Reseña de Hotspot Shield de 2024

Hotspot Shield, or HSS for short, has undergone a lot of changes over the past few years. After dealing with issues surrounding its logging policy, it has been working hard to rebuild its reputation. Among other changes, the VPN is now part of Aura, a new company that merged with the former parent company, Pango. So what does all this mean for users? Is Hotspot Shield worth considering as a VPN? Does it measure up to top providers like NordVPN or Surfshark?

In this 2024 Hotspot Shield review, I’ve tested the latest versions of Hotspot Shield’s mobile and desktop apps to answer questions like:

• Is HSS fast?
• Can Hotspot Shield help me access Netflix , BBC iPlayer , Amazon Prime Video and other streaming platforms ?
• Has HSS’s registration policy improved?
• Will Hotspot Shield work in China?
• Is HSS worth the money?

You will find the answers to these and more questions in this review.

I have been using Hotspot Shield to stream , browse, use and keep my internet activities safe from prying eyes like my internet service provider.

I’ve included a brief summary of my findings below, but you can read the full review to learn more about this provider and whether it’s a good fit for you.

You can also read more about the criteria I used to test Hotspot Shield and our full VPN testing methodology here .

Please note that although Hotspot Shield offers a limited free version, in this review I will focus on the Premium (paid) service.

Hotspot Shield Overview

Hotspot Shield is a secure VPN that’s great for streaming . It has plenty of location options, is great at unblocking, and has very fast speeds, plus it works in China. This provider has solid security and privacy features, though there’s room for improvement. Chat support could be better, and the price might deter some users.

* Velocidad media relativa a diversas ubicaciones globales y basada en múltiples pruebas de velocidad realizadas cada día.

Pros and cons of Hotspot Shield

These are some of the main advantages and disadvantages I discovered when using this service. You will find more details about each of them below.

Speed: How fast is Hotspot Shield?

Hotspot Shield’s motto is «The Fastest and Most Secure VPN Service.» I’ll talk about security later, but first, let’s look at the speed issue they boast about.

I ran several speed tests throughout the day on servers located in North America, Europe, and Asia. Taking into account all times and locations, Hotspot Shield’s average download speed was 303Mbps . That’s a bit above the average I saw the last time I tested it, and puts this VPN in the top tier when compared to its competitors.

These are the results by region:

• North America (almost): 352 Mbps
• Europe: 334 Mbps
• Asia: 224 Mbps

As you can see, the speed is pretty consistent regardless of which server you connect to. It was also consistent at different times of the day. With these speeds, I was able to watch 4K video streams, do HD video conferencing, and browse the web without any speed issues. Switching from one server to another is very fast, usually taking just a couple of seconds. I didn’t notice any noticeable speed reduction when browsing the web, and I didn’t experience any connection dropouts.

For a given location, you should automatically connect to the fastest server. If you’re connected to a US server, you can choose a city. Choosing a geographically close server should give you a faster connection.

Ten en cuenta que las pruebas anteriores solo sirven como una guía general de lo que puedes ver al usar el servicio. La naturaleza aleatoria de Internet y los muchos factores que pueden afectar la velocidad implica que tus resultados pueden ser muy diferentes.

Aplicaciones: ¿Con qué dispositivos funciona Hotspot Shield?

Hotspot Shield te permite conectar hasta cinco dispositivos bajo un plan pago (a menos que te registres en el plan Premium Family, del que hablaré más adelante). Las aplicaciones están disponibles para los siguientes sistemas operativos:

También hay extensiones de Chrome y Firefox, pero ten en cuenta que estas solo cifran el tráfico de tu navegador, dejando expuestas otras aplicaciones de tu dispositivo.

En general, las aplicaciones son ligeras, modernas y fáciles de usar. Cada una ofrece acceso a los 1800 servidores que Hotspot Shield tiene repartidos en más de 80 países. Hotspot Shield redujo recientemente su cantidad de servidores (de alrededor de 3200), pero continúa cubriendo aproximadamente la misma cantidad de países que antes.

En la aplicación de escritorio, los servidores están ordenados alfabéticamente por país. Para los países con varias ubicaciones, por ejemplo, Estados Unidos., Reino Unido, Australia y Canadá, puedes elegir una ciudad concreta. No existe la opción de añadir servidores a una lista de favoritos, pero las selecciones recientes aparecerán en una lista de «Acceso rápido».

Como novedades en la pantalla de inicio contamos con accesos directos a los servidores de streaming de Estados Unidos. y Reino Unido y a los servidores de juegos de Estados Unidos.

