Hotspot Shield Review 2024: A Secure, User-Friendly VPN

Hotspot Shield VPN is a great option with a few chinks in its armor. The product itself is top-notch based on the speed, variety of servers, additional features, and overall performance. 

Like most pieces of software, our testing showed that the performance can be buggy when used on operating systems other than Windows, but the customer service team is knowledgeable and ready to help.

Overall, Hotspot Shield is a solid paid and free VPN option. But is it one of the best VPNs available?

Hotspot Shield overview

Price	Free–$9.99/mo
Free version	Yes
Max # of connected devices	10
# of servers	Unlisted in 90+ locations
VPN protocol	Hydra, IKEv2(IPsec), WireGuard
No-logs policy	Some logs
Headquarters	United States
Netflix access	Yes
Learn more	Get Hotspot Shield

We last tested Hotspot Shield on October 23, 2024.

Our experience

Our experience with Hotspot Shield was overall positive. We had no problem installing the software and getting connected to a server right away.

We liked that the app suggests which server to connect to, even going so far as to suggest streaming and gaming optimized servers.

The one thing we would change about the server list is more filtering and sorting options. They have this helpful "Load" stat on the app's home page, which shows how busy the server is. It would be convenient to be able to sort the servers by lowest load for higher reliability.

When it came to connecting to a server, it did take about 30 seconds to make the full switch. Once connected, though, we got some pretty impressive speeds, so it was worth the wait in our opinion.

The app even comes with its own speed test, which was convenient. We tested it against the trust SpeedTest.net and got similar results.

We thought Hotspot Shield was thoughtful with their popups, which included browser notifications when you were connected to a server, an info panel when we first installed the program that explained their policy policy, and even a notification when the kill switch was active.

Overall, this was a good experience with very little bumps along the road.

Who is Hotspot Shield best for?

• Hotspot Shield is best for people looking for a solid VPN option without a ton of technical know-how.

In addition to reliable streaming performance, Hotspot Shield has several great features and a user interface that makes operations easy.

Military-grade encryption, 24/7 support, and a 45-day money-back guarantee all make this a solid VPN service. The user interface is clean, simple, and easy to use without lengthy tutorials.

Hotspot Shield prices and subscriptions

Hotspot Shield VPN has a free plan and Premium subscription from Free–$9.99/mo. The price is determined by the length of your plan subscription

It's not the most expensive VPN on the market but it’s not the least expensive either. Here's where its starting price falls compared to other top VPNs:

• ExpressVPN: $6.67/mo (billed annually)
• NordVPN: Free
• Hotspot Shield: $6.66/mo (billed annually)
• Surfshark: $1.99/mo (billed every two years)

The free plan is always free and is good on the fly, especially if you’ve found yourself in need of public Wi-Fi and don’t have time to shop for VPN options.

Plan	Monthly	Yearly	Best Value 3-year
Premium	$12.99/mo	$6.66/mo (billed annually)	$2.99/mo (billed every three years)

Hotspot Shield accepts debit and credit cards including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB Payment, Diners Club, as well as PayPal.

Hotspot Shield plan comparison

Features	Basic	Premium
Compatibility	Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome	Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, Linux, smart TVs, routers
Simultaneous connections	1	10
Virtual locations	1 (US only)	125+
Data limit	Unlimited	Unlimited
Streaming mode
Gaming mode
Learn more	View plan	View plan

Hotspot Shield features

First and foremost, it has to be mentioned that the download and installation aspect of Hotspot Shield is a breeze. We've tested on a macOS Ventura 13 Macbook Pro, as well as a Lenovo laptop with Windows 11. Usually, most software comes with complicated processes for Mac download and installation, but this was user-friendly and required minimal effort.

Here's a look at some of the other main features offered by Hotspot Shield.

Server count and countries

• 1,800+ servers in 80+ countries

As far as server and country count go, Hotspot Shield's network is on the higher side of average. Having a vast number of server options has benefits, particularly the ability to connect to a variety of servers to maintain fast internet speeds. Any VPN worth paying for has at least 1,000 servers to route traffic through.

On the other hand, having a mass amount of server options is only helpful if the VPN service is of good quality. There’s a difference between IP address types, with certain types being recognizable as VPN IP addresses and others looking like organic machine IP addresses.

The fact that Hotspot Shield has servers in 80+ countries is a positive. Not only does the service provide the ability to automatically route you through the fastest possible server, but it also allows for movement between regions to access local content.

The next impressive feature was the ability to not only choose a region or country but also specific cities. If you’ve ever been on vacation in California and are unable to stream a Cleveland Browns game because it’s the wrong region, this could be your saving grace.

