Hola's goal is to make the internet faster, more open, and cheaper to operate. Hola is a collaborative (P2P) internet -- Hola works by sharing the idle resources of its users for the benefit of all. Hola provides several products based on this resource sharing technology:
Hola is the first community powered (Peer-to-Peer) VPN, where users help other users make the web world-wide again. This means that Hola routes your traffic through other peers (nodes) in the Hola network, as opposed to routing through power-hungry costly servers. This allows Hola to provide you with a superior VPN service with minimal underlying costs. HolaCDN's use of uses real peers to route your traffic, rather than proxy servers, makes you more anonymous and more secure than regular VPN services. This also means that Hola is harder to detect and block. Currently, Hola runs in a hybrid mode - combining traditional VPN architecture and peer-to-peer technology. Chrome browser extension and Opera browser add-on operate as a standard VPN service, and are not part of the Hola peer-to-peer network
We have built Hola for you, and with your privacy and security in mind. Hola routes your traffic through other peers in the Hola network, making your IP harder to track, thus allowing you to be more anonymous and secure. When your device is not in use, other packets of information from other people may be routed through your device. Hola does this securely, not allowing any access to any of your information. Your device is used only as a router. As with any new technology, in addition to the benefits it brings there can be workarounds (such as in WiFi where malicious people can try to hijack your WiFi hotspot). Thus, Hola invests in protecting you and closing these workarounds as they are identified. We also do not collect, store, or sell your personal identifiable information (PII), and never will.
Hola can be installed as a browser extension to Chrome, Firefox, or Opera on Windows and Mac PCs. Hola can also be installed as an app on Android or iOS, and is available as an application (.exe) for Windows. All downloads are accessible directly from our home page (installation and use of Hola is subject to our Terms of service and Privacy policy). Our users' satisfaction is a top priority, and if you found that Hola does not support a certain platform you can always visit our recommendation page for complementary services.
Hola is free for private (non-commercial) use on PCs and Macs, and requires a
subscription on iOS and Android.
Commercial use of Hola for business class VPN is available through our
Luminati service. The Hola peer-to-peer
architecture makes Hola free and secure. However, some users may
prefer not to contribute their idle resources to the Hola network, and
thus can join the Hola premium service,
which lets you use Hola without your idle resources being used in
return
About Hola premium subscription:
Your use of Hola Free VPN Proxy is free of charge in exchange for safely using some of your device's resources (WiFi and very limited cellular data), and only when you are not using your device. You may turn this off by joining Hola premium service. Please see our TOS for further information.
Our vision at Hola is to make the web world wide again, by allowing users to browse
the web privately, securely, and freely -- no censorship, no geographical
restrictions, no blocking.
We engineered Hola VPN in a totally new way - as the world's first (and only)
peer to peer VPN, where each user in our community shares a small portion of
his resources for the benefit of the network, and thus Hola VPN can be free
of ads.
Hola makes its revenue by providing corporations the same VPN service we
provide to users, but for a fee (through our Luminati brand). This enables us
to make Hola VPN free, and keep it free forever!
Like any P2P network, Hola is a "value exchange" network - you get the Hola service for free (on PC and Mac), and in exchange you provide a certain amount of network and processing power when your computer is not in use. This is similar to Skype and other P2P services. To provide you its functionality, Hola sometimes needs to route your services through peers (other people's devices) on the Hola network. In return, some of their traffic is also routed through your device securely. They cannot access your device, they are only routed through it. Hola is free on PC and Mac only for non-commercial users. For commercial use by businesses, Hola provides similar routing functionality through the Hola network for a fee. This is how Hola makes its revenues. The amount of traffic that Hola passes through a peer on its network per day on average is less than a 20 second YouTube clip. Premium users of the Hola network pay a monthly subscription and in return only use the network and do not contribute to it with their idle resources.
