hide.me VPN Review Australia 2026

Ownership and jurisdiction

Legal entity and jurisdiction are not the exit-server map.

Legal entity

eVenture Limited (also printed eVenture Ltd)

Jurisdiction

Malaysia

Parent company

Unknown

Five Eyes

No

Terms last update 25 August 2026 and privacy policy 10 Jan 2023 name eVenture Ltd / eVenture Limited, Malaysia registration LL09685, Labuan registered office. Homepage: 100% independent provider; no parent company was named. Malaysia is not a Five Eyes member. Vendor also claims it is outside Nine/Fourteen Eyes; this field records Five Eyes only. Jurisdiction here is the legal entity, not the exit-server map. Commercial use of the consumer service is reserved to hide.me Business/Reseller (Terms §4).

• https://hide.me/en/legal · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/privacy · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/ · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/about · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/blog/why-were-based-in-malaysia/ · checked 2026-09-12

Logging and retained data

A vendor no-logs claim is not proof of zero retained account or payment data.

Logging policy

Vendor no-logs claim

Retained service data

Documented retained service data

Terms §5 and privacy policy 10 Jan 2023: do NOT keep logs of VPN sessions, browsing behaviour, websites visited or VPN-connection activity; NEVER store VPN connection logs and timestamps that match incoming and outgoing IP or session duration. No-logs feature page: do not store log files on VPN servers.

• account email (encrypted) collected at signup; paid users may remove email and keep using the service
• non-persistent troubleshooting log: randomly generated username and internally assigned (non-public) IP, erased every few hours
• aggregated monthly data-traffic counters for billing and quality of service
• website usage data: IP, geographical location, browser, OS, referral, visit length and navigation paths from web-server logs
• community.hide.me optional profile fields and publication metadata (including timestamps or IPs) if a forum account is created
• correspondence data via email, live chat and support forms; Zendesk stores ticket records including name and email
• optional anonymised crash reports, connection diagnostics and speed tests when the user consents in-app
• payment processed by Paddle.com Market Ltd, Cleverbridge AG, PayPal, Coinpayments, Apple and Google — vendor says it does not store payment details; processors hold a dedicated user id

A no-logs claim is not proof of zero retained account or payment data. Privacy: data is transferred to Malaysia. Account data is deleted when a VPN account is terminated. If a court order is received from an authority with jurisdiction, the company says it will comply but cannot hand over activity logs it does not have. Transparency report 2013–2025 (downloaded): vendor replies to every request and says it has nothing to hand over for activity data. Point-in-time Securitum 2024 is not operating-effectiveness evidence after 15 Mar 2024.

Account/control-plane personal data is described as processed in Malaysia, not Australia. An Australian exit IP is not data residency. This is not a numeric privacy score.

• https://hide.me/en/privacy · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/legal · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/features/no-logs-policy · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/downloads/hide.me-transparency-report-2025.pdf · checked 2026-09-12

Locations and hosting

Advertised exit countries, physical-versus-virtual evidence, control-plane hosting and account data residency are separate. An Australian exit IP is not Australian data residency.

Advertised exits

AU

Australian exit

Advertised — not proof of Australian data residency

Exit location evidence

Advertised

Physical vs virtual

Unknown

Control-plane hosting

Overseas

Account data residency

Unknown

Legacy data_hosting field

Unknown

Network and Windows/Australia pages advertise Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Live api.hide.me/v1/network/free/en on 12 Sep 2026 listed Australia (au-v4.hideservers.net) with tags upgrade, non-p2p, no-ping, 10g and city children Melbourne, Perth and Sydney — all upgrade (premium). Press facts: 2600 servers in 92 locations in 57 countries. That API dump had 57 country flags and 64 top-level rows including 7 Free hosts (FI/FR/DE/NL/CH/UK/US). Help “how to change server location” names 7 Free countries and says 8; pricing comparison prints 8 Locations — dual public Free location counts, API has 7. Physical versus virtual was not classified on the public pages; Securitum reviewed an example LXC container image, which is not a traceroute. An Australian exit IP is not Australian data residency. data_hosting stays unknown rather than a green AU badge.

• https://hide.me/en/network/australia-vpn · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/network · checked 2026-09-12
• https://api.hide.me/v1/network/free/en · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/help/how-to-change-hide-me-vpn-server-location/ · checked 2026-09-12
• https://hide.me/en/press · checked 2026-09-12

Per-platform features

Protocol, kill switch and split tunnel are recorded per platform. Missing documentation stays unknown or not tested.