Puedes personalizar el comportamiento de la aplicación mediante las opciones, como por ejemplo iniciar automáticamente el cliente y conectarte automáticamente al último servidor. Otras de las opciones que incluye y comentaré en detalle más adelante son túnel dividido, cambio de protocolo, un interruptor de apagado y protección wifi automática, que trataré en la sección Seguridad.

La aplicación móvil tiene un diseño similar al cliente de escritorio, pero solo tiene una opción modificable (cambio de protocolo). Esto es algo positivo en el sentido de que la aplicación funciona sin necesidad de configurarla. Pero los usuarios avanzados ya no disponen de la opción de personalizar la VPN.

Rúter

Hotspot Shield también es compatible con varios rúteres. Puedes comprar un rúter VPN preconfigurado:

O puede configurar la VPN manualmente en rúteres concretos.

En «Otros», encontrarás instrucciones sobre cómo configurar rúteres que ejecutan el firmware DD-WRT o Tomato.

Al configurar una conexión VPN en tu rúter puedes proteger los dispositivos que no son compatibles con las aplicaciones nativas. También te permite eludir el límite que imponen los proveedores de VPN con respecto a la cantidad de conexiones simultáneas. No importa cuántos dispositivos conectes al rúter (y que, por lo tanto, hagas un túnel a través de la VPN), solo contará como una sola conexión VPN.

Túnel dividido

El túnel dividido (a veces llamado rúter selectivo) te permite elegir dónde cifrar tu tráfico. Puedes cifrarlo a través de la VPN o a través de la conexión de tu proveedor de Internet predeterminado, generalmente aplicación por aplicación. Eso significa que puedes optar por enviar tu tráfico de Netflix a través de la conexión de tu proveedor de Internet y enviar el resto por la VPN. O bien, puedes optar por enviar solo tu tráfico P2P a través de la VPN y enviar el resto a través de tu proveedor de Internet. Se trata de una característica muy popular entre los proveedores de VPN en la actualidad.

Hotspot Shield admite túneles divididos a través de una función que llama Smart VPN. Esta te permite excluir ciertas aplicaciones y sitios web del túnel VPN. Simplemente necesitas habilitar la función y añadir las aplicaciones o sitios web que deseas visitar a través de tu conexión ISP habitual. Esta función sólo está disponible en Windows y Android.

Puedes echar un vistazo a nuestras VPN recomendadas para túneles divididos si es una característica importante para ti.

Streaming, Netflix y Kodi

¿Hotspot Shield funciona con Netflix?

¡Sí!

Hotspot Shield funciona bien con Netflix Estados Unidos, Netflix Reino Unido y otros catálogos. Lo he probado con varios servidores de Estados Unidos y todos funcionaron sin problemas. Incluso hay servidores optimizados para streaming que están diseñados específicamente para ofrecer acceso seguro a plataformas populares, las cuales son probablemente tu mejor opción para usar cualquier servicio que esté disponible en los Estados Unidos o el Reino Unido. Nos gustaría ver servidores de streaming en ubicaciones adicionales, pero este es un gran comienzo.

Otros proveedores de VPN requieren que preguntes al servicio de atención al público qué servidor usar. Si bien no supone una gran molestia, es bueno no tener que pasar por ese paso adicional.

Además de con Netflix Estados Unidos, Hotspot Shield funciona de manera fiable con el catálogo del Reino Unido. También funcionó con algunas versiones de otros países he probado, incluidos Netflix de Canadá, Australia y la India. Sin embargo, no he podido acceder a Netflix Japón, Brasil o España.

¿Buscas disfrutar del streaming desde otros sitios? Hotspot Shield logró desbloquear las siguientes plataformas durante la prueba:

• Hulu
  
• BBC iPlayer (Reino Unido)
• Disney+
• Amazon Prime Video
• All 4

Thanks to its high speed, you should be able to play HD video without any problems.

Are you a Kodi user ? Hotspot Shield is now compatible with your Kodi setup.

Here are our recommended VPNs for streaming , if you want to learn more about the topic.

Does Hotspot Shield allow torrenting ?

Yeah.

Hotspot Shield allows torrenting , which is supported by unlimited bandwidth and data, as well as the use of shared IP addresses. The company used to promote the use of its torrent downloading service through uTorrent and BitTorrent. But it has removed references to torrents from its website, presumably to avoid entering into copyright disputes.

Still, Hotspot Shield works great for torrenting , with no lags or crashes.

Hotspot Shield has also recently improved its privacy policy and claims to be a zero-logs provider (more on that in the next section). The service boasts other beneficial features for users looking to torrent , including a kill switch (now available on all versions of the app) and DNS leak protection.

See also: Best VPNs for torrenting

Double-layer servers?

Hotspot Shield VPN does not currently support dual-layer servers.

