Hola VPN Review in India

Hola VPN is one of the most unreliable free VPN services in India we have reviewed so far. It doesn’t encrypt your connection, it logs all of your internet activities and later shares your information with outside parties. So, anyone who chooses to download it runs the danger of losing their online security, identity, and privacy in India.

Hola VPN is unlike a regular VPN setup. It’s basically a peer-to-peer network that can help you access most blocked websites for free in India.

While doing all the testing before writing this Hola VPN review in India, we found it weird how Hola VPN stores users’ residential IPs and uses their bandwidth to power its network. Keeping these things in mind, we wonder if its paid version can be as reliable as other best VPN services. The way it works is pretty simple. So, if you wish to use Hola VPN paid version in India, continue reading this Hola VPN review in India.

In our opinion, if you’re going to pay for Hola VPN, we would suggest you stop and go for other paid VPNs like ExpressVPN or Surfshark, which come with actual servers, offer powerful VPN protocols, excellent unblocking ability, and keep zero logs as well. After weighing all the pros and cons, we’ve given Hola VPN a 3.2-star rating in India. You can also check our list of the best free VPN services in India that don’t keep logs.

Hola VPN Review in India: Pros & Cons

Pricing in India– Rating: 6.5/10

In addition to the free version, Hola VPN offers a variety of subscription plans in India, but there is still a risk of privacy because they still collect the data of its paid users. However, the only benefit of a premium plan is that your data is passed through safety protocols and is encrypted.

There are three subscription plans for Hola VPN in India: Basic, Ultra, and Premium. The only version that is available for free is the Basic version, which only allows one device to connect at once and allows use for 30 minutes every hour. The Ultra plan is similar to Premium, with the exception that it offers 20 simultaneous device connections, unlimited bandwidth, 4K video quality along with city-specific servers. Moreover,

You have several payment options, including credit card, Google Pay, PayPal, Giropay, Alipay, Sofort, and iDEAL. Unfortunately, payments via bitcoins and online gift cards are not accepted.

Even though all of the plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee but none of Hola VPN’s plans are recommended because there are much better VPNs available in India for the same price.

If you don’t find these prices to be affordable, which we do by the way, perhaps you might be interested in our cheap VPN services in India.

Servers – Rating: 7.5/10

Hola uses an unusual server architecture that depends on users for exit points. This indicates that, despite its network’s propensity to be rather sizable and dispersed geographically, server locations may fluctuate.

Hola VPN has servers available in 190 countries, but neither the website nor its apps reveal the exact city locations. This is due to the absence of a dedicated server network for premium users in India.

There’s no Auto Connect option to automatically select the best server. Additionally, it took me more than 15 seconds each time to connect to a server, which is quite slow.

If we talk about its free version in India, Hola VPN operates on a peer-to-peer network powered by the community. Every time you connect using its free servers, you use someone else’s IP address while a stranger uses yours. We’ll also tell you about how it leaks your DNS address later in this Hola VPN Review.

This is extremely risky and goes against how a VPN works as your IP could be used for criminal behavior, and that activity will be linked to you. According to the website for Hola, if you don’t want to share your device’s resources with anyone else, you can choose the Premium edition in India. Even so, you’ll continue to utilize Hola’s P2P network. It seems more like a low-cost substitute that will solely serve the interests of the firm, not the people.

So, why use Hola VPN and put your privacy at risk when you can use other top secure VPNs in India?

Security in India – Rating: 1/10

As we already told you at the beginning of this review, Hola VPN keeps logs. It clearly admits to logging your data in its privacy policy. Here’s a short snippet of the Hola VPN privacy policy:

We log data and this may include the following information – browser type, web pages you visit, time spent on those pages, access times and dates.

Additionally, there are no security features to protect your private information in India, such as a kill switch or leak prevention. However, its Windows app does include one advanced feature and that is an Ad-blocker.

If you are thinking is hola VPN safe in India? No, because Hola VPN doesn’t encrypt users’ internet traffic in India. Instead, it utilizes a peer-to-peer network to mask your online identity. However, encryption is something we all want from a VPN service. Consequently, the lack of encryption means there is always a safety risk with Hola VPN.

If you opt for the paid version, however, you will get a few basic security features like IKEv2/IPSEC and strong 256-bit encryption. But even after paying a premium, you will still not get a basic feature such as a built-in kill switch in India. This is where this VPN seriously lacks in features.

The only additional feature that Hola VPN offers is an Ad-blocker. This feature works as you would expect, however, I still feel like it lacks a lot of features for a paid service that costs $1.49/mo.

Moreover, it doesn’t operate at an OS level and only routes traffic exclusively within the web browser or app.

Leaks – IP, DNS, WebRTC & Virus Tests

Moreover, Hola’s free edition does not conceal your IP in any way in India; rather, it allows users to share bandwidth and IPs. We have done several testing to see if this statement is true or not.

IP Leak Test:

First, we checked for any IP leaks. As you can see from the screenshot below, only a UK IP is being displayed and my original IP address is nowhere to be seen. Pretty good if you ask me.

DNS Leak Test:

Next, we checked for DNS leaks. As you can see from the screenshot below, it didn’t hide the DNS address.

WebRTC Leak Test:

We also checked for WebRTC leak and Hola VPN failed this test too. Even after multiple tests, Hola VPN didn’t hide my WebRTC leaks

Virus Test:

Last but not least, we checked if there were any viruses in its Windows client so we ran a virus test. There were no viruses found in their files.

