![]() ![]() Hotspot Shield does release transparency reports ( the most recent in 2018 ), however, we'd prefer third-party assessments.Īs a silver lining of sorts, the provider did pass our VPN leak tests for IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC without issue. That average includes both the superfast speeds recorded for nearby servers, and the sluggish speeds recorded. The provider could quiet most of our concerns fairly easily by submitting to an independent security audit, as some of its competitors ( NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and TunnelBear) have done. In the case of Hotspot Shield, only about 26 of average internet speed was lost. Further dampening the mood is that the service uses some trackers for analytical purposes. All the same, they're more invasive than necessary. Hotspot Shield notes that none of these logs contain information about you, your account, or your surfing activity. More red flags: According to Aura's privacy policy, all of its affiliates (including Pango, and by extension, Hotspot Shield) collect information, despite the latter's "No-Logs" promise. However, since this protocol isn't open-source, more questions are raised about its exact functionality and mode of encryption, than is the case with OpenVPN or WireGuard. On paper, encryption seems to be airtight, with Catapult Hydra also used by other VPNs, such as Bitdefender (which claimed the title of best antivirus software in our ranking). ![]() " Our steadfast security, inspired by the software defined perimeter (SDP) model pioneered by the US Department of Defense, supports both 128-bit AES and 256-bit AES encryption, and we use 128-bit AES encryption as a standard." In its support area, Hotspot Shield discussed its approach to encryption: Still, so far as data privacy is concerned, you'd have to be born yesterday to blindly trust a Silicon Valley-based tech company. Since our last assessment, support for IKEv2 has been integrated, somewhat rectifying this. Because Hotspot Shield primarily relies upon a proprietary protocol (Catapult Hydra), users are even more dependent upon its security and privacy guarantees than usual. ![]()
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