Hidester VPN Review 2024: Before You Buy, Is It Worth It?

Hidester Is Slow on Its VPN and Proxy Servers

With a limited number of servers and poor connection, Hidester is a very slow VPN. I found it difficult connecting to the CamoVPN and OpenVPN protocols. Even after connecting, the speed was so slow it couldn’t load any website successfully. I could only connect with the CamoWeb (web proxy service) protocol. Even though the speed for the proxy service was better than the VPN protocol, it was still slow.

Speed Test Results

Hidester significantly dropped my speeds during my tests. I connected to Hidester’s servers with a base internet speed of 20.82Mbps. After connecting, I got an average download speed of 5.97Mbps — a 71.3% drop in my internet speed. My speeds didn’t improve with servers close to my locations. The nearby servers in the UK, US, and Canada saw speeds roughly around 6Mbps each. The farthest server (in Japan) from my location, saw a speed short of 5Mbps.

However, the upload speeds performed better. I got an average of 1.07Mbps on a 1.92Mbps base internet upload speed. Even so, Hidester’s abysmal performance was quite discouraging. I recommend that you try a premium VPN that offers lightning-fast speeds that you can use for torrenting, gaming, or streaming content in HD. In my tests, ExpressVPN provides faster speeds among top-grade VPNs and has enough servers, so it doesn’t ever get overcrowded.

Server Network — Very Small (Only 40+ Servers Worldwide)

Hidester’s network is very limited, especially for a service that markets itself as a reliable streaming VPN.

Since there are so few servers, Hidester’s service is likely to get overcrowded. Its 40+ servers are distributed in 35 countries. The US and Japan have 8 and 3 servers, respectively. Australia, France, Great Britain, and Singapore have 2 servers each. Other countries like Brazil, South Africa, and Germany only have one server. That means you might have to connect to a server that may already be slow and overloaded with other users.

If you’re looking for a VPN to log into your bank from abroad, Hidester will disappoint you. My account with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was blocked when I attempted to log into the portal using Hidester. The connection was flagged as suspicious, and I was notified that the IP address I was assigned from the only server had been used to access multiple accounts. The likelihood that you’ll share an IP address with other users when accessing a financial institution is very high due to Hidester’s limited coverage.

Security — Impressive Security Features for a Small VPN

Hidester offers pretty solid security features. With its AES 256-bit encryption, your data is secure enough to protect you from third-party snooping. Hidester is compatible with OpenVPN, the industry-standard VPN protocol for its advanced security algorithms. It also offers its proprietary CamoVPN and CamoWeb protocols.

CamoVPN is the default protocol and works similar to OpenVPN that encrypts your data through a secure tunnel. The main difference is that it provides an extra layer of obfuscation at the expense of slower speeds. Hidester also offers a proxy service dubbed CamoWeb that doesn’t encrypt your connection. It helps users to evade censorship through the proxy service, but your identity may still be exposed to hackers.
Hidester has an automated kill switch to terminate your internet connection if your secure VPN connection drops to protect your privacy. It also features advanced WebRTC leak protection algorithms and a DNS leak detection module to keep your identity safe.

Hidester offers its DNS service with popular providers like OpenDNS, Comodo DNS, and Google DNS. Hidest DNS servers aren’t always reliable, as the service routed my traffic mainly through a third-party provider.

Privacy — Weak Privacy Policy

Hidester VPN has a zero-log policy, but it’s not strict enough to be trusted with sensitive information. It doesn’t record your IP address, DNS requests, and other identifiers of online activity. However, it collects information about your connection country, the server used, the date of connection, and the amount of data you download. More troubling is that it shares some of this information with third parties while troubleshooting any connection errors.

Hidester is headquartered in Hong Kong — a privacy-friendly jurisdiction. This should ideally make it suitable for privacy. However, Hidester lacks transparency reports, independent audits of its no-logs policy, and a warrant canary that shows if there’s been any data request from any government.

Torrenting — P2P and Torrenting Allowed on Some Servers

Hidester’s terrible speeds and limited server network makes it unsuitable for torrenting. The VPN supports torrenting on its servers and even strengthens the security protocols on those servers with its CamoVPN protocol. However, overcrowding may affect speeds, given that only about half of Hidester servers allow torrenting. During my tests, I could only use the CamoWeb protocol, a proxy service, and it shouldn’t be used for torrenting since it is likely to expose your data to hackers.

Hidester lacks the speeds and privacy considerations for torrenting. For those reasons, I wouldn’t recommend it for P2P. Instead, you can try top-rated VPNs like ExpressVPN that allow you to speedily and safely download torrents. ExpressVPN has thousands of servers around the globe, blazing-fast speeds, and a strict no-logs policy.

Keep in mind that no matter the VPN you use, my team and I don’t endorse illegal torrenting, downloading copyrighted files, or breaking the rules of any country. So, make sure to check with the regulations of your country before torrenting.

Does Hidester VPN Work in China? No!

Unfortunately, Hidester VPN doesn’t work in China. Since I don’t live there, I couldn’t personally test the VPN in the country. So I reached out to support. Sadly, I was informed by Hidester’s support that the VPN doesn’t work in China.

Hidester won’t be of help to you if you’re traveling to China. Many VPNs claim to bypass China’s restrictive firewall but don’t live up to those claims. If you need a reliable VPN that works there, then you should give ExpressVPN a try and safely access the web in China. Keep in mind that using a non-government-approved VPN is illegal in China. However, there haven’t been any cases of tourists being penalized for using a VPN. Instead, the country uses tools that technologically block many VPNs from working over there.

Hidester’s support is limited to only email or support tickets. There’s no live chat support if you need urgent assistance. The ticketing system is slow as the agents usually take more than 2 hours to respond to questions and couldn’t help me resolve most technical issues. Because I travel a lot and often need to log in to different services abroad, I need responsive customer support from my VPN.

With Hidester’s delayed responses, I can’t imagine relying on them when I need a solution urgently. For more general questions and troubleshooting, Hidester has an impressive online resource wiki-style page with detailed and helpful guides and tutorials.