Hotspot Shield Review 2025

Hotspot Shield Pricing

Hotspot Shield has a free and a paid version, so we’ll cover each one separately.

Free Version

We think Hotspot Shield offers one of the best free VPN plans in 2025 — as long as you’re a desktop user, that is. On desktop, the free version provides unlimited bandwidth and fast speeds. It also provides access to split-tunneling, the Hydra protocol, and the kill switch, and it doesn’t log your IP address. But you don’t get the anti-phishing protection, and you’re limited to just three server locations (the U.S., the U.K., and Singapore).

On mobile, however, you have to put up with ads. Free users will see in-app ads as they use Hotspot Shield, and will also have to watch video ads when they open the app and connect or disconnect to a server. Also, free users on mobile are limited to just 2 Mbps speeds.

Paid Version

Upgrading to Hotspot Shield’s premium version is worth it, in our expert opinion. It adds access to all servers (there’s thousands of them in 85 countries), lets you use all features, and also removes ads on mobile. Plus, it includes consistent streaming and torrenting support. It also lets you install and use Hotspot Shield on up to 10 devices.

You can choose to pay for Hotspot Shield every month or every year. Like with most VPN services, the monthly price gets lower as your commitment increases. Here’s a quick overview of its prices:

Hotspot Shield has a cheaper monthly plan than most top VPNs. You’d usually pay more than $11 or $12 per month with other competitors. But we’re disappointed that the yearly plan doesn’t offer bigger savings. For comparison, Surfshark’s one-year plan costs $3.19 per month with the cheapest subscription, and Private Internet Access’s one-year plan costs $3.33 per month.

If for some reason, you don’t like Hotspot Shield, you can get a refund using the company’s 45-day money-back guarantee.

Hotspot Shield Features

To make everything straightforward, we decided to split Hotspot Shield’s main features in three separate categories:

• Privacy features. This is where we’ll cover everything related to how the VPN protects your online privacy. For example, how it handles logging, if it provides access to a kill switch, and if there are any built-in features that protect your privacy (like double VPN support, for example).
• Security features. In this section, we’ll discuss what kinds of encryption ciphers and VPN protocols the service uses to protect your internet traffic. We’ll also mention if the VPN comes with any built-in features that protect you from online threats — like an ad blocker, for instance.
• Servers, streaming, and torrenting. This part will cover everything related to the VPN’s server network, specifically in how many countries the VPN has servers in. We’ll also check if the VPN works with popular streaming services, and if it allows torrenting on its servers.

Hotspot Shield Privacy Features

Highlights: 

• “No-logs” policy
• Independently audited privacy policy
• Kill switch

We read through Hotspot Shield’s no-logs policy and are overall happy with it. According to it, the VPN doesn’t log your browsing traffic or IP address. The VPN logs connection timestamps, so it knows when you connect to a VPN server. Also, it logs bandwidth usage, so it knows how much data you transfer while connected to a server. But those kinds of logs can’t compromise your privacy and are mainly used to improve the VPN’s service.

We also found out that Hotspot Shield’s “no-logs” policy has been independently audited in 2023. This is great since it makes it easier to trust the “no-logs” claims. That said, we’d still like to see Hotspot Shield undergo a more recent audit. It didn’t make our list of the best no-logs VPNs in 2025 because top competitors like NordVPN, Surfshark, and Private Internet Access undergo independent audits more regularly. They also provide access to extra privacy features (like transparency reports or open-source apps, for example) that Hotspot Shield lacks.

>> Compare: Surfshark vs. Hotspot Shield

Kill Switch

All of Hotspot Shield’s apps provide built-in access to a kill switch. This is a privacy feature that disconnects you from the internet if your VPN connection drops. This way, you don’t accidentally share data with the web while your internet traffic isn’t encrypted. We’re happy to see this, as we think a kill switch is a necessary privacy feature, which any good VPN should have.

That said, we wish Hotspot Shield would provide better kill switch functionality, like other top competitors do. For example, NordVPN also has an app-based kill switch — it allows you to choose which apps are shut down if the VPN disconnects. NordVPN also lets you configure the kill switch to be more “aggressive.” That means it will prevent you from going online until you connect to a NordVPN server. If you’d like to read more about how NordVPN handles user privacy, check out our full NordVPN review.

>> Find Out More: NordVPN vs. Hotspot Shield

Hotspot Shield Security Features

Highlights: 

• Very secure encryption and VPN protocols
• Obfuscation
• Anti-phishing protection

In this section, we’ll cover what kind of VPN protocols are available in Hotspot Shield’s apps. We’ll also discuss what level of encryption the VPN provides, as well as the built-in features that enhance VPN encryption and protect against online threats, such as obfuscation and anti-phishing protection.

