HMA Pro review: good speeds, new app

HMA Pro in summary:

• P2P allowed: Yes
• Company location: Czech Republic
• Number of servers: 1,080+
• Number of locations in the country: 210 + *
• Cost: $ 59.88 per year
• VPN protocol: OpenVPN (Windows)
• Data encryption: AES-256
• Data authentication: AES-256-GCM or SHA1
• Handshake: 2048-bit TLS and SHA-256

If there’s anything you can say about HMA (Hide My Ass), it doesn’t stand still very often. Since we last looked, the well-known Avast-owned VPN service released a new version of their app, and it’s time to give it a spin and see what’s new. The new look is quite different from the smartphone-style app we saw in 2019, and overall it’s a pretty cool new design.

When you first open HMA, you have two main columns. On the left is something a bit more like a smartphone with a large on / off slider, a large tile at the bottom with the selected VPN location, and between those two items, your home IP; When you connect, it also adds your VPN Server IP Address. This default view has an animated version of HMA’s donkey mascot, Jack. When he activates the VPN, Jack dons a variety of disguises to indicate that he is on the VPN. Sometimes those costumes are hilarious, while other times he looks like an idiot … well, you know.

Note: This review is part of our best VPNs Rounding. Go there for details on competing products and how we test them.

In the right pane are a series of smaller boxes that can display information or provide quick links to perform actions such as opening preferences, turning on automatic connection, or viewing your current bandwidth usage. This area does not appear to be customizable, although you can discard boxes that are not useful.

To access settings, click on the gear icon in the upper left corner. This opens a second window with a series of fairly standard options. The good thing is that several features are not turned on by default, giving users the option to turn them on, such as the Internet kill switch, an application-specific kill switch, and automatic connection.

In Settings> Connection, HMA has a very easy to use way to manage your PC’s saved Wi-Fi networks. By default, HMA will not attempt to connect, or even request to connect, when it is on a private network, such as your home network. Changing a Wi-Fi network from private to public or vice versa is as simple as touching a slider next to the name of each network.

There is nothing in the way of advanced user functions. No multi-hop options, no VPN protocol or anything like that. If you need these kinds of features, HMA is not the best choice.

A notable problem with HMA is its country selection options. HMA offers more than 200 country options with multiple locations in the largest countries. If all you care about is getting a connection to that country, select the country you want and HMA will take care of the rest.

However, for some countries, including the United States, there are virtual location servers. So instead of a US server actually being in the US, it pretends to be there, but the physical machine is in, say, Brazil or Singapore. If you don’t like using virtual location servers that aren’t really where they’re supposed to be, try choosing a specific location manually from within the app.

You can also see which servers are designed for P2P and which are for streaming by clicking the P2P and Streaming menu items within the country locations window.

In general, HMA is fairly easy to use, although virtualized country locations can make it difficult for some.

Performance

HMA has always been a top performer and that continues this time. It’s down a bit, but it’s still in our top 10 VPNs for speed (right now). HMA retained 36.21 percent of base download speed across five locations and multiple days of testing. That should be more than enough for most uses.

Privacy, anonymity and trust

HMA requires an email and password to sign up for an account, which is standard for VPN services. Regarding payments, HMA accepts credit and debit cards, as well as PayPal and PayNearMe. There are no crypto options yet and HMA does not accept cash through PayNearMe.

As for the privacy policy, HMA says it is now a no-logs VPN, and a Versprite audit verified this. The company says it does not log source IP addresses, DNS queries, browsing history, or the content of data that runs through its network.

On the server side, HMA records the day you last connected to its servers, but not the time of day, and records bandwidth usage to “plan for new network capacity and server upgrades” . All this data is kept for 35 days.

From VPN clients, HMA logs connection events, such as a connection, a disconnection, a failed connection, and so on. This information is not linked to user data. HMA also logs “application events”, which basically means how you use the application, such as using a new feature, uninstalling it, and so on. It also records crash reports that users submit and generate. All this data is stored for two years and then continuously deleted.

That’s a good privacy policy, but there are more minimal policies that collect even less data, and many VPNs don’t collect data on how people use the app. That said, for most people, this feature should be fine. But if you are more concerned about privacy, then I would say that HMA is not for you.

Bottom line

HMA has a lot of things that people want: tons of servers, tons of country connection options, fast service, and a relatively easy-to-use app. It is also available at a good price. It doesn’t have much to offer for those who want additional features or customization, or for those looking to maximize privacy. But if all you need is something to take Netflix abroad or a simple app to connect while on a public Wi-Fi network, HMA can get the job done.

* HMA uses virtual servers, which means that some of their country locations are not physically located where they appear to be.

Editor’s Note: Because online services are often iterative with new features and performance improvements over time, this review is subject to change to accurately reflect the current state of the service. Any changes to the text or to our final review verdict will be noted at the top of this article.