No-logs policy and headquarters

• Hotspot Shield logs policy: Some logs
• Hotspot Shield headquarters: Redwood, CA

So this is where Hotspot Shield hits a major problem. First, the company is headquartered in Redwood, California, and its parent company Aura is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Being a United States company headquartered in the U.S. means Hotspot Shield is under the jurisdiction of the United States, a founding member of the Five Eyes alliance, and a member of the Nine and Fourteen Eyes alliances.

What this means is that, at any time, the U.S. government can require Hotspot Shield to turn over all logged data on any user. That’s why a no-logs policy is important. If the company doesn’t log any user data, then there’s nothing to turn over.

Unfortunately, Hotspot Shield does log some data. Here’s the breakdown from their website of what they log:

“Our VPN products log:

• The duration of VPN sessions and the bandwidth consumed. We do this to monitor, support and optimize our VPN services, as well as enforce free app usage limits.
• The domains that have been accessed by our users, but on an anonymized basis such that we do not know which user accessed which domain, nor the full URL that would indicate which web pages were visited. We also aggregate this domain information on an approximately monthly basis. We do this to monitor, support and optimize our VPN services.
• Device hashes, which are used to identify devices and associate them with other data we collect (such as for measuring bandwidth use, providing support, understanding how you interact with our VPN, and other analytics and marketing purposes). Device hashes are not linked to VPN browsing activity. We use device hashes because we do not require users to register an account to use some of our products and need a way to distinguish between different users and carry out the activities above.” [1]

The first bullet point explains that duration and bandwidth are logged for all tiers of the product. Though they mention the free version's usage limit, that limitation was actually removed so there's no real reason why this is logged.

In the second bullet, Hotspot Shield explains it’s collecting the domains accessed by all users. Their claim is that they use the data to optimize VPN services. They also claim they only log this domain information on a partial and anonymous basis. This would be a lot easier to digest if not for the last bit of information.

The third bullet point notes Hotspot Shield logs device hashes. This is where the privacy guarantee gets a bit dicey. Even though the device hashes aren’t linked to browsing activity, they do log some activity like domains accessed by users.

The explanation behind the reason for these logs is that Hotspot Shield uses the information for performance, marketing, and to regulate users of the free program. We'd prefer that they find ways to deal with this that doesn't involve logging this information.

Kill switch

A kill switch disconnects your internet connection if, for some reason, you lose connection to the VPN. This protects your IP address from becoming discoverable. The entire point of a VPN is to mask your IP address, so this is a pretty important feature.

Like internet service itself, VPNs have the potential to randomly drop throughout the day. It happens mostly during high-traffic times and you may not even notice if you’re immediately reconnected to another server. But this drop has the potential to expose your IP address briefly. A kill switch prevents this data leak.

You can find Hotspot Shield's kill switch in Settings > Advanced:

Split tunneling

Split tunneling is where you route some of your internet traffic openly and other parts through a VPN. Hotspot Shield allows for split tunneling and makes it very easy to toggle off and on through the main console.

You may need to use split tunneling to protect some of your internet traffic while also allowing yourself to use sites, networks, or services that require your actual IP to operate. Many banks want to know where you’re accessing their site from, so splitting your usage would allow you to access your mobile banking while keeping the rest of your browsing activity secure. While this isn’t the safest method of using the internet, it’s sometimes necessary.

You can set up Hotspot Shield's split tunnel in the settings tab:

Encryption

Hotspot Shield uses AES-128 and AES-256 encryption. This is the same level of encryption used by the U.S. government (hence the military-grade encryption promise on Hotspot Shield’s website). This type of encryption was developed specifically for the U.S. government to transmit the most sensitive information.

How easy is AES-256 encryption to break? Using current computing technology, it would take billions of years to crack. Researchers are constantly trying to hack into AES-256 encrypted data, and when they find even the slightest vulnerability they make sure to take immediate action to secure the threat.[2]

VPN protocol

Hotspot Shield offers several different types of VPN protocols:

• Automatic option that chooses the best overall protocol for you at that moment
• Its proprietary Catapult Hydra protocol
• A very secure IPsec protocol
• A new and fast WireGuard protocol

While the Hydra protocol may allow you more access to streaming, the VPN chooses the most secure connection if you leave it set to Automatic. IPsec is a secure protocol but is more recognized by VPN blockers and may not be the best for streaming. Wireguard has a better balance between speed and streaming capabilities.

Hotspot Shield test results

We tested Hotspot Shield on several different factors that are important to anyone shopping for a VPN. Speed, streaming access, and reliability are all common features important to consider when purchasing a VPN.

Speed tests

• Speed test results: Hotspot Shield struggled, dropping our download speeds by an average of 48% and our upload speeds by an average of 78%.

We tested on a Lenovo laptop with Windows 11 and Hotspot Shield slowed our device down more than we anticipated. First, we selected the Auto server option, which was in Dallas, Texas. It more than halved our speeds.

