Hotspot Shield Review

Here’s a table summarizing the information that Hotspot Shield logs:

As you can see, Hotspot Shield keeps logs — a lot of which are sensitive and identifiable, including your real IP address.

Hotspot Shield justifies logging your IP address on the basis that it is only for the duration of your VPN session. But it’s not necessary to store this information at any time. VPNs like Private internet Access and Mullvad prove this.

Hotspot Shield also logs your bandwidth usage, connection timestamps, VPN server location, and originating location — and it keeps these logs indefinitely.

Your browsing data is recorded, but in an aggregated form, which means it cannot be linked to your specific account.

Hotspot Shield Free is even less private, as using it means sharing your personally identifiable data with third-party advertisers.

Owned by Aura, Based in the US

Hotspot Shield is now owned by a company called Aura. This is a US-based company, where there are intrusive privacy laws. US authorities can compel Aura to retain and share its users information.

The US is also a founding member of the Five Eyes network of countries that work together to collect, share, and analyze mass surveillance data. None of this is good for privacy. Ideally, Hotspot Shield would be based in a place where there are no data retention laws, like the British Virgin Islands or Switzerland.

No Longer Releases Transparency Reports

Hotspot Shield used to release transparency reports detailing the law enforcement requests it receives and how it responds to them. This built trust and evidenced its safe logging claims. However, Hotspot Shield has not released a transparency report since 2019.

With no transparency reports and no independent audit, there is no evidence to support Hotspot Shield’s privacy protection claims and therefore it cannot be wholly trusted.

Hotspot Shield’s Controversial History

There have been a number of controversy’s surrounding Hotspot Shield:

• • In 2016, a CSIRO report highlighted some questionable practices by Hotspot Shield. The Android app was “injecting JavaScript codes for advertising and tracking purposes.” This meant Hotspot Shield was using tracking codes to collect information about users and sell the data to advertisers.
  • In 2017, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) accused Hotspot Shield’s free version of “unfair and deceptive practices.” Essentially, Hotspot Shield had overstated the privacy and security benefits of its VPN, even arguing that collecting your IP address is not personal information.

• In 2018, an independent researcher found and reported a bug with Hotspot Shield, showing that users’ personal data had been leaked, including location and Wi-Fi name. Hotspot Shield eventually acknowledged the accuracy of this reporting.

It’s hard to trust a company with such a checkered history. However, Hotspot Shield has since come under new ownership and its privacy policy has been revamped. It now clearly shows users what data the VPN does and does not collect, and how the free app is used for advertising.

Overall, based on Hotspot Shield’s current logging policy, its US jurisdiction, its refusal to provide transparency reports or audits, and a history of selling user data, we are forced to say that Hotspot Shield cannot be 100% trusted to protect your privacy.

We assessed the impact that Hotspot Shield has on our normal 100Mbps internet speed by connecting to servers in six continents. Here are the results in full:

As you can see, there is almost no difference between your normal internet connection and a Hotspot Shield connection, regardless of which server we connected to. This is very impressive.

Connecting to a UK connection, we experienced a speed loss of 1%. For long-distance connections, it does not get better than that. In fact, our biggest speed loss came from connecting to Brazil, where we only experienced a 63% drop from our normal internet.

To put these results in context, use the bar chart below and compare Hotspot Shield’s speeds to other fast VPNs, including ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Hide.me:

Hotspot Shield achieves these speeds through its exclusive connection protocol, Hydra VPN. This protocol is designed to fix latency issues with other protocols, like OpenVPN.

Hotspot Shield Free Is Also Fast

Hotspot Shield Free is just as fast as the Premium version, but it’s limited to four servers.

For example, Hotspot Shield Free’s local New York connection was identical to the Premium version, and connecting to a long-distance server in the UK was the same – we saw speeds of 97Mbps.

Hotspot Shield Free and Premium only seriously differed in our tests when connecting to the US West Coast, where we picked up speeds of 72Mbps, which is considerably slower compared to the Premium version’s result of 100Mbps.

Hotspot Shield’s Low Latency Is Good for Gamers

Hotspot Shield’s record speeds and low ping make it a good VPN for gaming, too. This is particularly true on its mobile apps, which come with gaming-optimized servers.

Connecting to a local server, we saw a ping time of 6ms. This allowed us to play online games while connecting to a VPN without any lag.

You can see which protocols, ciphers, and features Hotspot Shield offers in the table below:

WireGuard, IKEv2 & Hydra Protocols Available

Hotspot Shield includes the common WireGuard and IKEv2 protocols, but also its own proprietary protocol called Hydra (formerly Catapult Hydra).

Hydra was developed by Hotspot Shield to deliver super fast speeds, and our speed tests show that it works. In terms of security, Hydra is safe: it is based on TLS 1.2. and uses 128-bit AES encryption, 2048-BIT RSA certificates for server authentication, and incorporates perfect forward secrecy.

However, the problem with closed-source proprietary technology like Hydra is that there’s no way for independent experts to examine it. Hotspot Shield claims the code is assessed by experts from cybersecurity firms like BitDefender and McAfee. If you trust this, you should use Hydra without concern. If not, it’s better to use WireGuard.

We typically recommend WireGuard or OpenVPN, as they are secure and open-source. But Hotspot Shield does not include OpenVPN in its list of protocols, preferring to push its Hydra protocol.

Hotspot Shield Passed Our Encryption Test

We tested to see whether Hotspot Shield actually encrypts your traffic by running it through the packet-sniffing tool, Wireshark. If Hotspot Shield did not encrypt our data, Wireshark would show the websites we visited.

However, as you can see in the image below, our test found that all ingoing and outgoing network packets were encrypted, and none of the websites we visited were decipherable.

