In a study published in August 2017, Washington DC-based Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) said that Hotspot Shield VPN “violates its ‘anonymous browsing’ promise by intercepting and redirecting web traffic to partner websites, including advertising companies.”

They have faced some issues of concern regarding the VPN’s ability to keep to keep you anonymous and private. Hotspot Shield VPN privacy has been talked about a lot after the August 2017 study was published. They also have IP leak protection and a Kill Switch to boost your security. They claim that it’s very secure, but because we can’t verify it, you’ll have to take Hotspot Shield’s word for it. In its stead, they provide a closed source encryption protocol called Catapult Hydra. Hotspot Shield does not offer the industry standard and Open Source Technology Improvement Fund-audited OpenVPN encryption.

This is pretty strong security, although most top VPNs use the even more secure 256-bit AES encryption. We’ll also mention a few things about Hotspot Shield VPN Free, which has a considerable user base.įor security, Hotspot Shield VPN encrypts all your traffic using TLS 1.2 with perfect forward secrecy (ECDHE), 128-bit AES data encryption, and HMAC message authentication. In this Hotspot Shield VPN review, we’ll focus more on Hotspot Shield VPN Premium and see how it stacks up against the fierce competition in the industry. Hotspot Shield VPN offers two plans: a free version and an Premium version. We were happy to see that these policies have since been updated, and Hotspot Shield now clearly states that they do not partake in those activities anymore. Hotspot Shield used to do this while hiding behind confusing privacy policies. It found that the VPN injects advert cookies and collaborates with third parties to target ads to a user. Hotspot Shield, did however receive big criticism following a study done by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Its client is used by over 500 million users around the world, making it one of the most popular VPNs. This VPN company was founded in 2008, and since then it has gained an extensive international user base.

Hotspot Shield VPN is a product of AnchorFree, a California based company.

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