hide.me VPN Review 2023: Features, Pricing & Security

cover.me VPN is a Malaysian-based VPN service, providing a beneficiant free model with limitless knowledge and inexpensive premium plans. It’s out there on Home windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome, Android and iOS, to call just a few.

Whereas cover.me generally is a sensible choice for customers on a funds, it is probably not the very best for customers needing an in depth server community. Its server fleet solely has round 2,300 servers throughout 85 places, in comparison with different VPNs that normally present 3,000+ servers.

Proceed studying to discover cover.me VPN’s, pricing, options and efficiency primarily based on our hands-on evaluate.

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cover.me VPN pricing

cover.me has month-to-month, three-month and 17-month premium plans. It additionally has a free model, which is completely different from a free trial; we’ll dive extra into that later.

Throughout the board, cover.me gives very inexpensive pricing for its premium plans in comparison with different VPN suppliers with annual plans averaging round $4 to $5.

cover.me’s 27-month subscription priced at $2.22 per thirty days is a good choice for these on a funds. And, the extra three months free, in what would have been a two-year subscription tier, makes cover.me a good higher deal in comparison with different VPNs.

cover.me’s month-to-month subscription priced at $9.95 can be well-below business common, as different VPN suppliers cost round $12 for a month-to-month plan. All three cover.me premium tiers additionally include a 30-day money-back assure.

Earlier than making a choice, I might suggest utilizing cover.me’s free model or buying the six-month subscription and utilizing the 30-day money-back assure in case you’re not glad.

cover.me free model

cover.me gives a full model of its VPN without spending a dime (Determine A). Whereas most free VPNs have a month-to-month knowledge cap, cover.me’s free model gives limitless knowledge to its customers and possesses the identical safety protocols and encryption because the premium model.

Determine A

Nonetheless, there are limitations. The free model runs at a slower pace in comparison with the premium model, and it solely permits for one connection and entry to eight places in comparison with the ten connections and 85 places out there with the premium plan.

The eight out there server places are Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, United States (East), United States (West) and Singapore. Per my testing, customers aren’t ready to decide on which free server to hook up with as cover.me routinely chooses the server closest to your location. So in case you plan to make use of the free model to unblock content material in a particular location, you will have bother doing so with the free model.

Whereas these are sizable limitations, having limitless knowledge on a free model remains to be an enormous benefit.

Let’s discover extra professionals and cons of cover.me VPN.

cover.me VPN professionals

• Free model with limitless knowledge.
• 10 simultaneous machine connections.
• Very inexpensive pricing.
• Customizable app expertise.
• Firm has a clear privateness status.

cover.me VPN cons

• 2,300 server community is decrease than common.
• Free model gives gradual speeds.
• Desktop app appears to be like dated.

Safety: Is cover.me VPN protected?

cover.me comes with the requisite safety protocols we wish in a contemporary VPN. It has OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2 IPsec and even SSTP and SoftEther. cover.me additionally consists of AES-256 encryption, a built-in kill swap and DNS leak safety.

cover me has a no-logs coverage, which states that they don’t accumulate private knowledge or monitor or log shopping conduct from its customers. The VPN supplier additionally states that every one its utilization knowledge is totally nameless.

The latest impartial audit for cover.me VPN was performed by DefenseCode Ltd. in 2015. Most VPN suppliers have extra up-to-date audits; for instance, ExpressVPN had 12 impartial audits in 2022 alone.

Regardless of the outdated audit, cover.me offers a publicly accessible Transparency Report (2022) that covers criminal activity utilization, copyright knowledge and regulation enforcement requests acquired by the VPN. This reveals that cover.me is dedicated to upholding transparency and belief with its customers.

cover.me relies in Malaysia and isn’t obligated to retailer logs by native legal guidelines — a plus for privateness lovers involved about authorities surveillance.

Aside from needing a newer impartial audit, cover.me hits all of the marks wanted to be thought-about a protected and safe VPN service to make use of in 2023.

Key options of cover.me VPN

Break up Tunneling

cover.me comes with a break up tunneling function (Determine B) that lets you choose which apps you need related to the protected VPN connection and which of them you need routed to your common connection. That is helpful as a result of not all purposes want a VPN’s safe connection however would profit from a sooner connection, provided that VPNs normally have decrease web speeds.

Determine B

In my testing, break up tunneling on cover.me carried out effectively; it was capable of route my Microsoft Edge browser to my web service supplier (ISP) and join my work browser to the VPN.

Break up tunneling may be priceless for distant staff, permitting them to route work purposes, reminiscent of Slack, to the secured VPN connection, and have much less necessary purposes which may want extra pace — reminiscent of a music-streaming service — operating on their native community.

It’s necessary to notice that you must restart your connection after enabling the break up tunneling function for it to work (Determine C).

Determine C

The app prompted me to restart my connection once I converted to the allow/disable VPN part. I needed this was displayed from the break up tunneling menu itself.

StealthGuard

StealthGuard is a singular function to cover.me (Determine D). It acts as a kill swap however is configurable to sure purposes.

Determine D

Equally to a kill swap, StealthGuard routinely blocks any connection that’s not protected by way of the VPN. Nonetheless, what differentiates StealthGuard from a kill swap is the power to pick out which apps you need to run by means of the protected VPN connection.