Windows: Windows app 4.3.2 (Windows 10/11) documents Kill Switch, StealthGuard, split tunneling (exclude or inverse), IP/DNS leak protection. Protocol KB 12 Mar 2026: WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, SSTP and SoftEther (SSTP/SoftEther stored as other). Bolt is a Windows TCP path, not a separate protocol id. Not leak-tested.

macOS: macOS app 6.1.4 (macOS 11+). Kill Switch documented on the macOS software page. Split tunneling documented in FAQ and on the split-tunnel feature page. Same protocol set as the KB list including SoftEther/SSTP (other). Not leak-tested.

iOS: iOS app 6.1.4 (iOS 12+). Software page emphasises IKEv2/IPSec and auto-reconnect; protocol KB still lists WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2 on iOS. Kill-switch feature page: mobile implementation is Always-on. Split-tunnel feature page lists Windows, Android and macOS only — not iOS. App Store refunds follow Apple. Not leak-tested.

Android: Android app 6.1.2 (Android 6+): WireGuard, IKEv2 and OpenVPN. Protocol KB also lists SSTP on Android (other). FAQ: if the device sleeps the app blocks traffic until reconnect; Always ON is documented; Kill Switch keeps the tunnel active. Split tunneling in settings. Play Store refunds follow Google. Not leak-tested.

Linux: Official app is a WireGuard CLI (v0.9.12, open source github.com/eventure/hide.client.linux, GPL-2.0). Software page documents Kill Switch / IP leak protection. Split-tunnel feature page does not list Linux. Manual OpenVPN and IKEv2/StrongSwan setup guides exist; protocol page also lists SoftEther/SSTP for Linux (other). Not leak-tested.

Device limits and free tier

Devices

10

Concurrent connections

10

Free tier

Available

Free-tier data cap

unresolved dual public copy: pricing comparison Unlimited data vs homepage/Australia FAQ 10 GB/month

Premium: 10 simultaneous connections. Free: 1 connection. Free locations are not Australia (API 7 Free hosts: FI/FR/DE/NL/CH/UK/US; help names those 7 countries; pricing comparison prints 8 Locations — dual public counts). Speeds restricted on the Free comparison card. Dual public data-cap copy: pricing comparison prints Unlimited data; homepage FAQ and Australia FAQ print 10 GB/month. No signup/credit card on Get Free Plan (/en/latest). 30-day money-back is a paid first-order refund window, not the free tier.

Audit register

• Securitum

  Audit of Hide.me’s no-log policy compliance, 19 Mar 2024–6 Jun 2024, Poznań and Gdańsk, Poland. Authors Paweł Różański and Maciej Szymczak. Scope questions: user-activity tracking on VPN servers; DNS/similar logs; traffic monitoring; per-user and per-server service logging; detection of unauthorised configuration changes; logging in VPN config files; whether the currently connected VPN server is logged. Methods: threat modelling, policy review, configuration-file audit, interviews, technical audit of a snapshot of an example LXC container, review of the VPN-server deployment process. Auditors treated one container image as sufficient because all VPN servers are deployed from the same image.

  Report date

  2024-06-07

  Availability

  Full report published

  Inspection

  Independently inspected

  Report link

  PDF downloaded from hide.me on 12 Sep 2026 and read (8 pages). Conclusion: declared no-logs policy is applied; no issues on the VPN container that could lead to a compromise of user privacy. The only log file found was a VPN daemon start log without user-activity or traffic data. The report states it refers to the product as of 15 Mar 2024 and that periodic audits may be needed. Point-in-time, not operating-effectiveness evidence after that date, not a numeric security score, and not proof of zero retained account or payment data. Guessed 2025/2026 Securitum PDF paths 404.

• DefenseCode Ltd (Leon Juranic)

  Vendor no-logs and about pages: hide.me volunteered for a 2015 audit by Leon Juranic of DefenseCode Ltd, described as certifying that hide.me does not store user or activity logs. This was the vendor’s first published no-logs audit.

  Report date

  Unknown

  Availability

  Announcement only

  Inspection

  Not independently inspected

  Report link

  No public PDF was found on 12 Sep 2026. Guessed https://hide.me/downloads/DefenseCode_Hide.me_no-log-policy.pdf and hide.me-defensecode-audit.pdf returned 404. A vendor page is not an inspected independent report.