Yes, consumers can pay a fee to only use the Hola VPN, but not contribute their unused resources to the network. This would mean that you will be using Hola as just any other paid-for VPN service. Sign up for Hola premium here
VPNs have existed for almost as long as the Internet. VPN companies
need to set up and maintain servers in various countries. These servers
are then used for routing your traffic in order to change your IP, making you
more secure and anonymous. In addition, these VPN companies need to pay
bandwidth bills for their users' traffic. This is very expensive.
This built-in cost, coupled with the need of any company to turn a profit,
makes a traditional VPN service quite expensive for the end-user (typically
around $10 per month).
Hola built a peer-to-peer overlay network for HTTP, which securely routes
the sites you choose through other Hola users' devices and not through
expensive servers. Hola never takes up valuable resources from these users
because it only uses a user as a proxy if that user's device is completely
idle (by idle we mean that the device is not using battery but is connected
to electricity; no mouse or keyboard activity has been detected; and the
device is connected to the internet). This makes Hola the first VPN service
that has no underlying operational costs.
Although Hola doesn't need to pay for bandwidth, we still need to pay
the engineers who create, maintain, and keep improving the Hola service.
Hola generates revenue by selling a commercial version of the Hola VPN
service to businesses (through our Luminati
brand). This is what allows us to keep Hola free for our PC and Mac users.
Users who want to enjoy the Hola network without contributing their idle
resources can do so by joining the
Hola premium service for $5 per month (or $45
per year).
Like any P2P network, Hola is a "value exchange" network - you get the
service for free, in exchange for providing a certain amount of network and
processing power when your device is idle.
Your device is considered idle when:
The amount of traffic that Hola passes through a peer on its network per day on average is less than a 20 second YouTube clip.
We keep Hola free for PCs by selling the same VPN service that you use
to businesses.
Hola works because it is a peer-to-peer network - you use the network and
contribute to the network. To provide this service without charge to our
community, Hola charges validated corporations for use of the network. For
Hola users that do not want to be a peer in this network, we offer the
Hola Premium service, which lets you only use
the network, but not be a part of it
Hola keeps your information private and does not pass it on to any
third party. Consumers have grown used to having Internet businesses
collect some of their personal information and sell that on to third
parties (either as advertisements or other). Hola's business model is
different -- we don't collect any of your personal information -- we
use a small fraction of your computer's resources when they are not in
use (so that we never slow you down) for the benefit of the network. We
find that to be much less intrusive than the existing business models.
You can always opt out by paying the $5 monthly subscription (or $45
per year).
We definitely need your help to make the internet better! Here's what you can do:
Hola is free for non-commercial use. In order to keep hola free for consumers on PC and Mac, Hola operates a commercial VPN under the 'luminati' brand allowing carefully screened corporations to use the Hola VPN network for a fee. Corporations find several uses for our VPN service, such as checking their web sites from various countries and checking how their brand is represented in various web sites. For more information see luminati.io or contact sales@luminati.io
Hola makes the consumer VPN service free by providing a commercial version of the VPN service to businesses for a cost. New customers of our commercial service must pass a vetting process to ensure compliant use of the network. Brands typically use our service for activities such as:
Hola and Hola Premium are for private,
non-commercial use. Please see
Luminati service for a commercial
license to Hola. Your commercial license will provide you with these
additional features:
Hola for business:
To reset your password go to forgot password
The Hola service is provided for each platform individually. Therefore, you need to buy a separate subscription for each platform where Hola is to be used.
We can not change your email address once you registered with it. If you registered with a wrong email, register again with the right email address.
Hola has discontinued its torrent 'Media Player' feature, and now offers the video accelerator product for better video streaming from your favorite sites -- faster video start time, and less buffering.
Hola stopped supporting 'safe mode' feature. If you have any problems with a specific domain, please check out our list of recommended VPN providers
Try each of these methods separately:
Try each of these separately:
For Chrome
For Firefox
Disable all other extensions and then enable them back, one by one, to find the extension that is causing the conflict with Hola.
