Information provided by you – Account information (name, email, username, and password), billing information (billing name, billing contact details, and payment instrument details), identity verification information (email address, phone number), communications and submissions (information provided of your own accord when communicating with company representatives).According to this new policy, the company collects the following information from you: Lastly, the software comes with a reliable automatic killswitch feature that can be turned on or off in your client.ĪnchorFree has a new Privacy Policy effective as of October 1st, 2019. Hotspot Shield will also protect you when connected to exposed public Wi-Fi networks and its latest iteration eliminates any exposure to malware or phishing attempts. Note that some outdated parts of the official website still claim that AnchorFree uses AES-128 cipher for Hotspot Shield, but that is no longer true. When VPN providers mention things like “military-grade” or “bank-grade” encryption, this is what they are talking about. Hotspot Shield encrypts your traffic with AES-256 cipher, which is the most secure option currently out there. This is an excellent security option since even if somebody manages to obtain your encryption key, it will be rendered useless the moment you finish your current session. This basically means that Hotspot Shield comes with perfect forward secrecy that generates a new key for every online session and deletes it once your session is over. It implements TLS 1.2 handshake paired with RSA-2048 and Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman algorithm for ephemeral key exchange. Instead of going with the conventional connection protocols, Hotspot Shield implements its proprietary solution called Catapult Hydra, which is also used for VPN services provided by BitDefender, Cheetah Mobile, McAfee, and many others.Ĭatapult Hydra utilizes TLS-based security that complies with NIST recommendations. Premium users can establish up to 5 simultaneous connections with a single Hotspot Shield account, which is more than enough to guarantee no overlaps between your favorite devices and platforms. However, since Hotspot Shield is one of the rare services that offer a free version of its software, non-premium users have a bandwidth limit capped at 500MB per day. For now, the software assigns different IP addresses based on your geographical location.Īpart from its vast network of servers, the company also guarantees unlimited speeds, bandwidth, and server switching. Hotspot Shield does not provide static IPs at the moment. During our testing phase, we had no issues connecting to any of the provided locations since the client usually got the job done in mere seconds. Hotspot Shield currently operates more than 1,800 servers spread across 80+ countries, which is a pretty impressive server network that can rival some of the top VPN products out there. This includes Android TV box, Apple and Smart TV, Chromecast, Kodi, Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Windows phones, Linux OS, rooted or jailbroken devices, Kindle devices, and game consoles. Since Hotspot Shield sets its settings dynamically, you cannot configure the software manually on any devices it does not support. The company also provides its users with a browser extension for Google Chrome. It has native apps for Windows (Vista, XP, 7, 8, 10), Mac (Sierra, High Sierra, Yosemite, El Capitan, and more), Android (Jelly Bean, KitKat, Nougat, Marshmallow, Oreo, and more), and iOS (iPhone 7, 8, X, and other models). Hotspot Shield does not feature a wide platform coverage compared to some of the most popular VPN services out there. Our lowest speed was recorded on the Melbourne server, which managed to retain only 33.42% of our benchmark download speed. Our speed tests usually show subpar results in India, but Hotspot Shield managed to retain 65.51% of our original speed on its server in Chennai. We also had excellent results on servers in Mexico, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Stockholm, Auckland, and Hong Kong. VPN services that enhance your speed instead of lowering it are definitely rare nowadays, which makes Hotspot Shield all the more impressive. Oddly enough, we recorded the best results in New York, which augmented our original download speed by 4.06%. Our testing team located in Belgrade, Serbia (Europe) tested 18 Hotspot Shield servers over a period of one week to determine the discrepancies between our benchmark speeds and said server locations. Having said that, certain servers did exhibit diminished performance on occasion, probably due to overcrowding. We were able to connect to any server in a matter of seconds and did not experience any disconnects or huge performance issues. During our testing phase, Hotspot Shield definitely confirmed its status as one of the fastest VPN services out there.
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