ZoogVPN claims to be a no-logs VPN, but in reality it does collect bandwidth data and account information (including your email address).
Saving your email address is typical for most VPN services, though it does mean ZoogVPN could confirm to the authorities that you have an account. We recommend using a fake email address with no personal information to be sure your identity is hidden.
Importantly, ZoogVPN doesn’t collect your originating IP address, DNS requests, timestamps, assigned IP address, or ISP. Without this information, ZoogVPN cannot help authorities identify a specific user’s browsing history.
We’d prefer if ZoogVPN adopted a true zero-logs policy, like Private Internet Access or Perfect Privacy.
Who Owns ZoogVPN?
ZoogVPN’s corporate ownership is confusing. The VPN service is owned by Zoog Services Single Member Private Company, which is incorporated in Greece, but is headquartered in Ukraine. A majority of its employees are also from Ukraine.
ZoogVPN is also featured as a product of Softoria, a company registered in Ukraine.
Softoria has business relationships with multiple other technology companies, including DataForSeo, RankActive, Traffmonetizer, and Dataimpulse.
We reached out via email for clarification on its ownership structure and employees. ZoogVPN confirmed that Softoria and ZoogVPN are owned by the same person, but didn’t confirm who this person was.
We’re disappointed ZoogVPN’s corporate structure and employees aren’t detailed on ZoogVPN’s website and prefer a VPN service with transparent ownership. It’s always a bit suspicious when parent companies of VPNs also operate advertising or data mining businesses.
No Independent Audit & Out of Date Warrant Canary
Unlike top-tier VPNs, ZoogVPN doesn’t publish regular third-party audits that confirm its privacy policy is being adhered to. It’s had no real-world events, like a server seizure or court case, to prove that it doesn’t log your IP address or browsing history.
Even worse, ZoogVPN hasn’t updated its Warrant Canary since March 2022, which is when we last emailed ZoogVPN and requested it to be updated. The VPN service also leases all of its servers and hasn’t adopted diskless servers, like ExpressVPN has.
Uses Third-Party DNS Servers
Using our IP and DNS leak test tool, we found that ZoogVPN passed our IPv4, IPv6, and WebRTC leak tests. However, it failed to mask our geolocation and uses third-party DNS servers.
Our VPN leaks test detected Google’s DNS servers while connected to ZoogVPN.
As you can see in the image above, ZoogVPN doesn’t support first-party DNS servers, and instead routes all your traffic through Google DNS servers.
This isn’t a total breach of anonymity as your requests are still among thousands of others, but it still isn’t great if you’re using a VPN for online privacy purposes.
It’s fairly common for lower to mid-tier VPNs to rely on third-party DNS servers, but ZoogVPN will need to fix this to earn a higher rating in this category.