HideMyHost Review – Is it anonymous or not?

They say the name of a company says a lot about its values! Well this is a HideMyHost review. The name does hint at why this company is included over here as an anonymous offshore Bitcoin hosting company now, doesn’t it?

So what do you seek in one such offshore hosting company? Privacy, anonymity, and preferably security, isn’t that right? Obviously the AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) matters as well, which defines what content is or isn’t allowed.

But then again, it’s not always “illegal uploads” which we seek. Sometimes it’s just he little pleasures of life, such as freedom of speech, anti-censorship and freedom of expression that’s enough. Don’t you agree?

Well we’ll see how many of these are offered by the company while attempting to answer the following questions:

By continuing to read, you agree to our Disclaimer.

HideMyHost Overview

This list here comprises of all the primary features and aspects offered by the company.  Glance over these, and then go through the HideMyHost review for detailed explanations.

  • Primary URL: http://www.hidemyhost.com
  • Servers in: Netherlands.
  • Payment methods: Bitcoin + Fiat.
  • Cheapest Plan: EUR 4.95/month.
  • Servers: Shared, VPS, Dedicated.
  • DMCA Ignored: Yes
  • Content not allowed: Listed in the AUP section.

Let’s take a closer look at this HideMyHost review then?

Is HideMyHost Anonymous?

The company’s logo says “An Offshore Paradise for Anonymity”. Then, the company also mentions being anonymous at various instances on the site. For e.g. on the sidebar it has listed “100% Anonymous and Private” under “Our Guarantees”.

Although, it doesn’t not exactly and completely true. Because we went through the fine-print of their Privacy Policy, and it accepts requiring and collecting the following info:

  • Name
  • Address
  • E-mail address.
  • Location
  • Browser Version
  • IP Address
  • And even Screen-resolution!

This info is collected for all legal reasons I’m sure, but it’s collected. The “Anonymity” it claims to offer is then probably only from “other third-parties”.

Now we’ve seen some other companies such as Cyberbunker, Anonymous Hosting, and even Evoluso offering anonymous-registrations. Hence this one factor isn’t very impressive for now.

Although when it comes to Payments, it does offer anonymous payment methods which is a relief.

Where are the HideMyHost Servers Located?

For a company marketing itself as “An Offshore Hosting Paradise”, the “offshore” part does matter, quite a bit actually, doesn’t it?

Well the company is indeed offshore, for everyone who’s not a Citizen or resident of Netherlands. In other words, the company offers servers from Netherlands.

If you check the AUP section below, you’d notice the extreme liberty and freedom the company can offer because of its adequate server location.

What is the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) on HideMyHost?

The Acceptable Use Policy is basically the policy which dictates what content is or isn’t allowed on a server. Because the “IS” list may get infinitely longer, most companies just have an “isn’t” list.

Here’s what’s not allowed on HideMyHost:

  • Child Porn
  • SPAM
  • DDoS
  • Hacking / Malware / Virus / Trojan etc.
  • Fraud
  • Port Scanning
  • Botnets
  • Carding
  • Zeus.

What’s appealing is, the company makes it clear that everything “not on this list” is allowed. This means Adult sites / Gambling sites and most other “controversial” content which even  most offshore servers don’t allow, are probably permitted on HideMyHost.

They also mention a “flexible DMCA policy”. This in most cases mean they do not instantly takedown all DMCA-reported content. Rather in most cases, “Flexible DMCA policy” means DMCA complaints will just be ignored, unless they come from courts or law-enforcement agencies.

Or in some cases, users are simply asked to remove the copyrighted content without the company just suspending or terminating user accounts.

How can you Pay on HideMyHost?

If the anonymity-breach during registration can be ignored, the platform does actually allow anonymous payments via Bitcoin.

Or, payments in fiat currencies can be made using:

  • PayPal
  • Perfect Money
  • Credit Cards.
  • And ETC e-Gift cards.

Now the list isn’t as very extensive, yet it gets the job done. Offers anonymity to Crypto users, and ease of use and faster speeds for Fiat users.

Do HideMyHost Servers Perform Well?

As in all our reviews, we’d be testing a number of factors for HideMyHost as well. The quality of these servers would be decided based on the results of those tests.

The test URL would be – http://www.hidemyhost.com, although it couldn’t be verified if the company indeed is hosted on its own servers. Hence, if the company provides different servers to its users it would mean these tests wouldn’t relate to, or hold true for the purchased servers from the company.

Page Load-Time Test

How long does a page sized 1.0MB take to load on HideMyHost? Well it would depend on the time of the test, as well as the location it’s being tested from.

For instance, the page loaded in 454ms from Germany (verify). Even from London it only required 582ms! Although from locations away from Europe, the requirement increased.

For e.g. USA needed 1.47 seconds of load-time, while the page loaded in 4.50seconds from Australia.

The speed was largely acceptable. Every server has varying speed depending on the location and the same holds true in this case as well.

Server Response Time

Let’s see if the speed above was purely due to a good-quality server, or just because the page was optimized good-enough?

We’re getting the Server Response Time test done now. This test measures how long the server requires to respond to your browser’s request. If the server takes long to respond, the overall load-time will naturally be slow, won’t it?

Here are the SRT test results for http://www.hidemyhost.com (verify).

For some reasons, despite the load-time being pretty impressive the SRT results weren’t so.  The average SRT-requirement was just above 100ms, while going as low as 10ms and 25ms for some locations.

They were acceptable, and pretty good too. But just not impressive. Why not impressive? Well if you glance at our Evoluso review or HostSailor review you’d see that there are companies providing much better results than what we just saw.

SRT with Spiked Traffic

And finally, as is the tradition we’ll test how the server reacts under pressure. Here’s the SRT-requirement by the server when we sent 20+ users to the site simultaneously.

These results do agree with the other tests we’ve done so far. Sure the graph isn’t stable, and even peaks upto 91ms at times. But with 24 active V.Us it was just 13ms and that’s impressive. It even goes down to 0ms which is unprecedented.

This just shows that the server response time isn’t just good when the site is calm, but remains the same and in a weird way even improves when there’s a traffic-spike.

What Types of Servers are Available and for How Much?

The Company sells everything from Shared, VPS to Dedicated servers. The various pricing plans of the servers are as follows:

Shared Servers – EUR 4.95 per month / EUR 9.95 per month / EUR 14.95 per month.

VPS – EUR 14.95 per month / EUR 24.95 per month / EUR 49.95 per month / EUR 74.95 per month / EUR 99.95 per month.

Dedicated – EUR 119.95 per month / EUR 149.95 per month / EUR 199.95 per month .

These plans are based on the specs and configurations ordered for each server. Although note, for some reason the “Order Now” button isn’t currently working on any of the Dedicated plans.

Wrap Up:

I guess it’s time we should wrap this HideMyHost review up folks?  We tried our best to make the anonymity policies, DMCA policies, content policies and all the other aspects as clear and transparent as possible.

My personal verdict on this HideMyHost review is that it’s not exactly “anonymous”, not in the sense we’d like atleast. Yet, to some extent is “liberal”. Especially with its AUP and DMCA policies.

So it does satisfy most requirements for an offshore Bitcoin hosting company, just not all of them. Do let us know if you agree with us on this HideMyHost review, or have a difference of opinion?

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