Now I am using only the paid premium version of hotspot shield VPN which is actually pretty good VPN in my experience.
There were some stories a couple of years ago that Hotspot shield was redirecting its VPN users via some third party partner websites, affiliates, and ad companies. It was also placing tracking cookies on their users as a way to serve them with targeted advertising, and also injecting JavaScript in to their users browsers. I don't know if they have since cleaned up their act, but I would be very careful about relying on Hotspot shield for any real privacy.