For instance, let’s say you need your work browser to be related solely by means of cover.me’s VPN. By StealthGuard, your work browser received’t connect with the web if it’s not by means of cover.me’s secured connection, lowering the chance of a attainable leak.

You can even set StealthGuard to “Bind Web to VPN,” which restricts your whole web use to solely work by way of cover.me.

10 machine connections

cover.me permits for 10 simultaneous machine connections with a premium VPN plan; the business commonplace ranges from 5 to 7 machine connections.

Even widespread choices reminiscent of NordVPN and ExpressVPN solely permit six and eight connections, respectively. If you happen to plan on defending a number of units with a VPN, cover.me’s 10 simultaneous connections provides you that choice.

Efficiency: How briskly is cover.me VPN?

As a disclaimer, I used to be solely capable of check cover.me’s free model for this evaluate. Due to this fact, my hands-on evaluation of cover.me VPN’s efficiency is restricted to that model.

All through my use, cover.me VPN’s free model gave gradual speeds that translated into internet pages taking some time to load. YouTube and different social media platforms have been gradual to populate textual content and thumbnails, and there have been just a few situations when websites wouldn’t open in any respect — possible because of the free model being restricted to decrease speeds in comparison with cover.me VPN’s premium plan.

cover.me free’s pace outcomes displayed an 88.76% drop in downloads and a 98.71% drop in uploads. If you happen to’re searching for a free VPN with sooner speeds, Proton VPN’s free model gives sooner speeds. You may take a look at our Proton VPN evaluate right here.

In response to consumer evaluations, cover.me’s premium plan can present quick speeds — albeit inconsistently.

When it comes to DNS leaks, I ran cover.me a number of occasions by means of a public DNS leak instrument and recorded zero leaks.

cover.me VPN servers and places

cover.me VPN grants you entry to round 2,300 servers unfold throughout 85 places worldwide — decrease than the business common of round 4,000 servers. If you happen to want a big server suite, cover.me is probably not the only option. Suppliers reminiscent of CyberGhost VPN or Personal Web Entry each supply bigger server suites.

cover.me VPN categorizes servers into Commonplace or Streaming, giving customers who plan to observe content material quick access to servers optimized for streaming (Determine E).

Determine E

cover.me additionally has a multihop function that lets you decide an entry and exit server, making it much more troublesome for unhealthy actors to come up with your knowledge or location.

cover.me app expertise

Determine F

cover.me VPN’s Home windows utility has an easy interface (Determine F) that’s straightforward to grasp. Design-wise, nonetheless, it does look a bit dated in comparison with the competitors. If you’d like a extra modern-looking VPN, ExpressVPN has top-of-the-line interfaces.

When it comes to consumer expertise, I had no points with cover.me VPN’s desktop app. It held a secure connection all through my testing and I had no bother attempting out its completely different options.

I additionally commend cover.me for bringing a ton of customization choices to its customers (Determine G). You may customise how cover.me launches on startup or have completely different configurations per safety protocol.

Determine G

If you happen to’re the kind of consumer who desires flexibility in personalizing every facet of your VPN, cover.me’s desktop app might be a very good decide.

Is cover.me VPN price it?

cover.me VPN is price a attempt in case you’re searching for an inexpensive VPN or desire a full-fledged free VPN with limitless knowledge. It’s additionally a sensible choice in case you worth having a customizable desktop utility.

Nonetheless, in case you’re searching for an in depth server community, quick speeds or a extra modern-looking interface, different suppliers reminiscent of CyberGhost VPN, ExpressVPN and NordVPN are possible higher choices

Alternate options to cover.me VPN

CyberGhost VPN

CyberGhost VPN is among the finest VPNs in terms of having an in depth server suite. It comes with 9,370+ servers throughout 100 nations. It additionally gives specialised servers for streaming, torrenting and gaming. In our full evaluate, it acquired a ranking of 4.3 stars out of 5.

ExpressVPN

For customers that prioritize having a well-designed desktop utility, ExpressVPN needs to be a high consideration. Its app interface is clear and simple on the eyes, on high of being a well-performing VPN. It has servers unfold throughout 94 nations and acquired 4.4 out of 5 stars in our full evaluate.

NordVPN

NordVPN has constructed a powerful status of being one of many quickest VPNs out there. It has tons of security measures reminiscent of an encrypted file-sharing system and built-in safety in opposition to malware and advertisements. It’s certainly one of our high VPN picks and acquired a ranking of 4.7 out of 5 stars in our full evaluate.

Assessment methodology

My evaluate of cover.me VPN concerned an in depth evaluation of its options, value and real-world efficiency. I had hands-on expertise with cover.me’s free VPN and supplemented my findings with consumer testimonials and respected evaluations.

For pace, I examined cover.me VPN utilizing Ookla’s public Speedtest. I additionally used DNSleaktest to check cover.me’s DNS leak safety.

I rated cover.me VPN on every part from its protocols to its pricing primarily based on an inner algorithm to get a ranking of 4.0 out of 5 stars. The scoring was primarily based each on cover.me VPN by itself and in relation to different out there VPN providers.