Zoog VPN review

ZoogVPN was founded by Zoog Services Ltd. six years ago on the Isle Of Man in the UK.

They claim to be lightning fast, secure, and private. They also claim to work on Netflix.

But almost every single other VPN service we’ve reviewed makes those claims, too.

Does ZoogVPN live up to those claims?

I’m going to answer those questions in this review.

I’m also going to lay out the pros and cons of the service to tell you if it’s easy to use, if ZoogVPN’s customer service is any good, and much more.

But first, let’s provide a little background information on ZoogVPN.

ZoogVPN Background + Compatibility

The ZoogVPN website has a simple, modern design. It immediately inspired confidence.

The site features some high-quality graphics and is very easy to navigate.

So far so good!

Here’s what ZoogVPN has to say about themselves:

“The complete fast VPN service comes with easy to use apps, access to US Netflix & BBC iPlayer, no logs, own DNS servers, safe torrent downloads and up to 5 simultaneously connected devices.”

We did a quick search and saw pretty positive reviews across the board. Most were pleased about the strong speeds.

But how accurate is this information? Are the speeds really that great? And how do they compare to other VPNs on the market?

Customer reviews are great. But the only way you can trust a service is by actually using it yourself.

That’s why we signed up for a paid account, set up the VPN client, and tested the speeds of three different servers for ourselves.

Right off the bat, ZoogVPN provides unlimited bandwidth and server switches.

Other notable features include no logging and public wifi security.

The VPN service also supports these devices and operating services:

• PC
• Mac
• iPhone
• iPad
• Android
• Linux
• Blackberry
• Chromebook
• Routers
• TOR

ZoogVPN works on up to five devices simultaneously. However, setting it up directly on your router would help you bypass this limitation and connect even more devices.

ZoogVPN has 38 servers in 26 countries. That’s pretty low in our experience, to be honest. For example, Trust.Zone has been around for roughly the same time but has over 130 servers across twice as many countries.

Thankfully, ZoogVPN does include many of the major cities in North America, Europe, and Asia.

I should also mention that ZoogVPN only offers a kill switch for Mac at the moment. This kind of puts this service at a disadvantage.

Think of a kill switch like your ultimate failsafe. If something happens to your internet connection, your VPN connection usually drops out, too. That could leave everything you were just doing out in the open for prying eyes to see.

No wonder it’s one of the biggest complaints we’ve seen from other people, too.

ZoogVPN appears to work with DD-WRT and Tomato routers. The company offers a Setup Wizard for routers here.

All OpenVPN, L2TP or PPTP work well with ZoogVPN. However, the service does not support flashing routers.

They have also added IKEv2 as part of their available protocols.

So keep that in mind before moving forward.

Next up, everyone’s favorite topic: actual cons and pros

Finally, ZoogVPn is based in Greece. The latter is far away from the jurisdiction of the 5 eyes, 9 nines, and 14 eyes.

ZoogVPN Overview

OVERALL RANK:	45
USABILITY:	Not very user-friendly
LOG FILES:	Grey Area
LOCATIONS:	18 countries, 27+ servers
SUPPORT:	Good customer support and live chat
TORRENTING:	Allowed
NETFLIX:	Unblocks Netflix USA Chicago
ENCRYPTION/PROTOCOL:	AES-128 and AES-256; OpenVPN, L2TP, PPTP, IKEv2
COST:	$3.33/mo
OFFICIAL WEBSITE:	www.ZoogVPN.com

 

ZoogVPN Pros

ZoogVPN has been on the market for a few years now.

You’d expect them to have a strong service with all of the kinks worked out by now.

So let’s start with what they do well on, first, before taking a look at where they might improve.

1. ZoogVPN encryption is strong enough

Security and privacy are probably the most important factors to look at when selecting a private network. Privacy is the reason you’re using a VPN in the first place.

Is ZoogVPN’s encryption strong?

Well, that depends on the plan you’re using.

Is it Well Encrypted?

ZoogVPN has some industry-standard encryption AES-256 for the paid plans. This is the best of the best.

However, when using the free plan, you only get 128-bit encryption. Technically, it’s still pretty strong. It will cover you in most cases. But it’s not top-of-the-line, either.