Dual-layer VPN servers encrypt your connection through two VPN servers in cascade. This adds a second layer of encryption to your traffic. The double server layer makes it significantly harder to track and identify. Hopefully, this is something that will come to Hotspot Shield in the future.

Does Hotspot Shield provide a canary alert?

A canary alert is a document frequently posted by a service provider indicating that it has not received a secret order or gag order from law enforcement.

If the provider ever receives a court order or gag order, it can remove the canary alert to indirectly warn its user base that the service has been compromised, without violating the gag order.

HSS does not currently provide a canary alert. However, it does publish periodic transparency reports that mention how many warrants, subpoenas and legal requests were received, as well as the company’s response to each one.

Security, privacy and registration

Hotspot Shield has received criticism in the past for its questionable logging practices, so I was keen to see how the current version protects user privacy.

Hotspot Shield was originally the flagship product of AnchorFree, a company based in Switzerland. However, in 2019 it became part of a new company, Pango, which was later acquired by Aura, a company based in the United States.

The US is a member of the Five Eyes alliance, which can be daunting for users who are particularly wary of international intelligence gathering. That said, this only poses a problem if the VPN keeps logs.

In addition to the above, let’s just say that Hotspot Shield has a controversial past when it comes to privacy. For example, a 2016 report brought to light some of the company’s questionable activities.

Additionally, a privacy advocacy group, the Center for Democracy and Technology, filed a related complaint against Hotspot Shield with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in August 2017.

However, Hotspot Shield has been polishing its privacy policy, slowly but steadily. In a previous review of the service, I found that the company still recorded users’ IP addresses during the session, but then deleted them. Now, the company claims that there is no logging of IP addresses whatsoever, making it a true zero-log provider – a huge plus for privacy overall.

However, looking into their privacy policy, we found the following:

So HSS records:

• Session duration
• Domains accessed by users (supposedly anonymous data)
• Device Hashes

The registration of the domains that your users access is what worries me the most.

Thus we find the following somewhat contradictory statement:

While HSS claims that it does not log your IP address in connection with your browsing activities, it does log it for:

• Protect against fraud
• Get your location and information about your Internet provider
• Determine nearby servers
• For advertising purposes

So, from what we’ve seen, it does log quite a bit of user data. It’s also more information than other well-established and reliable providers collect. Hopefully, HSS’s privacy policy cleanup will continue and they’ll ease up on data collection a bit more.

Here are some highlights of Hotspot Shield’s security suite:

• Strong Encryption: HSS uses 256-bit AES GCM encryption with 2048-bit RSA keys and ECDHE for perfect forward secrecy (to ensure that previous sessions cannot be viewed if an encryption key is compromised). HSS supports IKEv2 (regarded as very secure) and its own proprietary VPN protocol called Catapult Hydra. While it’s not open source, it has been evaluated by independent security experts, which should give you some peace of mind. Newer versions of the app also include support for WireGuard, which is open source.
• Kill switch (all versions): This will stop your internet connection if the VPN connection is lost. This is an option that is disabled by default, so you will need to go to Settings > Advanced to turn it on.
• Auto-Protection: This is a cool feature that will connect you to the VPN automatically whenever you connect to a public wifi.
• Prevent IP leaks – HSS has built-in DNS leak protection, which is enabled by default but can be disabled in the settings screen.

The service does not guarantee WebRTC or IPv6 leak protection, but I tested for such leaks and did not observe any.

IP Test – No VPN

IP Test – with VPN

DNS Test – Without VPN

DNS Test – with VPN

Hotspot Shield has recently added the option to switch protocols between its proprietary Catapult Hydra protocol and IKEv2. The latter is primarily used to improve speed on mobile devices. It also offers support for WireGuard, which is great considering that this seems to be the protocol of choice for most major services these days, given that it’s significantly faster than the old standard, OpenVPN.

I usually recommend WireGuard or OpenVPN, but IKEv2 is very secure, so I would prefer to use IKEv2 over Hotspot Shield’s proprietary protocol. As I mentioned above, the lack of peer review opportunities is also one of the reasons for my skepticism regarding VPN providers’ proprietary protocols.

Does Hotspot Shield work in China?

Very few VPNs work reliably in China, so I wanted to find out if Hotspot Shield was one of them.

The last time I reviewed HSS, it was trumpeting the ability to use the VPN in China . However, as with torrenting , HSS has removed most references to its ability to work in China from its website.

However, searching through their Help section, we found the following:

This may be a little worrying, but our research indicates that, at the time of writing, HSS is still working as expected in China.

Also, keep in mind that Hotspot Shield’s website is blocked in China , as are the sites of most other VPN providers. As such, you’ll need to use the software and any installation and troubleshooting guides before accessing the country.