You could be receiving this message either because you are behind a corporate firewall through which Hola cannot pass, or because the Hola system is down. Alternatively, this message can result from some other problem that we are not able to pinpoint. If you are behind a firewall (e.g. at work), try connecting to a different network (different WiFi for example), or outside the company. Otherwise, try the following:
Your premium membership is associated with the account you used for
registering to Hola when you started the membership. As long as you are
signed in, using that account, you appear as a premium user.
Sing in to your account
For example, if you registered with your Google account and you are
using your Facebook account, Hola will not recognize you as a premium
user
The email you received from Hola after starting your subscription
indicates which account is associated with your membership
If you used PayPal to pay for your membership, it may take few minutes
for the membership status to get updated
If you have a premium membership but still do not see that in your status,
take the following steps:
Please note: Hola service is provided for each platform individually. Therefore, you need to purchase a separate membership for each platform where Hola is to be used.
If you'd like to manually buy each subscription period (monthly, yearly) separately, you can do the following:
Please note: iOS subscriptions are not renewed automatically. Therefore, there is no need to stop subscription.
We update Hola often with bug fixes and new features. We keep your version of
Hola automatically updated.
Android and iOS users:
Ensure that you keep automatic updates on
If you have gone through the above troubleshooting steps and are still facing problems, send us a bug report, and include as much of the following information as you can:
Note: Many times resetting your computer/cell phone and ensuring that you have internet connectivity will solve your problem.
Some old versions of Hola for Firefox, which were installed from the
Mozilla Add-ons store, don't get automatically updated to the newest
version of Hola
Uninstall the current Hola you have, and go to Hola's website,
click 'Start' to get the latest version of Hola.
Try the following:
You can uninstall Hola as follows:
Note: This does not uninstall the Hola client from your PC; to remove the client, carry out the steps below
Note: This does not uninstall the Hola client from your PC, to remove the client, carry out the steps below
We love to hear your feedback and ideas. Send us an email!
You can read here more about community powered (Peer-to-Peer) VPN
We prefer to use WiFi! We may use very limited cellular data and we won't use while roaming
Please note: You can also set Hola to clear the browsing history every time you exit Hola by selecting the check box 'Clear history on exit' at the top of the list
Hola VPN app comes with a built-in browser which allows you to access any
website from any country. Click the country flag from the top of the screen
to change the Hola browser IP (internet address) to the country you want to
virtually browse from. Once you pick a country, enter the website you want to
browse to in the address bar. You will be virtually browsing from the country
you selected
To see a list of popular sites in your country, click the Hola browser's
address bar from the home screen. From that list, you can select the site you
want to browse to, and the country you want to browse the site from
Hola VPN helps to make the internet faster, more open, and cheaper to
operate.
We cannot provide support for a specific domain or service. Moreover, users
must always comply with the site's terms of use
https://hola.org/faq#misc-register.
To check the functionality of the VPN please visit
iplocation.net or any other IP locater, and you
will be able to see your IP is an IP of the country you selected.
If Hola isn't working on your Android device, it's possible that there
is a conflict with another application or system settings.
The following apps can not run at the same time or might cause conflict
with Hola:
App is set to a 'browsing from' country with Hola but still does not work:
Go to Hola app > settings > turn 'Popular List' off
Go to Hola app > settings > turn off Hola
Please note: If you have Hola Premium, this neither stops payments nor ends the subscription! To stop the subscription, visit 'Subscriptions' in 'My Account' settings on the 'Play Store'
To report a problem on Android, follow these steps:
For all iOS-related questions, see Hola iOS FAQ
The Hola accelerator is an extension that helps you to stream videos better with faster start time, and less buffering
On some devices the app would not be able to enable the 'Developer options'. As a result the app would not function properly. Please see the following to manually enable the 'Developer options'
You have activated the 'Developer options'! You can now enable 'Mock locations' and use the app - See the next section to learn how to enable 'Mock location'
To enable Android's 'mock location', click 'SETTINGS' on the pop out in Hola change GPS location app
Please note: You can always change these settings using 'Android developer settings'
For all billing questions, visit the Hola Billing FAQ
Hola is the first community powered (Peer-to-Peer) VPN, where users
help each other make the information on the web accessible for everyone
again. We take great care to be able to provide you this service while
protecting your privacy, security, and personal information.
