HMA! Tip: Virtual locations!

What are they and what can I use them for?

When you connect to one of our HMA! VPN servers, you’re assigned an IP address from the country server you connect to. For example connect to any HMA! server in America and you’ll get a US IP address. You can verify this here



Connecting to different countries is great for accessing geo-restricted content – for example, if you’re in the UK and you want to watch US television, many US websites will see that you are in the UK and will block you from viewing the content.  A VPN will help you get around this issue; simply connect to a US VPN server which will assign you an American IP address. This will allow you to watch the shows, as the website will now see you as connecting from within the US – you’ve tricked the website into thinking you are physically in the US.  However, connecting to a country that is far from your physical location can occasionally result in slower connection speeds and decreased reaction time which can make streaming online media difficult.  “Virtual Locations” can help solve this problem.

When you connect to a ‘virtual location’ server, you’re assigned an IP address of the country you would like to appear from, but you connect to a country server that is physically closest to you. For example, if you are based in Europe and would like to access the internet from the USA, you would connect to the UK, London – Virtual USA server.

This will give you improved speeds because now you’ve taken a shorter route, a “virtual” one.

When you connect to this virtual server location and check your IP you’ll see that you have a working virtual IP address, although the server you just connected to is located in a different country. You can now expect improved speeds and better reaction time.

Give it a try – check the HMA! Pro VPN clients server location list, the PPTP/L2TP server list or the OpenVPN configuration files for the “Virtual” server locations:

TCP OpenVPN config files

UDP OpenVPN config files

L2TP server lists

PPTP server lists: These can be found in your control panel

You can find out more information about virtual locations here

Name of the Provider	Website Address
Hide My Ass	Visit Provider
Strong VPN	Visit Provider
Switch VPN	Visit Provider
Pure VPN	Visit Provider
IPVanish VPN	Visit Provider
Hotspot Shield Elite	Visit Provider