Is Hide.me Free actually worth using?

Not everyone can afford or needs a VPN. We'd always recommend a paid service above all else but choosing from the best free VPNs can be a handy alternative in a pinch.

There are some fake free VPNs around, and not every free provider is reputable. But all the free VPNs we recommend are safe, reputable, and do the VPN basics well.

Hide.me Free features on our list of the best free VPNs. We don't rate it as much as PrivadoVPN Free, Proton VPN Free, or Windscribe Free, but it's a genuine free VPN that will protect you online.

However, how usable is Hide.me Free? The provider offers some strong positives, but also some very significant negatives. So, how does it stand up and can it be a serious free VPN option?

Excellent privacy and unlimited data

Let's start with the positives of Hide.me Free. Unlike some free VPNs, Hide.me Free will protect your data. It shares the excellent privacy features of its paid version, including a functioning kill switch.

Kill switches are a must-have for the most secure VPNs and they cut your internet connection should your VPN fail. Many free VPNs, and even paid VPNs, don't have a kill switch, so Hide.me Free having one is a big plus – it even extends to iOS, which is even rarer.

Just like many of the best VPNs, Hide.me had its no-logs policy audited and verified in December 2024, meaning it won't share any of your data with third-parties. It also sits outside of European and Western data jurisdictions thanks to its Malaysian base – another strong privacy advantage.

Hide.me Free is available on Windows, Android, Mac, iOS, and Linux. With the exception of iOS, all these platforms support split tunneling – we'll explain why this might come in handy later.

Windscribe Free and PrivadoVPN Free both impose data limits on their free plans. Hide.me Free, alongside Proton VPN Free, doesn't do this. There are no restrictions on how much you can use the VPN – ideal for those who will regularly use the service.

Other positives include customer support, for both the paid and free service, and decent enough app customisation. But it can't compare to Windscribe Free in this department, which restricts almost nothing except data usage on its free plan.

So if you're a more seasoned VPN user, looking to customise your app, Hide.me Free might not be the best choice.

US Netflix can be unblocked by Hide.me Free but its speeds, or lack of, make this achievement largely pointless. This is Hide.me Free's biggest drawback and we'll explain more below.

Slow speeds and irritating user experience

Free VPNs being slower than their paid counterparts isn't rare. The fastest VPNs can exceed 900 Mbps and only PrivadoVPN Free can hit that number.

In our testing, PrivadoVPN Free clocked 950 Mbps, Windscribe Free hit 496 Mbps, and Proton VPN Free registered 335 Mbps.

Many VPNs can go faster than this – as long as your internet can keep up – but they're like lighting compared to Hide.me Free.

Testing on Mac saw speeds of 25 Mbps when connected to the closest server. The tester's non-VPN internet connection was 690 Mbps, so this result represented a crippling speed reduction.

What's more disappointing is that some of our testers reported speeds as low as 1 Mbps. This is unusable and could be seen as deliberate throttling to frustrate users and lead them to the provider's paid plan.

In my personal testing, Hide.me Free measured 44 Mbps when connected to a US server and 50 Mbps when connected to a UK server.

This is manageable for general browsing, but bearing in mind my internet connection without a VPN hovers around 300 Mbps, this is another significant and disappointing reduction.

25 Mbps is reportedly fast enough to stream 4K Netflix but we wouldn't recommend Hide.me Free for streaming – it's simply not fast or reliable enough.

If streaming is your priority, you're better off going with one of the best streaming VPNs.

You can make use of Hide.me Free's split tunneling feature to exclude streaming sites from your VPN connection. But this will mean you can't access geo-blocked content and your data will be left unprotected.

Hide.me Free's server spread is limited. There are seven servers to choose from, located in Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.

Although you can select which server you connect to – unlike Proton VPN Free – there's nothing available outside the US and Europe. This will be disappointing for those in South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

An odd quirk is that Hide.me Free "expires" after 30 days. You can continue using the app at no cost but having to renew every month can be irritating. You'll also be offered the option to upgrade to the paid plan – currently $3 per month. This is quite annoying, affects user experience, and something people would prefer not to deal with.

Staying with user experience, Hide.me Free's app design could be improved. It's blocky, outdated, and honestly not that nice to use. It's functional and fairly simplistic, but it leaves a lot to be desired looks wise. Other free VPNs have superior UIs and a better all-round app experience.

It's not the biggest problem in the world, but if you're after a long-term, daily-use VPN, user experience and app design is important.

Usable – but not long-term

How usable Hide.me Free will be, depends on what you want to use it for. If you just want to occasionally browse the web, need a free VPN to bypass internet censorship, or need short-term protection, Hide.me Free will do the job.

However, if you want to unblock Netflix, stream videos, download files, and use a VPN long-term, then you'll want to look elsewhere.