Encryption & VPN Protocols

Hotspot Shield provides access to the following VPN protocols:

• Hydra. This is Hotspot Shield’s proprietary protocol. The VPN based it on OpenVPN but made improvements to increase its speeds by up to 2.4 times, according to the company. Hydra also proved great for obfuscation and can use both AES-128 (default) and AES-256 encryption standards. We recommend using this protocol for all online activities since it was really fast in our tests, as well as for bypassing VPN blocks.
• WireGuard. This VPN protocol uses the ChaCha20 encryption cipher, which is more or less just as secure as the AES encryption cipher. WireGuard is very lightweight, so it’s able to provide very fast connection speeds. We tested its speeds for this review, and it was just as fast as the Hydra protocol. That’s why we mainly recommend using WireGuard if you’re experiencing connectivity issues with Hydra.
• IKEv2/IPSec. This protocol offers fast speeds, though it’s not as fast as Hydra or WireGuard. It’s also really secure, as Hotspot Shield configured it to use the AES-256 bit encryption cipher. We generally recommend using IKEv2/IPSec on mobile while you’re on the go, as it’s pretty resistant to network changes, particularly when you switch from mobile data to Wi-Fi.

Hotspot Shield doesn’t provide access to OpenVPN like other top VPNs, but we don’t think this is a huge drawback. Like we already mentioned, the Hydra protocol is based on OpenVPN, and it provides a similar level of security.

Obfuscation

Hotspot Shield automatically obfuscates VPN traffic when you use the Hydra protocol. This is a security feature that adds an extra layer of obfuscation encryption to your VPN connection. This makes the VPN connection look like a regular internet connection.

Obfuscation would help you bypass VPN blocks on school or workplace networks, or in restrictive countries like China. We also checked with five different Hotspot Shield live chat reps, and they all confirmed that their users in China are able to circumvent government censorship via the Hydra protocol.

>> More Reading: The 3 Best VPNs That Can Work in China

Anti-Phishing Protection

When you’re connected to Hotspot Shield, it automatically protects you against online threats like dangerous websites, for example. Basically, if you accidentally access an unsafe site, Hotspot Shield will warn you about it. You don’t need to enable any settings, as this is turned on by default and can’t be disabled.

We tested Hotspot Shield’s anti-phishing protection, and it works pretty well. We tried accessing over 10 unsafe HTTP websites, and the VPN always alerted us that we were about to connect to a potentially dangerous site.

That said, we don’t understand why this feature also doesn’t block ads. Most top VPNs provide protection against malicious websites and also get rid of ads. NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro is particularly good at that — it gets rid of ads on most websites and can even block YouTube ads (which most VPN ad blockers struggle with).

Hotspot Shield Servers, Streaming & Torrenting

Highlights: 

• Over 3,200 servers in 85 countries
• Dedicated servers for streaming, gaming, and social media
• Servers in over 15 U.S. states
• Works with over 10 popular streaming sites
• Allows torrenting on all servers

This is where we’ll cover the size of Hotspot Shield’s server network, tell you about our experience with using the VPN while streaming, and discuss the VPN’s torrenting support.

Server Network

Hotspot Shield has a very large server network. Its support reps told us that the VPN has over 3,200 servers in total. And while using the VPN’s apps, we also counted a total of 85 countries. The number of countries isn’t as high as with other top VPNs. For example, NordVPN has servers in 118 countries, and Surfshark has servers in 100 countries. Even so, Hotspot Shield’s servers are evenly spread across the globe, so it should be easy for most users to find a nearby server to get fast speeds.

We also noticed a few specialized servers while using Hotspot Shield’s apps:

• Streaming servers. These servers are specifically optimized to work better with streaming services. Hotspot Shield has streaming servers in the U.S. and the U.K.
• Gaming servers. It also has U.S. and U.K. servers that are optimized for gaming. We tested them while playing Roblox and Fortnite, and we had stable ping and didn’t experience lag. However, we also had the same experience with the regular VPN servers.
• Social media servers. The live chat reps told us that these servers should be used if you’re experiencing connectivity issues while trying to use social media apps via regular servers.

RAM-Based Servers

Unfortunately, Hotspot Shield doesn’t have RAM-only servers. That would mean that all of its servers would save data to the RAM, not the hard drive. That way, whenever a server would be reset, all data would be wiped.

While this isn’t exactly a deal-breaker, it’s a shame that Hotspot Shield doesn’t have this feature. Most top VPNs already transitioned to only using RAM-only servers. The list includes NordVPN, Private Internet Access, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, and more.

Streaming

We think Hotspot Shield is one of the best VPNs for streaming in 2025. All of its servers can access streaming sites, but as mentioned, you also get access to two dedicated streaming servers in the U.S. and the U.K. These servers refresh their IPs very fast, which makes it hard for streaming services to detect and block them. We recommend trying the streaming servers if you can’t access a streaming site via regular servers.

The VPN claims to work with over 10 popular streaming services. When we tested it, we were able to access top streaming sites like Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and Crunchyroll. We only had trouble accessing one streaming platform: Disney+. If this is a deal-breaker for you, consider getting NordVPN or Surfshark, as they both work with Disney+ without any issues.