We decided to manually select a server in Houston, but it still decreased our download speed by more than 40%.

The U.K. and the Australian servers decreased our download speeds significantly and almost completely tanked our upload speeds. We noticed some lag while browsing, but we were just surprised by how much it was impacted with every server we tried.

Test type	No VPN	US to US	US to CA	US to EU	US to AU
Download speed	295.72 Mbps	172.78 Mbps	196.83 Mbps	117.61 Mbps	126.83 Mbps
Upload speed	395.78 Mbps	216.34 Mbps	80.05 Mbps	35.10 Mbps	21.65 Mbps
Latency (ping)	11 ms	16 ms	53 ms	126 ms	194 ms
Download speed % difference	N/A	-41.57%	-33.44%	-60.23%	-57.11%
Upload speed % difference	N/A	-45.34%	-79.77%	-91.13%	-94.53%
Latency % difference	N/A	+45%	+382%	+1,045%	+1,673%

Netflix tests

• Netflix test results: Hotspot Shield allowed us to view all four Netflix regional libraries without issue. 

Netflix is always looking for VPN activity, and VPNs are always looking for ways to circumvent VPN identifiers. For this particular test, Hotspot Shield won.

We were able to access Netflix in all four countries we tried. Australia was the biggest win for us, since we've been having a lot of issues with other VPNs getting blocked there. But Hotspot Shield let us access the streaming content without any lag or buffering needed.

	US to US	US to CA	US to UK	US to AU
Did it work with Netflix?

DNS leak test

• DNS leak test results: Hotspot Shield passed its DNS leak test. 

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a directory for the entire internet. Think of it like a phone book. If you’re using a VPN, your goal is to dial out using your IP address while making sure the caller ID is blocked.

While connected to a single server, Hotspot Shield passed with flying colors. 

WebRTC leak test

• WebRTC leak test results: Hotspot Shield partially passed its WebRTC leak tests.

WebRTC refers to the real-time communication capabilities on your browser. What this means is that you can make voice and video calls, share your screen, and transmit files without having to go through a middleman server. The peer-to-peer connections allow your internet-connected device to talk to another internet-connected device.

If there’s a WebRTC leak, it means the VPN has stopped cloaking your IP address and the internet-connected device you’re talking to can see your real information.

Hotspot Shield hid our real IP address, but the test site detected something was off. It could tell that the WebRTC IP didn't match our remote IP, which is why we gave Hotspot Shield a partial pass. 

Kill switch test

• Kill switch test results: Hotspot Shield passed its kill switch test.

We test kill switches by opening up ipleak.net and letting it grab our DNS address every few seconds. We then switch to a different server, causing an unexpected drop in connection, and see if our actual IP shows up between the old server and the new one. If it doesn't, then the VPN passes.

Hotspot Shield passed this test when we switched from a Hong Kong server to a U.S. server. Our real IP address in Texas didn't show up in between the locations.

Hotspot Shield compatibility

Hotspot Shield has an impressive array of compatible devices. This means that no matter if you use a Windows computer and an Apple iPhone with a Samsung Smart TV, you’ll be able to cover a variety of devices with your subscription.

The Hotspot Shield app works on the following devices:

• Windows
• Android
• iOS
• macOS
• Chrome
• Smart TVs
• Linux
• Routers 

Hotspot Shield customer support

There are several options for customer support if you’re a Hotspot Shield customer. The support center has an array of FAQs as well as a breakdown of problems based on your device or operating system.

If you’re using one of the paid versions of Hotspot Shield, you also have the option to email or live chat with a real representative.

During our kill switch debacle, we used the live chat support feature found on the Hotspot Shield website. At first, we were greeted by a bot that was very knowledgeable. When it wasn’t able to recognize our problem, it quickly routed us to a customer service representative. That rep was able to give us the information needed to remedy our problem.

The representative was friendly and helpful. The only criticism is that perhaps they could take less time with the niceties and just get to the support. It’s nice to feel validated, but when you’re frustrated (and if you’ve gotten to the stage of requiring live support, you’re likely frustrated) it’s more helpful to have a pleasant, efficient chat experience.

Top alternatives

If Hotspot Shield isn't ticking off all the boxes for you, here are some of the best VPNs that we've tested.

Hotspot Shield FAQs

Bottom line: Is Hotspot Shield a good VPN?

Yes, Hotspot Shield is a good VPN with a few minor drawbacks. It’s available on a multitude of devices and operating systems and has a great array of servers and countries to choose from. It even comes with a free version with some limitations.

But if you want a VPN that values privacy above all else, check out our full list of the best VPNs. We also have a full NordVPN vs. Hotspot Shield comparison if you want to see how it compares to one of the top providers.