If your main reason for choosing a VPN is privacy, be sure not to use the free plan. You get the security you pay for.

Is Torrenting Allowed?

It appears that torrenting is allowed with ZoogVPN. But that may depend on the server you are using.

For example, servers that allow P2P traffic will have a small “P2P” icon next to their server name.

Be sure to select one with this icon if you’re looking to use torrenting.

Logging Policy

ZoogVPN states that they keep no logs.

However, like a ton of other VPN services, that’s not entirely true.

When you check out their privacy policy, you’ll find that they do collect data but only very minimal. 

The information they gather includes your email and data transferred when using their service.

2. Slightly above average connection speeds

Nearly every VPN service claims to have incredibly fast speeds.

ZoogVPN is no different. So I put them to the test, analyzing download speeds on EU and US servers.

Here are the results of my speed tests

US Server

• Ping: 130ms
• Download: 24.82 Mbps
• Upload: 25.59 Mbps

EU Server

• Ping: 38ms
• Download: 57.99 Mbps
• Upload: 49.20 Mbps

Asia Server

• Ping: 223ms
• Download: 39.52 Mbps
• Upload: 15.97 Mbps

In the end, they’re not the fastest or the slowest. And their connection speeds seem to depend on a lot on which servers you are using.

3. ZoogVPN is cheap (and they have a free plan)

First, the good news. ZoogVPN offers a free plan. So you can sign up and try out the service without ever seeing a bill.

The bad news is that there are several restrictions.

For example, you’re only able to access three free servers in New York, London, and Amsterdam. You are also only allowed a little over 2 GB of data transfer for free under this plan.

You might hit that threshold pretty quickly if you’re watching movies, downloading media files, and more.

There’s also no guarantee that the speeds will be fast on the free plan. They offer their “Best effort Bandwidth” with a free account.

If you’re ready to take the next step, the company offers a one, six, and 24 months plans.

All of these packages give you the same exact features. So you get access to every server, unlimited data transfer and bandwidth, five simultaneous connections, and full content access.

The only difference is the term you’d like to prepay and the discount for each.

Here’s a breakdown of the current pricing.

The monthly plan $6.99 per month.

This is a 42% discount in comparison to the original price of $11.99 per month. This one is perfect for a VPN user looking to pay month-to-month.

The pricing is decent with this plan, especially since you don’t have to make any commitments to get this low of a price.

Many other month-to-month plans I’ve seen can cost twice as much as this one.

The six months package is $3.33 per month.

This is a 72% discount in comparison to the usual price of $11.99 per month. Overall, you’ll pay $19.99 for access to ZoogVPN for six months. This is a huge savings compared to the first plan.

The two year package is $1.25 per month.

This plan will set you back $29.99. That means you get an extra twelve months and you even save money compared to the 1 year plan.

This also ties ZoogVPN for the cheapest VPN service I’ve reviewed.

If you aren’t sure how you feel about ZoogVPN, start out with the one month plan. Then, if you like it, I would recommend boosting your package up to have a full year of access.

You’ll save more of your hard earned cash that way.

ZoogVPN also offers a 7-day money-back guarantee.

That means you can try out the free plan before paying for the service and still get a full week to decide if it’s right for you.

They also have tons of different payment methods, like PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and even Bitcoin.

4. Seven Day Money-Back Guarantee

The longest commitment to a VPN will always get you the cheapest rate. ZoogVPN is no different, here.

However, there’s a problem with this.

How do you know if you like their service? How do you know if making a one-year commitment is the right decision?

Thankfully, ZoogVPN helps you in two ways.

First, they have a completely free plan. It has limitations, but it’s perfect for trying the service out.

Second, they still offer a money-back guarantee. So you can still get a refund if you have a change of heart after a few days.

5. One U.S. server in Chicago worked with Netflix 

Testing out Netflix is my favorite part of this review process.

Netflix has been cracking down on VPN services in the last few years. So even if a company claims to work with Netflix, their service might not.

For example, ZoogVPN claims on their website to work with Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and more.

So let’s find out!

So do they really?

I headed to my Netflix account on an Italian server to find out.

At first, things were promising. Italian movies started showing up on the menu as soon as I logged in.

But when I clicked on one, Netflix knew I was using a VPN.

