Our Hammer VPN review found that it is an Android app created by TunnelGuru VPN. HammerVPN is a VPN software tool for Android devices which not only encrypts all of your Internet traffic by also applies a scrambling technology to it. This can help hide the fact that you are using a VPN service. This in turn can guard your Internet transactions and thwart DPI (deep packet inspection) from third parties.
Pricing and Special Offers
You can download the Hammer VPN app for free from the Google Play site. TunnelGuru offers users of Hammer VPN app a free 100 MB of bandwidth to their VPN service. Although it is a small amount of bandwidth, it could be sufficient for casual VPN users. Additionally, you will have to put up with sometimes obtrusive ads from TunnelGuru VPN and their sponsors since the free service is funded by advertising (examples shown below).
However, we do not feel that this will be enough bandwidth for most regular VPN users. However, if you decide you like the Hammer VPN app and the service offered by TunnelGuru VPN, they offer an unlimited bandwidth version that you can sign up for using the app itself. They only offer a monthly package for this paid service. You can purchase unlimited VPN for $4.25 per month.
Features of the Premium Hammer VPN Account
The features and benefits that the paid Hammer VPN account offer are as follows:
- Stealth VPN – It provides help against DPI of your Internet traffic.
- Additional servers – You get access to the 1 Gbps network of premium servers.
- Additional software access – You can use all of the software offered by TunnelGuru VPN which allows you to connect using a variety of protocols.
- Ports – You can choose multiple ports to be able to tunnel data through.
- Proxy – You can set the VPN to utilize a proxy.
- Bandwidth – Access to servers without bandwidth limitations. Free servers still have 100MB per day limit.
- Security – Hammer VPN provides a virtual firewall to protect your device from incoming malware.
- Protection – Protect your information while connected to WiFi networks.
You can pay for your service and receive a monthly voucher by Paypal if you prefer to keep all of your online payments in a central database. They accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover credit cards which are handled using the anonymous feature of Paypal. You can also pay for your subscription through the TunnelGuru website if you want to. Your will find a link it at the bottom of the app install page on the Google Play store.
Risk-Free Trial Period
You can try the Hammer VPN service for free. You can use up to 100MB of bandwidth per day on their VPN network. In addition to this they offer a 3-day money back guarantee once you purchase their premium service. If you are not happy with the service once you purchase it, they will refund your purchase price. You must notify them in writing via email within three days of your subscription date of your intention to cancel your account.
VPN Server Network
The premium Hammer VPN network consists of 1 Gbps servers in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States, Singapore, South Africa, and Turkey. Although this is a small number of VPN locations, it encompasses a wide geographic area. It provides their VPN service a presence on five of the seven continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.
The Hammer VPN servers do not permit the use of torrents or any other P2P software. They are also not meant to be used to bypass geo-restrictions for streaming content. You are limited to only one device at a time. Finally, you can not use the Hammer VPN app in Nigeria, Pakistan, Ghana, China, India, Senegal and Syria.
Privacy and Security
We are not sure about the privacy of what you do while using the Hammer VPN service based on their own Privacy and TOS policies. A couple of excepts of this policy follow:
We do our best to protect your privacy by not storing any more details on our servers than technically or legally required — and permitted. In fact, the servers themselves do not keep any logs that could be of interest to anyone but the developers and operators; However we will cooperate with concern authorities to the extend required to protect us from having to take responsibility for your illegal actions if any. This means that we may unveil your account and payment details as well as the source IP address used to register if you violated rules.
For their mobile apps, they state the following:
> Mobile Applications:
We do not read, track and collect any information or any personal sensitive data via Mobile applications you use in your mobile devices. It just need minimum permissions to work, mentioned in the permission list, can be checked while you install mobile apps. Mobile applications mainly need current location, device ID if available, Build information, access permission to Mobile storage and network.
They log a minimum amount of information from their VPN users: connection start, connection end, and the IP address used to connect. However, since they state that they work within the judicial confines of the country they are located in and not one jurisdiction, they could be compelled to monitor a users data in some cases. Further, they say that they will do so to absolve themselves from any wrong doing on your part. Consequently, we leave it to you to make the determination for yourself if you are comfortable with these conditions.
HammerVPN provides very little technical information about how they encrypt your data or the mechanism that they use to provide their stealth feature. Our inquiry into this found that they use their own proprietary custom VPN. It combines multiple protocols and tunneling technologies. Additionally, the Hammer VPN service uses 128-bit encryption strength for your Internet data.
Technical Support
Support for the Hammer VPN service is mainly by email. We sent a few support questions to their staff and heard back from then 2 days in most cases. They answers were helpful with the questions that we posed.
They also have a Twitter and Facebook presence. Although, these do not look like they are monitored daily so we do not know how long it will take to receive a response from these sources. Finally, they have a few YouTube videos to help you sign up for their service. They do not have a FAQ database and their software is designed for those with more technical knowledge if you want to take advantage of its advanced features.
Installing Hammer VPN
You can install the Hammer VPN app to your Android device from the Google Play store. Once you have found the app, tap on its “Install” button. A screen asking for access permissions for the app will then appear. You must accept these before the installation will start. After the installation is complete, tap on the “Open” button to launch it for the first time.
After the Hammer VPN app opens, it will display the main dashboard. When you connect to the VPN service for the first time, it will explain that no torrent software can be used with it. You must acknowledge that you understand and agree to this condition. Then the screen to allow the service to establish the Hammer VPN connection will be displayed. Tap “OK” to allow this. Finally the connection to your chosen VPN server will be completed.