Speed in India – Rating: 2.9/10

Since Hola is more of a proxy service than a VPN, we won’t compare its speeds to those of the other free VPNs we’ve evaluated.

Hola employs an unencrypted connection in India, resulting in reduced slowdowns but substantially greater risk, and only browser traffic is sent through the peer nodes.

Your connection speeds in India can also be impacted by the node you’re connecting to. As a result, your internet speeds can be affected if the peer you’re using to route your traffic has slow connections.

In our most recent tests, Hola’s speeds across long distances somewhat decreased and its ping times rose, but that was to be expected. The speed and latency of a connection decrease with increasing distance travelled.

Here are the speed results when we connected to its nearby (US) vs faraway (UK) servers on a 20 Mbps base connection:

With the US location, we got slightly better speeds. On average, the US location managed to output at 14.41 Mbps download speeds. We managed to get decent speeds considering its whole infrastructure is P2P based

We got these speed results using Hola VPN nearby servers.

With the UK location. Again, the results were neither too impressive nor too bad. At max, the UK location pushed out 9.64 Mbps download speeds.

We got these speed results when using hola VPN distanced servers.

If you want VPNs that work best in the UK check out our blog on the best free VPN for UK in India.

However, don’t get distracted by its fast speeds lack of encryption, and the security risks Hola free VPN poses. You can check our list of the fastest VPNs in India with exceptional security features and fast speeds.

Streaming in India – Rating: 2/10

Hola VPN’s free version is incompatible with well-known streaming services including Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and Hulu in India.

We were unable to unblock services like BBC iPlayer or US Netflix using Hola Free VPN in India.

However, when used the Hola premium version we were able to access Netflix and other streaming platforms in India, which was quite unexpected for us.

With the Hola premium version, we easily accessed the US Netflix library

Note: If you want to stream your favorite platform check out the best VPNs for streaming in India without losing your online privacy.

Torrenting in India – Rating: 0/10

We would suggest you stay away from using Hola free VPN in India if you want to stay anonymous while torrenting.

Since Hola Free VPN does not offer connection encryption or a kill button. If your VPN connection drops, everyone will be able to see your actual IP address.

You can also see their claim on their official site making sure they block torrenting traffic:

Check out our list of the top free VPNs for torrenting in India instead of using Hola VPN to download torrents.

Installation Apps and Easy to Use in India – Rating: 7/10

Hola VPN download and installation is quite simple and easy to use in India. Hola VPN extensions are also available for Chrome, Edge, or Opera. There is also an app available to be installed on iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. However, we didn’t find its app on Android devices.

We installed its windows app with just one click

Choose your device and click on it, and the app will start downloading automatically.

Compatibility in India – Rating: 6.5/10

Hola VPN offers free but unencrypted VPN apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices in India. However, these are more like proxy browsers and not actual VPNs.

Since it doesn’t work like a VPN but as a proxy service, it only encrypts the traffic within the app and not the overall device traffic just like a web browser does.

Hola VPN Windows App

The Windows app of Hola VPN looks like your average browser. You open it up and you’ll see an option on the top right corner to pick country locations. In terms of user experience, the app is decently lightweight and quite fast in India. That’s what you expect when the app doesn’t offer a lot of features.

Hola VPN macOS App

The macOS app is also similarly designed. It has the same browser-like look and feels and works just as fast. It too has the option to pick locations and that’s about it.

Hola VPN Android App

As for the Android app of Hola VPN, it boasts a simple design and looks more like a proper app than a browser. It is very easy to use and pretty fast too in my opinion. As for app rating, the Android app of Hola VPN has around 4.5 stars on Google Play Store.

Hola VPN iOS App

The iOS app also boasts a simple design. It has the same look and feels as the Android app and works just as well. As for ratings, the iOS app of Hola VPN has a 1.8-star rating on the Apple App Store.

Bypass Censorship in India – Rating: 4.3/10

Since, there are no obfuscation features or stealth mode included with Hola VPN it will be impossible to bypass censorship in highly restricted countries like China, Russia, and Iran.

We also verified using its Shanghai server, and because the service lacks encryption and the Great Firewall uses DPI (Deep Packet Inspection), we couldn’t able to access content in India that is restricted in China.

Customer Support in India – Rating: 7.5/10

The customer support system of the Hola VPN in India is quite weak. There is no live chat option on the website and you can only contact them through email. However, on its website, Hola provides unhelpful FAQs and other few resources to offer help support.

FAQs: Hola VPN Review in India

Alternatives to Hola VPN in India

Although Hola VPN claims to be trusted by over 200 million users worldwide, It’s up to you to trust it with your privacy. If you don’t want to use Hola VPN in India, you can check out some of the alternatives listed below:

• NordVPN Review in India
• Surfshark Review in India
• TunnelBear Review in India
• ExpressVPN Review in India
• CyberGhost Review in India
• Proton VPN Review in India
• Avast SecureLine VPN Review in India
• VPN Proxy Master Review in India
• Avast VPN Review in India
• Opera VPN review in India

Do We Recommend Hola VPN in India?

No, we don’t recommend you use Hola VPN in India. For the reasons mentioned in detail above, and for the risk that when you connect to its VPN service you put your online safety and privacy at risk in India because it snoops on your internet connection, logs anything you do online, and later uses it for commercial purposes.

We also searched for whether Hola VPN is safe on Reddit, and all the comments we received were against this service. According to Redditors it’s not safe and should not be trusted.

With a conclusive Hola VPN review in India, we are certain that it is one of the worst VPNs you could choose for any purpose, be it streaming, torrenting, or bypassing restrictions in India.