Hola is very easy to setup (one click), and is free and ad-free for PC and
Mac users. It is useful for seeing how a website looks like from a
certain country, for more secure browsing, for overcoming government
censorship (e.g. using Facebook from a country that blocks it), for
overcoming your corporation's internet site blocking, for seeing a site
in its native language (e.g. seeing the Spanish news site as it appears
to Spanish users), and more.
Hola is free on PC and MAC for private use. For commercial use of Hola for a
commercial-level VPN, see Luminati service
Go to a website you would like to use, click Hola's extension icon in your
browser, and select the country from which you would like to access the
site. Hola will switch your IP (your internet address) to the country you
selected, so that you are virtually browsing from that country.
Alternatively, you can click the Hola extension from any page, and enter
a website you would like to access, then select the country. Enjoy!
We cannot provide support for a specific domain or service. Moreover, users
must always comply with the site's terms of use
https://hola.org/faq#misc-register.
To check the functionality of the VPN please visit
iplocation.net or any other IP locater, and you
will be able to see your IP is an IP of the country you selected.
If you purchased a Hola premium account and wish to get a refund, please send
us the email address with which you signed up to our service.
When Hola identifies a webpage that many people in your country access by using Hola, Hola assumes that you may want to access this page via Hola as well. You can click 'unlock' to access the page via Hola, or click 'x' to continue browsing normally. Based on your decision, Hola will create a rule that you can change afterwards.
Hola does not support these platforms. For a list of recommended complementary services that support these platforms, go to our recommendation page.
While surfing the Internet, you are constantly being tracked by the sites you visit (which products are you browsing? which articles are you reading?), and possibly by your government, ISP, and corporation. You are probed and sniffed, and thus open to identity theft. Changing your IP when accessing sites is an extended measure in addition to your browser's 'incognito mode'. The combination between these two measures means that others cannot get information from your browser and cannot track requests coming from your IP as belonging to you. Depending on the proxy rule you choose, Hola will also encrypt some or all of your traffic, making you even more secure from outside sniffing.
Hola works on various levels to ensure a high level of security:
The overall security of the Hola network is reviewed and managed by our
CSO (Chief Security Officer). We also run occasional vulnerability
bounty programs, to have our products and networks analyzed by external
researchers
Hola's networks are not attractive to people or entities with malicious
intent, because we can see the real origin and destination of each request,
so that if a cyber criminal were to use the Hola network, the cyber's
criminal information may be passed on to the authorities. Some VPN networks
don't see both ends of the connection, and thus are much more attractive for
these uses
Hola has zero-tolerance for misuse of its network, and will cooperate
with the authorities on any such conduct
On May 27th a group of researchers ("Adios") found several vulnerabilities
with the Hola client. Within hours Hola patched those and updated the
network. In addition, we reviewed and modified our security architecture,
hired an external security audit from one of the 'big 4' auditors, and have
also appointed our Chief Security Officer.
Every technology may be vulnerable to misuse. For example, home WiFi
access points may be hacked into by passersby, and used for illegal activity.
Hola is a P2P product. P2P architecture has its own challenges, and Hola
works to minimize those challenges whether through several methods:
technological measures, filters, and certain policing of the network.
If you are concerned about P2P technology, you should uninstall Hola.
Hola regularly monitors the consumer network for traces of misuse or security breaches. In addition, architecture modifications allow Hola to see the origin of each request, thus if a cyber criminal were to use the Hola network, the cyber's criminal information may be passed on to the authorities. This makes Hola un-attractive to abusers. Some VPN networks don't see both ends of the connection, and are therefore much more attractive for these uses.