We also noticed that Hotspot Shield doesn’t have a smart DNS. This is a tool that allows you to access streaming content on devices that don’t work with VPN apps like gaming consoles, for example. Not having a smart DNS isn’t a huge drawback, but it’s still a streaming service that we think would be convenient to have — especially since most competitors have it, including NordVPN, Surfshark, and Private Internet Access.

>> Read More: Surfshark vs. Hotspot Shield

Torrenting

We think Hotspot Shield provides good torrenting support. It allows P2P downloads on all of its servers, which is great. That makes it very easy for users to torrent on nearby server locations, so that they can enjoy fast P2P speeds.

That said, if you’re mainly interested in torrenting, we recommend using Private Internet Access instead. It supports P2P on all servers just like Hotspot Shield, but also provides support for port forwarding and SOCKS5 proxy connections. Both of those features are important for torrenting, as they boost your P2P speeds.

>> Read More: The Best VPNs for Torrenting in 2025

Hotspot Shield Speed & Leak Tests

In addition to all of the features mentioned above, we tested how fast Hotspot Shield is for browsing the web, streaming, torrenting, and gaming. Plus, we ran tons of leak tests to make sure the VPN is completely safe to use.

Hotspot Shield Speed Tests

Hotspot Shield performed pretty well in our official VPN speed tests, particularly in the download department. In our tests, it slowed down the download speed by just 3.17%, which is the lowest of any of the 12 VPNs we tested. However, Hotspot Shield sadly doesn’t maintain very good upload speeds. In our tests, the VPN slowed down our upload speeds by around 80%, which is a lot.

We also ran a few more practical tests by watching HD videos, downloading torrent files, and playing online games while connected to Hotspot Shield. We had very good speeds. The videos loaded instantly, it generally took less than 15 minutes to download a 8 GB torrent file, and we never experienced game-breaking lag while playing games like Roblox or Call of Duty: Warzone.

However, we experienced noticeable slowdowns when we tried uploading files to our office Google Drive and our YouTube channel. For example, it took around 35 minutes to upload a 15 GB file to our Google Drive. Without the VPN, the same file took just 11 minutes to finish uploading.

Overall, Hotspot Shield is fast. But if you’re not happy with the upload performance, we recommend checking out our list of the fastest VPNs in 2025, and try one of our top picks instead.

Hotspot Shield Leak Tests

Hotspot Shield claims to provide built-in protection against IPv6, DNS, and WebRTC leaks. For reference, IPv6 and WebRTC leaks can reveal your real IP address while you’re connected to a VPN and using browsers like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge. And DNS leaks allow your ISP to see what sites you’re browsing even though you’re using a VPN.

To make sure Hotspot Shield is completely safe to use, we used the ipleak.net tool1 to run leak tests while connected to a total of 60 countries. We’re happy to say that the results never showed any leaks.

>> Find Out More: How to Check If a VPN Is Working

Hotspot Shield User Experience

Hotspot Shield has VPN apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, as well as a browser extension for Chrome. On smart TVs, Hotspot Shield is available for Fire TVs and Android TVs. The VPN also supports manual setups on various router models and firmware, like DD-WRT, Asuswrt, and FreshTomato.

Hotspot Shield also allows up to 10 simultaneous connections. This is good, as it’s on the upper end of the industry average of five to 10 connections. In case you need to cover more devices, we recommend checking out other multi-device VPNs, like Surfshark or Private Internet Access (they both allow unlimited connections).

We downloaded and installed Hotspot Shield on our office desktop devices, Android smartphone, iPad, and Android TV. Overall, we found all of the VPN’s apps very simple to navigate and use. It generally took us just six or seven seconds to find and connect to a specific server. If anything, we think it’s a shame that Hotspot Shield doesn’t have a quick-connect feature to automatically connect you to the fastest server for your location. That would have made the app more convenient to use.

On the plus side, we like how most of Hotspot Shield’s apps provide access to split-tunneling. This is a feature that lets you choose which apps and sites use the VPN connection, and which don’t.

Hotspot Shield Customer Support

We’re pretty happy with Hotspot Shield’s customer support. It provides access to a support library with tons of detailed guides. It also provides 24/7 live chat support, though it’s only available to paid users. Free users only get access to email support via a ticketing system, which can take up to 48 hours to get back to you.

The support library is pretty helpful, and we think most guides are able to answer all basic questions. In addition to FAQs, you also get access to troubleshooting articles and step-by-step tutorials. Also, we like how most of the support articles include screenshots, which makes it very easy to follow the instructions.

We also tested the live chat support multiple times over the course of two weeks. It generally took less than 10 seconds for us to be connected to a live chat rep. What’s more, all of the reps we talked to provided us with helpful answers, and they were really friendly, too.

We also tried out the ticketing system. Submitting a request or question is pretty straightforward, but it can take some time for Hotspot Shield to respond. The fastest they got back to us was about five hours (not bad), but one of our tickets didn’t get a response until almost two full days later. That said, we generally received accurate and detailed responses from the email support team.