Hotspot Shield sells no add-ons or special features separately. Hotspot Shield add-ons and optional features Each user can connect five devices at once, which should be plenty for a smartphone, computer, and a few connections to spare. Even though it’s called Family, you can share the five user slots with anyone, including your employees and any contractors or freelancers you want to provide VPN services to. Small business owners with up to five workers should consider the “Family” version of Hotspot Shield. If you want the utmost privacy while downloading and browsing, you’ll get that and more with Premium. With either paid plan, you can access the fastest speeds, more than 125 virtual locations and everything else Hotspot Shield offers. Premium comes with plenty of premium features. However, most users will need to upgrade to access the features they need. Hotspot Shield’s free plan provides limited functionality to test the VPN. For regular use, the Free version probably won’t meet the needs of a typical business owner. If you’re on an extremely tight budget and want to check email or visit a few websites with added privacy or location features, it can do the trick. The free plan is good enough for a free trial but doesn’t work for the long term for most users. Smart VPN enables you to allow specific websites or apps to bypass the VPN. Paid users get additional anti-phishing protection, an internet kill switch and “Smart VPN” features. Paid versions give you the fastest connections and all available locations, servers, and other security features. Free is limited to 25% of the speed of paid plans and only works with five of more than 125 virtual locations. If you’re looking to start with Hotspot Shield, you can use the free plan to get a feel for the software and user interface however, it’s otherwise extremely limited. The only noteworthy limitation here compared to Premium is that users get only five devices each, rather than 10 for a single user with Premium. With either pricing plan, Premium Family is a bargain price if you’re taking full advantage with four or five users. It’s good for up to five users and costs $19.99 per month or $11.99 per month when billed annually. Premium Family should be called Premium Family and Small Business. Hotspot Shield operates 3,200 servers in over 80 countries. You’ll pay $12.99 per month or $7.99 per month when billed annually, making Hotspot Shield one of the more costly VPNs we reviewed. Premium has unlimited bandwidth so you can always browse and download without restrictions. Premium is designed for a single user and unlocks all server locations and VPN features. The free plan isn’t optimized for streaming services or gaming, so it’s best for testing purposes or limited web browsing and email. FreeĪs the plan’s name implies, the Free plan is free to use. When you use it on the Premium plan as an individual, it’s on the expensive side. That’s the only scenario where Hotspot Shield is a value-priced service. On a per-user basis, Premium Family costs just $2.39 per user per month on the annual plan. The big difference is that, when paid annually, Premium Family is only $4 more per month for up to four additional users. The individual plan, Premium, includes the same features as Premium Family. Among those choices, you have options for individual and family plans. While it’s nice to have a free version to test out Hotspot Shield, it’s very limited, so business users would need to upgrade to a premium version for long-term use. This complaint has resulted in a push for establishing best practices and an enforceable code of conduct for VPN providers. The CDT cited discrepancies between Hotspot Shield’s marketing claims and privacy policy. Note: The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Hotspot Shield in 2017, alleging that the company has logged and sold user activity to advertisers. If you’re tech-savvy, you should have no problem independently navigating most issues. While most reviews are positive, complaints share stories of slow customer service responses, problems with automatic renewals and limitations with the free version. On Trustpilot, Aura earns an average 4.8 star rating with over 170 reviews.Īura is a U.S.-based company headquartered in Virginia. Aura also has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. Hotspot Shield is popular with current and past users, as signaled by a 4.8-star rating with more than 600 reviews on Trustpilot. Before it was taken over by Aura, Hotspot Shield was part of the company AnchorFree. In addition to using Hotspot Shield as a standalone product, you can get a VPN from the same company as part of a package under the Aura brand. Hotspot Shield is owned by Aura, a provider of a suite of privacy and digital security products. 124 Mbps Hotspot Shield VPN overview and facts
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