Is Hola VPN safe? Logs, peer routing and what Premium changes
Privacy and jurisdiction 0.0/10 and security 1.8/10 (segment medians 2.7 and 1.2). Red flag: Stores connection IP addresses. Independent no-logs audit: ✕ No.
In 10 seconds
- Stores connection IP
- Stores session times
Privacy
- Jurisdiction
- Israel, outside 5/9/14 Eyes
- Legal entity
- Hola VPN Ltd.
- No-logs policy
- No logs kept up to 12 months
- Data retention
- log data up to 12 months
- Shared with third parties
- service providers, affiliates; Bright Data peer network; cross-context ad sharing (CA)
- Trackers on the website
- Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity (session replay), Microsoft Advertising
What the privacy policy says is collected
Red ✕: collected. Green ✓: not collected. Grey: the policy does not say.
- Email✕ Yes
- IP at sign-up✕ Yes
- Connection IP✕ Yes
- Session times✕ Yes
- BandwidthNot stated
- Device info✕ Yes
- App analytics✕ Yes
- Crash reportsNot stated
Security
- Kill switch
- Yes (partial (Windows app only, app-level) (review))
- DNS leak protection
- Not stated
- Security audits
- No
- Open-source apps
- No
- Two-factor sign-in
- Not stated
Hola VPN is a poor fit for privacy. VPNRadarLab gives it 1.58 out of 10 (305th place out of 377), with a privacy score of 0.0 and a security score of 1.8. The main reason lies in the privacy policy: Hola keeps logs for up to 12 months, including the connection IP and access time, and hands them over in response to a subpoena or a court order.
Whose traffic runs through your device
Hola runs no servers of its own. In the free version, the idle resources of free users route other people's traffic, and some of the free products turn your device into a Bright Data network node. If someone opens a dubious site through your home IP, your address ends up in their logs. Premium disables resource sharing, but the logs stay.
Where points were deducted
On privacy, Hola earned points only for being based in Israel, outside the 5/9/14 Eyes alliances, and the penalty for storing the connection IP wiped that out. There is no independent no-logs audit, no transparency report and no warrant canary. The policy also covers device data, and on mobile that includes the names of installed apps.
On security, points came from the company's own routing protocol and its bug bounty program. A kill switch exists only in the Windows app and works at the application level, and Hola does not say whether it protects against DNS leaks. Among free and mobile apps the median security score is 1.2, so 1.8 is above it, while the privacy median for the same group is 2.7.
When Hola is still worth switching on
Hola will do for opening a region-locked site in your browser when your personal data does not matter. For banking, email and work accounts, pick a service with a verified no-logs policy: a VPN with an independent audit or Hola VPN alternatives.