Android App Options and Features
Tapping on the down arrow beside the currently selected server on the main dashboard will bring up a list of servers that you can connect to using your current protocol. If you have a paid premium account, you can scroll to the bottom of this list and select a premium server to connect to. Additionally, you can also choose your protocol that you will use to make the connection. The three protocols that you can choose from are as follows:
- UDP – This is the default and primary protocol for the app and it uses RPort: 500 and LPort: 0 (0 represents a random port number). This is the fastest protocol and will be best for most users. However, it does not provide verification of either the order or delivery of all data packets sent.
- TCP – This slower than the UDP protocol but does provide verification of data packet order and delivery. Because of this, it is best for long distance or weak connections or if you care having problems connection using UDP.
- ICPM – This is for connecting rooted devices and requires access to the super user on your device.
Connecting using different protocols can affect the subset of VPN servers that you have access to when using the Hammer VPN service.
There are two other screens that can be accessed from the app dashboard. The first of these is accessed by tapping the “About” button and provides information on the Android app. It also displays a link to the TunnelGuru website so you can set up a paid account and examine the TOS if you want to.
The second screen which displays added features of the app can be accessed by tapping the “Advanced” button. This screen will let you assign the DNS used by the VPN and set up a proxy that can be used through the Hammer VPN app. You can set up this proxy by inputting a Host name or IP address for the host, the port it uses, and its header. You can also choose to allow the proxy to be used by TCP connections. Once you have input the proxy parameters, tap the “Save” button to complete the proxy setup.
Hammer VPN in Use
Now that we have examined the Hammer VPN app for Android features and options, let us take a look at it in action. We have activated a premium account by inputting our paid verification credentials so that we could access the premium servers. Using the service is very easy. First, select the server and protocol that you want to use for the connection (Premium server-g11 in Germany was used with UDP in this case). Tap the “Connect” button.
After a few seconds the connected screen will display. This screen shows the following session information: connected server, connection time, bandwidth data received, and bandwidth data sent. It also displays a button to “Disconnect” the connection. Tapping this button will prompt you to disconnect from the VPN server.
Once you have stopped your current connection, you can select another VPN server to connect to. You can also change your protocol if you wish. If you want to close the Hammer VPN app for Android, the tap on the back button for your device from the main dashboard screen. This will display the prompt to close the app.
Tapping on the “OK” button will close the app.
As this section shows, the Hammer VPN app can be used by anyone. A few simple taps will have you connected to a server on their network. Disconnecting take only two taps. Using their advanced features requires a little more technical expertise but once setup is just as easy.
Hammer VPN Speed Test
The Hammer VPN service has both free and premium servers. Therefore, we included both paid premium server and free server speed tests to see how they compare with not having any VPN active. The results, from left to right are no VPN connection, premium VPN server connection , and free VPN server connection. You will notice that their was moderate speed loss due to the paid VPN service which is due to the encryption overhead. Also, you can see that this speed loss was much greater for the free VPN server. This is usually the case and due primarily to the sheer volume of users on free VPN servers. Their speed can vary widely and throughout the day.
More quantitatively, our speed dropped from 28.94 Mbps to 22.25 Mbps when using the paid Hammer VPN server. This is a decrease of about 23.1 percent to a server in Tucker, GA. Note, this is still fast enough for most of your Internet surfing needs. The free VPN server dropped our base ISP speed from 28.94 Mbps to 10.30 Mbps. This is a drop of almost 64.4%. This coupled with its 100 MB daily limitation indicates that it is probably not the best choice for many VPN users. Using a VPN can help protect your online privacy and secure your online information from unsavory people. This can provide you greater peace of mind while surfing the Internet. Buying the best VPN service you can afford can help ensure this.
Hammer VPN Review: Conclusion
Hammer VPN is a free Android app provided by TunnelGuru which will allow your mobile device to connect to their network. It will not only improve your online privacy and security but also protect you from DPI inspection by third parties like some ISPs and government entities. They will provide you with 100 MB per day of free bandwidth on their VPN network. This may be enough bandwidth for casual VPN users. However, it is not enough for those who routinely connect to the Internet using a VPN. TunnelGuru also offers a paid premium VPN service that will allow you unlimited bandwidth on their VPN network. You can also gain access to all of the custom software for a variety of devices. However, you can only connect one device at a time. It will also give you access to their premium VPN servers.
The Hammer VPN premium network consist of servers in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. They have 1 Gbps servers in multiple countries. Their service uses a proprietary VPN algorithm that utilizes 128-bit strength encryption. Technical support is primarily through email. Although, they also have accounts on Twitter and Facebook. Their TOS and Privacy Policy are somewhat ambiguous. Therefore, you will need to examine them for yourself to see if they are acceptable to you.
What we liked most about the service:
- Hammer VPN provides DPI protection for those who need it.
- Android app and custom software for Windows.
- TunnelGuru has multiple apps for Android devices.
- They offer 100 MB of daily free VPN service.
- An additional 3-day money back guarantee once you subscribe to the service.
- Multiple ways to purchase a premium VPN subscription which include cryto-currencies like Bitcoin.
Ideas to improve the service:
- Add tutorials for the features of Hammer VPN and other custom TunnelGuru software.
- More bandwidth for free users
- Faster servers for free users
- Allow more that one simultaneous connection.
- Add more VPN locations.
Hammer VPN provides a free service that you can use to test their performance. Additionally, they offer a 3-day money back guarantee. These should allow you ample time to put the VPN service though its paces with all of your devices. So, go ahead and test it out for yourself. If you like it and think that it fits your needs, you can subscribe for $4.25 a month.