No IP, DNS, or WebRTC Leaks

We tested the Hotspot Shield apps using our in-house tool to check for data leaks. The results came back safe: no IP, DNS, or WebRTC leaks were recorded and our real IP address remained hidden throughout.

However, Hotspot Shield does not support IPv6 traffic, so you run the risk of exposing your personal data on IPv6 connections. Other VPNs like Hide.me have come up with a dual-stack solution to this issue, and others like Surfshark simply block IPv6 traffic to prevent leaks.

Browser Extensions Failed Our Leak Test

While the Hotspot Shield apps came back leak-free, the same isn’t the case for its Chrome and Firefox browser extensions. Our tests showed that the Chrome extension leaks DNS requests, and the Firefox add-on leaked WebRTC requests – even with the WebRTC leak blocker enabled.

This means that your ISP can still see the websites you visit when connected to the Chrome extension, and your true IP address and location is exposed when using the Firefox extension. We caution against using Hotspot Shield’s browser extensions.

No Kill Switch on macOS

Hotspot Shield does not have a kill switch for macOS – not even an automatic one running in the background. We tested it with our kill switch test tool and found that our real IP address was exposed whenever we changed servers or caused an unexpected internet disconnection.

Thankfully, the kill switch works perfectly on other apps. Although, you should be aware that it’s not switched on by default.

Security Features We’d Like to See

We’d like to see Hotspot Shield bolster its security and privacy credentials. Here are some features it could add to do so:

• Always-on kill switch across all apps so that every Hotspot Shield client shares the same level of protection.
• Dedicated IP addresses to combat the frequency of CAPTCHAs.
• Diskless servers to prevent logging and the acquisition of data from hardware centers.
• Multi-hop (Double VPN) servers for extra protection.
• Open-source apps so that people can check the security of Hotspot Shield services.
• OpenVPN support so that users have greater protocol choice.
• Leak protection to stop IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC data exposure.

Here’s a list of popular streaming platforms that Hotspot Shield Premium and Hotspot Shield Free currently unblocks:

Unblocks Most Global Streaming Sites

Our streaming tests show that Hotspot Shield Premium works to access most geo-blocked streaming sites, including 6 Netflix libraries, (including the US) HBO Max, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.

It’s also useful for watching British TV on sites like BBC iPlayer, ITVX, and Channel 4. However, Hotspot Shield does not with Hotstar. This is disappointing as the best VPNs for streaming unblock every platform.

Hotspot Shield Free Does Not Unblock Streaming Sites

Hotspot Shield Free performs very poorly as a streaming VPN. We tested it with every major streaming site and it failed to unblock all of them. For a free streaming VPN, we recommend Windscribe Free instead.

Here is how Hotspot Shield performed in our torrenting tests:

Torrenting Attribute	Hotspot Shield Premium	Hotspot Shield Free
Average Download Bitrate	4.3MiB/s	5.25MiB/s
No. of P2P Servers	1,800	0
Logging Policy	Some User Logs	Some User Logs
Kill Switch	Yes	Yes
Port Forwarding	No	No

Hotspot Shield openly endorses torrenting on its service, but we don’t recommend it due to the VPN’s slow average download bitrate, its intrusive logging policy, and the absence of a kill switch on macOS. Torrenting with Hotspot Shield is not without risk.

When testing Hotspot Shield with torrent clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent, we recorded an average download bitrate of 4.3MiB/s. This is a low result that can lead to slow file-sharing, especially when compared to the top-rated torrenting VPNs.

From a privacy standpoint, we are concerned by Hotspot Shield’s intrusive logging policy that collects lots of user data. We have no idea how many DMCA requests Hotspot Shield receives and responds to, since it has stopped publishing transparency reports.

Furthermore, there is no kill switch on macOS, so your real IP may get accidentally exposed. Finally, Hotspot Shield does not offer port forwarding — another reason to avoid it if you’re an advanced torrenter.

Hotspot Shield Free Does Not Permit Torrenting

Hotspot Shield Free cannot be used for torrenting. It does not permit P2P activity at all and, even if it did, it shares the same intrusive logging policy and risk as the paid version.

Unlike other VPN websites, we actually test VPNs against the most sophisticated web censorship in the world: The Great Firewall of China.

Using our server in Shanghai, we can report that, over a yearly period, Hotspot Shield has only worked to access the free internet within China 14% of the time.

This is surprising, as Hotspot Shield claims to have obfuscation technology for its proprietary Hydra protocol, designed to make VPN traffic look like normal web traffic and bypass blocks.

It’s possible that Hotspot Shield will work in countries where web censorship is less aggressive, like Russia and Iran. However, our data tells us that there are more dependable VPNs available.

Astrill VPN, for example, has a 100% success rate for bypassing Chinese censorship and it remains the best VPN for China.

On the flip side, if you want to connect into China and use the Chinese internet, Hotspot Shield is one of the few services that has a virtual China server location that gives you a Chinese IP address.

Hotspot Shield offers customer support through the following avenues:

Hotspot Shield offers around-the-clock live chat support with well-informed and timely responses. This is by far the best way to get your questions answered and problems resolved. However, you have to be a paying subscriber to benefit from this feature.

This makes asking simple questions a slow process, as you’re forced to login with your account details.

Hide.me and Surfshark offer useful live-chat without the need to prove your subscription. Hotspot Shield could at least offer a chatbot for quick and interactive support.

You should be able to find answers to basic questions in Hotspot Shield’s knowledge base and FAQs section, which is fairly comprehensive and simple to navigate.

Beyond this, Hotspot Shield’s customer support system is minimal, with no video guides available or online community. It’s well behind the easy-access, expert-driven support of VPNs like Hide.me and ExpressVPN.