It besides offers dedicate servers for streaming and torrenting, which are labelled individually within the app ’ second interface .
HMA ’ s huge choice of servers makes it an particularly good VPN if you ’ ra located away from the distinctive VPN server locations, like Western Europe and the US .
We were particularly impress to see HideMyAss cover regions of Africa and the Middle East far better than any other VPN provider we ’ ve tested.
If you are in one of these regions, HMA ’ s nearby servers mean that your connection is not routed through servers located far away — resulting in better performance and flying speeds .
Most other VPN providers boast about their big server counts, even though most of them are concentrated in Europe and North America. We ’ rhenium very happy to see that HMA has bucked the swerve here .
HideMyAss besides has a celebrated measure of city-level server locations, including :
- Australia (2)
- Canada (3)
- France (2)
- Germany (2)
- Russia (2)
- Spain (2)
- UK (2)
- US (65)
The benefit of city-level servers is less congestion and fast speeds .
however, it ’ sulfur inauspicious that HMA has chosen to put its city-level servers in the common countries. We wish that there were city-level servers in Asia, Africa, and South America besides .
Virtual Server Locations
HideMyAss is able to offer servers in sol many countries because it uses virtual server locations .
A virtual or “ bogus ” VPN server placement provides an IP address in one nation even though the server is physically located in another. This is opposed to a ‘ physically located ’ waiter, which actually exists inside the country you ’ rhenium connected to.
HideMyAss uses both forcible and virtual server locations. As you can see from the screenshot below, when we connected to a Kenyan HMA server, our research found that the real forcible localization of that server was in an Avast server park in Hallandale, Florida .
There are pros and cons to virtual locations. Your traffic can sometimes take a shorter route, which means you ’ re able to get the speed benefits of connecting close to home while silent getting an IP address in the country you need .
They besides allow HMA to provide VPN locations that would not differently be geographically approachable, or do not have the necessary infrastructure to support hosting physical VPN servers .
however, it can be unmanageable for you to find out where the physical server is actually located and how it ’ s operated, which poses some security risks .
On top of this, it can seriously affect your internet speeds if you ’ re under the impression you ’ re connect to a VPN server that is close to you, only for it to end up being the early side of the universe .
former versions of HideMyAss identified each server type by marking them as “ virtual ” within the app. The latest versions of HMA have removed this feature, with this information merely available on its web site. however, we ’ d like to see it made clear which waiter locations are virtual in the application ’ s interface .
Does HideMyAss Rent Its VPN Servers?
Some VPN providers choose to rent servers from data centers alternatively of owning them outright. While this helps reduce operational costs, it adds another party that ’ s responsible for the security of your data ( the waiter host ).
We spoke to a HMA representative to find out how many VPN servers they own outright. We found that HideMyAss rents a “ meaning proportion ” of the hardware used in its VPN network, but retains full control over their facility and management .
When it comes to privacy, it ’ s preferable if a VPN provider owns and operates their waiter network outright, reducing the number of third base parties your data is subjugate to. While it ’ s not ideal that HMA ’ s hardware relies on third-party datum centers, it ’ second encouraging to see that they retain wide manipulate of the initiation and management of the servers .
Although having to rent VPN servers is coarse exercise, some privacy-conscious users prefer to limit the total of third base parties involved in handling their data. If you ’ rhenium concern in this, VPN providers like VyprVPN and IPVanish offer a wide server network that is in full self-owned .
