appears above the location on and off button.
One feature we did like about HMA’s app was the speed test. This can be handy to test individual server speeds to determine which one is suitable for you. However, HMA’s lightning connect will automatically find the fastest server for you.
Overall, the app is quite basic. There are no options to set up user profiles and you also can’t favourite servers like you can with other VPN providers.
HMA’s mobile VPN app is quite average and is certainly no-frills if you’re not an Android user. As previously mentioned, split tunnelling is only available for Android users.
On the mobile app, users can connect to any server using wifi or cellular. Again, there were not many features available, especially for iPhone users. There is only one protocol to choose from, too.
Another way to utilise your VPN is to have it installed directly onto your router. Configuring your router to run HMA will protect any devices that are connected to your home or office network.
HMA is compatible with the following routers:
Not all routers are compatible to run a VPN, and as a general rule of thumb, the router provided by your internet provider is usually not compatible. HMA has tutorials and how-to guides to help you set up the service on your router.
There are very few ways to contact HMA’s customer support team, and this is definitely a negative for the provider, and customer reviews we’ve read have also highlighted this. If customers require support, the only line of communication is a support form.
There’s a help button, which at first we thought would turn out to be a live chat – unfortunately, this was not the case. Through this support form, users can ask their questions and provide an email address, choose an operating system, as well as attach screenshots of the issue. This mode of communication is not ideal for urgent enquiries.
The other way to seek help from HMA is to make use of its many how-to guides in its knowledge base. You’ll find guides to help with setting the VPN up on various apps and devices, as well as troubleshooting common issues.
HMA has been in business for 18 years, so we were surprised to see its customer reviews were poor from Trustpilot, Apple App Store and Google Play Store. We found customers were mostly dissatisfied with HMA’s customer support, slow connection speeds and unstable VPN connections.
“Their customer support ataff is so lazy and they do not reply. They replied to me after more than three months and then again disappeared without solving my query. Now I am using another VPN for my professional work.”
“[I experienced a lot of] dropped connections and often abysmal speeds. They lie about the location where you will appear after connecting to a remote location in another country. It seems you select New York, for example, and when you check the IP address with “What’s My IP Address?” it will show London, UK or Miami.”
“The VPN server worked just fine for the first few days of subscribing. In the last five days, the VPN server doesn’t connect to the correct country selected. I have tried to contact customer service and have not heard a word back but they continue to charge me!?”
“Hands down the very best VPN on the market. Absolutely amazing; I’m blown away. I’ve used it before in the past and paid for a year’s subscription before and I absolutely love it. You guys are geniuses.”
After reviewing HMA and considering all of its features, we found the provider’s downsides to be pretty noteworthy.
The number of security features does not match up to HMA’s competitors. There is only one VPN protocol available per type of device, and this is coupled with split tunnelling not being made available for all devices. Adding to this, HMA is based in the UK, which is a part of Five Eyes. In 2012, HMA was ordered to hand over information about one of its users regarding a high-profile hack, and the information was handed over – if you’re looking for online privacy, this may not be the best VPN for you.
HMA does have some positives despite the above; its no-logs policy has been independently audited and it does use AES-256 encryption. There is also a seven-day VPN free trial, and not many providers offer this, so you could try the service risk-free.
Overall, HMA simply isn’t as good as most other providers in numerous areas, based on our research and testing. Its speed tests were not the best, and for some servers, the results were very poor.
Overall score: ★★★
| Reputation | ★★ |
| Privacy | ★★★★ |
| Performance and features | ★★★½ |
| Plans and pricing value | ★½ |
| Customer experience | ★ |
The data in this review is reported from a neutral stance and should be used for informational purposes only. We review VPN services from the perspective of:
Independent Advisor does not endorse the streaming of content from regions other than where the subscription is held, nor does it endorse the downloading or consumption of illegally pirated content.
