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. Otherwise, you may want to shop around for lower prices. The pricing is much more attractive if you want to provide VPN access to a group of up to five employees. If your top concern is fast download speeds and you don’t mind paying more, Hotspot Shield could be a good choice for your unique small business needs. While download speeds were the second-fastest in our tests, upload speeds ranked near the bottom. Connecting to Hotspot Shield is simple with user-friendly apps and browser extensions.

While Hotspot Shield works with all popular operating systems, it’s in many ways a no-frills VPN focused on fast connections. However, it’s also one of the most expensive VPN providers, with a monthly cost of $12.99, or $7.99 per month when billed annually. Hotspot Shield is a high-performing VPN, ranking among the fastest we tested.

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