We repeated that process across the following servers and none of them worked.

• United States: Washington
• Canada
• United Kingdom
• Netherlands

We started to get discouraged.

But then, a U.S. Chicago server saved the day, allowing us to finally start streaming.

• United States: Chicago

Several pages on their site still promote Netflix use. So hopefully they can bring a few more servers back online.

6. Good customer support (and live chat)

After logging in on ZoogVPN.com, you can access the support area on the left-hand side of the screen.

When you click on the “Support” button, you’ll be taken to this area:

ZoogVPN uses a ticketing system. Just click “Contact ZoogVPN Support” to submit a ticket.

You’ll be required to provide your name and email, and you can also select the device you’re using, the VPN type, the type of support you need, and the priority of your question.

Then, type out your question or message. Here’s the one I sent in:

Once you hit send, you’ll receive this message.

It’s nice that ZoogVPN gives you a time window to expect to hear back from them.

As with most kinds of customer support, it’s wise to check out ZoogVPN’s FAQ page to see if your question has already been answered.

Also, the last time I reviewed ZoogVPN, there was no live chat — which resulted in customer support being in the cons section. They have since improved and now offer impressive live chat support. As a result, I’ve moved this to the pros section.

 

ZoogVPN Cons

ZoogVPN turns in a decent performance across the board. Especially for such a low price.

However, that doesn’t mean everything is OK.

In fact, there are a few cases where the performance wasn’t good enough in my opinion.

Here’s a quick run down.

1. Their VPN app is a bit clumsy…

ZoogVPN is pretty straightforward to download, install, and use. Just select your device, and you’re off.

ZoogVPN’s usability isn’t the worst I’ve seen by a long shot. However, once you start using the service, you’ll notice some annoying quirks.

Overall, I’d give it a 4/10 for usability. Let me walk you through how the client works so that you don’t run into some of the same questions I had initially.

Start out by creating an account with ZoogVPN and install the service on your device.

Once it’s been downloaded, here’s what it will look like:

Just enter in your credentials to login.

Then, the main dashboard will appear:

You’ll see your current IP address, a power button, and a section to select a server at the bottom.

I’ve blurred out the IP address, here, but just select a server from the menu when you’re ready.

Again, servers with “P2P” next the name will allow for P2P downloads. You can also favorite a server if you wish. Just click on the one you want to connect to.

Then, it will appear at the bottom. Press the power button to connect to it.

You’ll receive a notification that ZoogVPN is connecting you to the server. Once it’s connected, the service will record the duration of time you’re on the server.

When navigating away from the first home tab, you can see settings in the second tab.

Here, you can control whether to launch the app when your computer starts and more.

The third tab shows your account information, such as how much longer you have until your account access expires.

The fourth tab just contains basic information about ZoogVPN. The fifth is what you’ll want to click to exit the service.

Just select “OK” to exit.

2. “Kill-switch” only on Mac (really?)

I already alluded to this one above. But it’s worth repeating.

Most major VPN services will give you a kill switch just in case. It’s kind of an essential feature in my opinion. And it kind of sucks that this key feature is only offered for Mac devices.

For example, public WiFi connections are notoriously unreliable. You never know if they’re going to work correctly (or who else is on there listening).

However, if they were to drop while browsing on your phone, chances are your cell network would pick it back up.

Except, when that happens, your VPN connection goes down. So you’re left completely exposed.

Simply put: If you’re planning on using a VPN for public WiFi’s while traveling, etc., a kill switch is a must.

Do I Recommend ZoogVPN?

Unfortunately, I do not.

ZoogVPN’s encryption is pretty good. You literally can’t beat their pricing. And we got one Netflix server to work.

However, their connection speeds are average. There is also some questionable, conflicting information in their Privacy Policy about their logging terms.

When you add all of that up to the fact that they only have a kill switch for Mac, either, it means there are far better options out there.

Overall, ZoogVPN gets a 62/100. There are much better options out there, so feel free to take a look at our “Best VPN” page for finding the recent top 5 VPNs.

Add your Zoog VPN Review

P.S. I’m always interested in user-reviews so if you’ve used ZoogVPN before, don’t hesitate to leave your review below. If your experience matched mine, cool. If it didn’t, that’s fine too!