How safe is hotspot shield ?

I'll answer this question from technical point of view.

Connecting to VPN server and configuring the established tunnel as a default gateway will make you vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attack.

Every connection you made can be sniffed, even if it was https, it can be sniffed.

So, it's not safe at all to used public VPN server.

This is an illegal method to open banned websites which are banned in your states. The real answer is that every state knows that which ip is running hotspot because our real ip's are different so service provider can easily check it. And to be honest why you use hotspot shield & takes too much risk at all.............

The program is completely safe and allowed to use it in all countries. Changes that it makes are completely reversible and temporary.