How to Speed up VPN Services with Hide My Ass

Hide My Ass is a very popular VPN service provider. Many people ask us how they can speed up VPN services, and HMA gives you great opportunities to do just that with their many advanced features.

You’ll get a great service with them even if you don’t do any of these tips, but to really speed up VPN services with them you’ll have to try out the techniques below!

Speed up VPN services with HMA – Enable Auto Path

This is likely the tip that will most dramatically speed up VPN services with HMA. It’s pretty simple to do, taking a minute or two, but it will vastly increase your surfing speed with them.

Here are the simple to follow steps to follow in Windows to enable auto path:

Click on the settings tab from the Dashboard screen
Go down to the section which reads “Auto Path.”
Check the box next to “Enabled.”
Go back to your Dashboard tab.

All done! During testing, it was found that this can increase speeds by as much as 15%!

Those with the latest Mac OSX version are now also able to use auto-path to speed up VPN services with HMA on their Mac. This is only available to those who download the new client on a Mac running Snow Leopard (10.7) or higher.

Speed up VPN services with HMA – Enable Load Balancing

Load balancing is another one of HMAs innovative advanced features that maximizes your performance. These features are a big part of why they rated so well in our reviews, and you’d be wise to take advantages of as many of them as you can as you look to speed up VPN services with them.

What load balancing does is allow the HMA client itself to steer you towards servers that are less busy. With over 700 servers, there are plenty of options. Load balancing is going to find the best option for you.

Setting up load balancing to speed up HMA is easy to do:

Go to your Setting tab within Dashboard.
Scroll down to the area which is titled “Load Balancing.”
Click on “Enabled” so a check mark appears.
Go back to your dashboard tab.

You can do this at the same as when you’re enabling the auto path feature above. If you’re looking to see which one is going to help you the most by experimenting, or if you want the maximum amount of control and don’t want too many auto features, feel free to do them separately.

What happens now is when you connect to a server that is busy you will get a “Load balancing warning” popup message. This occurs any time you try to connect to a server with more than 30% of all traffic in that city on it. You will then be given the option of:

Connecting to the least loaded server in that city by choosing Yes.
Declining and choosing No
Selecting “Connect to least-loaded server automatically next time” so you don’t see this popup window again.

Speed up VPN services by choosing the best server location

This is a way you can speed up VPN services with any provider, not just HMA. To do this, you need to consider why you’re connecting to the VPN server in the first place. Here are some examples:

If all you want to do is protect your privacy while you’re browsing the Internet from a public WiFi, as you fear man in the middle attacks, then simply connect to the nearest possible VPN server.
If you’re in the Germany, but want to connect to a VPN in the USA to unlock geo-blocked content or watch blocked YouTube videos there, you’ll have to expect a slightly slower connection if you connect to a server on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Luckily for you, HMA offers virtual servers right in Germany that mimic a USA IP address.

To determine which server is best for you to connect with based on the two options above, simply run a speed test under the “Speed Guide” tab. HMA’s client will automatically test the ping rate, upload, and download speed of several servers in the area that you want to connect to once you choose the ones you’re interested in. Simply select the one with the best numbers, and you’re all set to speed up VPN services with HMA!

Feature image via ra2studio / Shutterstock