Before a business can use Hola’s business VPN network (Luminati), Hola’s compliance officer runs that business through an “onboarding” process to validate the customer, its corporate entity, and its use of the network. Hola allows only legitimate businesses to use the commercial network for legitimate business uses. In addition, Hola’s architecture allows Hola to see the origin and destination of each request, thus if our network was abused, the abuser's information may be passed on to the authorities. This makes Hola unattractive to abusers. Some VPN networks that don't see both ends of the connection, and are therefore much more attractive for these uses.
To route your traffic through other IPs, Hola must act as a proxy for
your data, thus requiring various data permissions
We only ask for the permissions we need for the app to work
best
More details about the required Android permissions can be found
below.
Device & app history: Hola allows you to launch, from within the
Hola app, apps you installed in your device
Identity: Hola also needs to create an ID for your Android
device, and the ID is created from the various hardware readings
Photos/Media/Files: We use the external storage of the device
for caching and storing data
Device ID & call information: Hola uses peer-to-peer technology
as a VPN proxy, so we need to identify when the device is idle and is
using the power supply and NOT roaming, so we don't waste your battery, or
slowing down your phone.
No. Hola handles your HTTP requests exactly like HTTP web proxies do, according to the HTTP RFC standards, and in a similar way to how ISPs do it in the normal course of your browsing. That also covers 'Cache:' public/private HTTP headers, and their correct handling.
This is a false positive report. The file it's catching is part of the Hola smart cache (you can mark it as safe, don't delete). We are working with the top antivirus vendors to get Hola completely whitelisted, so that these types of false positives don't disturb our users.
Like other commercial networks, Hola is a managed and supervised network and thus any illegal activity such as CP would be reported to the authorities with the user's real IP. Criminals will typically not use a commercial service, because their identities are at the hands of that commercial entity.
Non-commercial VPNs such as TOR are completely anonymous, and nobody has access to the source of the requests on that network. That makes these networks ideal for criminal activity, and running a Tor relay/bridge is most likely helping the wrong people, as well as putting the operator in danger. Hola is a commercial network, run by a commercial company that has its customers and its business in mind. Thus, when sensing any dubious activity on our network, we are able to see the source of the request and help law enforcement get to the cyber criminal. We've never yet heard of a case where a Hola user had any such problems, despite having an install base that is a few thousand times bigger than any other comparable network such as Tor. If you are still concerned about these risks, you have the option of not installing or uninstalling Hola.
Hola’s Chief Security Officer (CSO) is responsible for the overall security of the Hola network. Hola’s CSO leads the development, implementation, and management of the organization’s security vision, strategy, and programs. Recent actions include internal and external security audits, security bounty program, securing the consumer and commercial onboarding processes, and changes in the Hola network architecture.
To expose Hola’s products and networks to external scrutiny, we occasionally offer a vulnerability bounty program, by which researchers can receive recognition and compensation for reporting security vulnerabilities. This program allows Hola to discover and resolve security issues before the general public, thereby preventing the abuse of the Hola networks.
Using two VPN services at the same time can cause an unexpected behavior. If you'd like to use two VPN services, simply quit one of them while using the other.
Yes, you still need to register and pay for sites that require registration and payment, even when using Hola. In addition, you must always comply with the site's terms of use.
Yes, Hola works on Windows, even if running under VMWare. Our browser extensions work on all operating systems that support Chrome and Firefox (except mobile). However, you should close the Hola client on the host system before you open the virtual machine, and never try to run Hola on both the host and guest operating systems at once.
Hola provides a service for Windows, Mac, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Android, and iOS. For other devices we provide you with a list of the best VPNs for your needs, as selected by our users who needed these services. Prefer not to pay for a VPN? There's always Hola!
Not with Hola - but you can with other VPNs.