Is Hotspot Shield’s customer service good?

Hotspot Shield offers plenty of tutorials and FAQs in the help section of their website. If you are still having trouble, you have two options: You can use the 24/7 chat support feature or send an email by filling out the form in the help section on the website. Please note that these options are available only for premium customers.

I first tried the chat help option, thinking it would be the quickest way to get an answer to my question. However, you’ll have to get past the chat bot first. It does respond pretty well to simple questions, but you can always type «human» to speak to a real live staff member.

The email support system also worked well. I received a satisfactory response to my queries within a few hours, which is great.

Hotspot Shield Pricing

No matter how good a service is, I always ask myself this question: Does it offer good value for money?

Hotspot Shield offers three paid subscription plans that renew monthly, annually, or every three years.

The monthly and annual fees are a bit higher than many top-rated VPN providers over the same period. But the three-year plan is a good value.

As for payment methods, Hotspot Shield only allows you to pay with a credit card or PayPal. There is no cryptocurrency payment option, which will be disappointing for some privacy-conscious users.

Plans come with a 45-day money back guarantee .

Hotspot Shield Coupon Codes

Should I buy Hotspot Shield?

After putting Hotspot Shield through some intense testing, would I recommend this service? In short, for most people, yes. More privacy-conscious users may want to look for a VPN outside of the United States, but for most users, Hotspot Shield is a solid choice.

There’s no doubt that Hotspot Shield’s offering has improved over the past few years. Considering its speed and unblocking potential, this is an ideal VPN for those looking to enjoy streaming on a regular basis . It’s also a good option for users in China.

Alternatives

While I’m impressed with Hotspot Shield, it still has a couple of drawbacks, including a lack of anonymous payment options and a relatively limited settings menu. Fortunately, if those are deal-breakers for you, there are some great alternatives out there.

NordVPN is reasonably priced and has all the features you need from a top-tier provider. It offers the fastest speeds we’ve seen and has a number of security features, including a kill switch and leak protection. This VPN accepts many payment methods, including Bitcoin, and offers excellent support.

Surfshark is another stellar provider that is also budget-friendly. It is known for its unblocking capabilities and solid speeds. A big advantage of this provider is that it doesn’t limit the number of devices you can connect at any given time.

Hotspot Shield Free Version

As I mentioned, Hotspot Shield does have a free plan. However, it’s a very limited option and we don’t think it’s worth the money. It gives you access to a single server location, you won’t be able to stream anything , and you’ll have to put up with a lot of ads. On the plus side, free users get the same speeds as paid users, and the company recently removed its strict 500MB daily bandwidth cap, putting it on par with ProtonVPN .

If you are considering using this service, we recommend looking for an affordable paid provider like NordVPN .

How does Hotspot Shield compare to other popular VPNs?

help you select the right provider. Here we show a comparison between HSS, NordVPN and Surfshark. For more information on the latter two, you can check out our full NordVPN vs Surfshark comparison .

Methodology used for the test.

Below we present the criteria we used to evaluate the VPNs we reviewed. It is essential to be consistent across the board to ensure that our tests are as objective as possible and that we are not comparing apples with oranges. That is why we want to make our criteria for testing known.

• Speed: Speed ​​will always be one of the crucial factors for any VPN. Aside from being something that can be very annoying, slow speeds can prevent you from enjoying streaming or even browsing the web. All of our recommended VPNs scored very highly in our most recent speed tests to make sure we tackled this issue.
• Apps and ease of use: VPNs have become very popular. More and more people use VPNs nowadays for the most diverse reasons. Therefore, app design and ease of use are more important than ever. We analyze the user interface, features, supported operating systems, and complexity of client applications.
• Streaming Services : It’s not always easy to access streaming sites via a VPN. While many VPN providers claim to work on streaming sites , they do so with varying degrees of success. Before recommending a VPN provider for streaming, we test VPNs with several popular streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, Disney, Hulu, and more.
• Torrents : File sharers make up a large portion of VPN users. But not all VPN providers allow torrenting over their network, while others even provide dedicated P2P servers. We analyze each VPN’s torrent policy and run tests on them to see how well they handle file sharing.
• Security and privacy – this is why VPNs exist in the first place. We ask essential questions, such as: What is the provider’s privacy policy like? What is their logging policy? What encryption protocols does the VPN support? Does it use strong ciphers? Does it support perfect forward secrecy (PFS)? Is it vulnerable to IP or DNS leaks? These are all key questions, and we provide answers to all of them by evaluating VPNs’ privacy and security practices.

The above represents a high-level view of our methodology. If you want more details, check out our full VPN testing methodology . This data-driven approach helps us better understand services in order to recommend the right VPN to the right users.