Say hello to fast, unrestricted Internet access anywhere in the world
Hola Premium VPN is a subscription-based app with a free trial available that gives you an uncensored, always-available portal to the Internet through its own version of Lightning Browser. If you live in a country where some websites are not available, Hola will allow you to view them regardless. It lets you route your connection through servers from many different countries, and has a few other security perks too.
Everything you need and nothing you don’t
Like all VPNs, Hola Premium VPN serves webpages as they would be seen in another country by routing your requests through a “virtual private network”: your request for a web page or a download goes from your phone, through the privacy of the VPN untouched and unseen by others, and to its destination, securely. This is a powerful feature and very necessary for getting around censorship of websites from Facebook to independent news sites. Even outside of this, it provides greater privacy through anonymity. The VPN’s services are made available to the user through a version of the open-source Lightning Browser, which is fast, free and equally secure. It’s also available as a standalone app. In the past, some users have reported problems with payment or other features of the app. Some of these users, for example, paid for their subscription to the VPN itself but found that the app wouldn’t recognize their subscription when re-opened later. Others found that their free trial expired early. In our testing, this no longer occurs, most likely due to updates (which were impressively recent as of this writing – the app is well-maintained).
Quick as lightning, straight as lightning
There’s no denying it: Hola Premium VPN is as fast as you’d expect. It won’t be as fast as browsing a website without the VPN, because that’s simply not possible. Any web pages you browse have to take an additional step or steps through Hola’s various servers to reach you, first. But this is called “latency”, and it’s an inherent part of the web. Within that framework, then, Hola’s servers give you the webpages you’re looking for as fast as one could possibly expect. Though you obviously can’t do latency-sensitive things like play multiplayer games through the VPN, it browses the web VERY quickly: comparably to one’s normal Internet connection for many tasks, such as downloading. Of course, some of this is facilitated by the built-in Lightning Browser. Though it provides some useful security features and has a good interface, it may not be to every user’s liking. Unfortunately, it’s the only way that we could find to use the VPN.
A lightweight solution with enterprise speeds
So if you’re looking for a high-quality VPN service, and don’t mind using the built-in web browser, Hola Premium VPN is a fantastic choice and comes highly recommended. Any issues with the app, be they bugs or operating system compatibility, are quickly and regularly addressed by the developers. Hola might not offer many frills, but it doesn’t need to: it gets you where you want to be on the Internet, speedily, securely and without censorship.
