Hidester VPN Review: Utilize This Hong Kong VPN or Not?

VPNs are essential to our digital security. Engineers invented it to facilitate secure communication between remote workplaces of a business via establishing a virtual and private network. However, today, it has become more of a web service that caters to the privacy and security of an individual user. Many providers offer a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service with varying capabilities. Some are only a VPN in name while others provide military-grade experience. One such VPN vendor is the Hidester VPN. Although the company boasts of bringing a secure, private, and fast internet to your home, many users disagree. Why? That’s what we want to find out with our Hidester VPN review.

Note – The following review is subjective. We recommend visiting the official Hidester VPN website to learn more about the service.

Overview of Hidester VPN

Hidester VPN is a relatively newer addition to the VPN ranks. Founded in 2017, the company operates in Hong Kong. It is a decent location for a VPN as it is outside the influence of the Five Eyes Alliance and other countries with stringent data retention practices. But it doesn’t mean that this VPN provider qualifies. Don’t get us wrong; there is nothing critically wrong with the service. It simply fails to live up to a certain standard that an individual VPN service should. All in all, the service is pretty much mediocre in the numerous aspects of being a VPN.

While the service claims to be a no-logs VPN, it logs data. It promises Customer Support, but it is severely lacking. The vendor claims to be fast, but with a relatively small network of 43+ servers, it is unbelievably slow. There are more complaints regarding the service than compliments. But before we conclude, we have to do our due diligence and provide an in-depth analysis of the numerous features and services the product has to offer.

Key specs of Hidester VPN

Features	Hidester VPN
Bandwidth limit	Unlimited
VPN speed	43 Mbps
Logging policy	Logs some data
DNS, IP, WebRTC leaks	None
Jurisdiction	Hong Kong
Number of servers	43
IP addresses	Undisclosed
VPN server locations	30+
Streaming	No
Torrenting	Limited/Unreliable
Number of simultaneous connections	5
Obfuscation	Possible
Customer Service	Only email
Cheapest price	$3.99 monthly over 12 months
Money-back guarantee	7-day money return warranty

Hidester VPN features

Now let us examine Hidester VPN feature by feature.

Privacy and data logging

The VPN hails from Hong Kong, which surely is a plus point, given how most jurisdictions have a data retention law that can work against the betterment of the user. However, it doesn’t project the VPN as a privacy-centric service. We all understand the importance of a well-intended zero-logging policy. But Hidester, while claiming to be a no-logs VPN, collects more data than is necessary. The collected data includes your country of origin, date of connection, choices of server, and total daily traffic. Furthermore, the VPN fails to mention how long it will store it and for what will it use it.

Security

Surprisingly, Hidester VPN has impressive security. Although there is an apparent lack of advanced features, it is great to see the VPN doing right by the basics. Furthermore, there are also some excellent obfuscation and customization setting available. But it is limited to the Windows Hidester VPN client. The VPN runs its DNS (Domain Name System) server that adds to the security while diminishing threats of an IP leak.

Despite all these positives, the VPN uses a jarring connecting method, CamoWeb. It is a proprietary protocol that allows for faster surfing at the expense of encryption. Hence, it is more like a proxy, which led us to deduct more points from the vendor. Here are all the security features you may find in the VPN:

• VPN protocols – OpenVPN (TCP/UDP), Proprietary (CamoVPN, CamoWeb)
• VPN encryption – AES-256-CBC
• Security – DNS leak blocking, First-party DNS
• VPN kill switch – WebRTC leak blocking
• Advanced features – None

Server location and network

The VPN operates on a network with limited capabilities. There are only 43+ VPN servers, and they cover 30 countries. Most of these servers are located in the States and Europe, with South America and Africa only getting one each.

VPN speed

Owing to its limited network, it is no surprise that the VPN lacks connection speed. Even the performance on the local connection is barely able to keep up. However, on the distant, international servers, you can forget about streaming or playing games as even daily, basic browsing suffers from an apparent lack of speed. The VPN suffers due to global network coverage.

Server Location	Baseline Download Speed (Mbps)	VPN Download Speed (Mbps)	Download Speed Decrease (%)	Baseline Upload Speed (Mbps)	VPN Upload Speed (Mbps)	Upload Speed Decrease (%)
New York	100	40	60%	50	20	60%
London	150	60	60%	60	25	58.3%
Tokyo	200	70	65%	70	30	57.1%
Sydney	120	50	58.3%	45	15	66.7%
Frankfurt	180	65	63.9%	55	18	67.3%
Singapore	130	55	57.7%	48	17	64.6%
Toronto	160	45	71.9%	52	14	73.1%

Streaming

If we want to describe the streaming capabilities of the VPN, one word suffices, inadequate. The VPN, with decent obfuscation, fails to bypass the geo-blocks of numerous streaming platforms. Although, it is also due to a lack of servers. However, even if the VPN could stream, the lack of speed would have been an issue.

Torrenting

Similarly, torrenting also suffers from speed issues. But despite that, we won’t recommend using Hidester VPN for torrents. Although the VPN has a kill switch, the servers don’t allow P2P traffic. Additionally, forget about advanced stuff like port forwarding.

Obfuscation and bypassing geo-blocks

The VPN once again surprised us with its obfuscation. It can circumvent some leading VPN blocking methods like DPI (Deep Packet Inspection). Furthermore, the VPN has two exclusive protocols to aid in bypassing blocks.

Customer Care

There is no 24/7 live chat. Your only recourse is to email a message and awaits a response. Also, there is a lack of online resources. Customer care is crucial to a VPN service, but it doesn’t seem to be a priority to this provider.

Platform and device support for Hidester VPN

The service is accessible to limited platforms. It includes the mainstream ones like Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. There is neither a VPN router nor a Smart DNS feature.

Hidester VPN pricing and subscription plans

We hoped that the VPN could surprise us with its pricing. But again, it employs a competitive subscription plan despite lacking features. Although you can get the VPN at a low price of $4 per month, we have covered almost tens of leading VPNs that cost as much or less. The prices are:

• 1-month – $9.99/monthly
• 6 months – $6/per month
• 12-months – $3.99 monthly

The VPN accepts cryptocurrencies but only for the annual plan. However, it doesn’t allow international payment methods, such as Alipay or UnionPay. The money-back-guarantee is also lacking as it only offers 7 days.

Verdict

Though we try not to be invested while writing a review, Hidester VPN included, we can say we dislike the service and can’t recommend it. Even as an entry-level product, many vendors offer a much cheaper service and numerous advanced features. Also, Hidester VPN fails to get anything right. While it doesn’t do anything horribly, except data logging to a degree, it simply isn’t good enough nowadays.