Trust.Zone

You can tell from its name that Trust.Zone markets itself as a privacy-friendly VPN. While it doesn’t log your data, there have been many complaints about “Trust Zone”. This includes reports of buggy apps and an inadequate refund policy. So, my team and I performed extensive tests on all its features to see if it’s safe, fast, and trustworthy enough to try.

After all our tests, I can say Trust.Zone isn’t a scam, but it’s not worth the price. It has slow speeds, and the apps are very unfriendly. If you want a reliable VPN, check out our top-ranked VPNs with fast speeds, larger server networks, and more robust security and privacy features.

Try Trust.Zone VPN Risk-Free

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Streaming — Poor Performance With Most Platforms

Trust.Zone has a lot of trouble safely accessing popular streaming platforms. Even though it offers streaming servers that should be optimized for this purpose, they’re often ineffective. For the most part, they didn’t perform much better than its regular servers.

Its slow speeds also resulted in excessive buffering and long load times. In one incident, it took us over 20 minutes just to log in to a streaming platform with an email verification code. The problem is that some of the ports Trust.Zone offers are extremely slow, so I recommend switching to 443 before streaming.

Works With: Netflix

My international team and I could safely stream Netflix US, Australia, UK, Canada, Finland, and Hong Kong. We were impressed that we were never presented with Netflix Originals. This is a version of the site that sometimes shows up when a VPN connection is detected. It leaves you with only the shows Netflix owns, so you miss out on a lot of content.

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The only minor trouble we had was streaming on browsers. At first, there were a few libraries that showed us the menu, but we’d receive an error message after clicking on a video. However, we just had to switch from Chrome to Firefox to get it working again.

Works With: Max

Trust.Zone makes it possible to securely stream Max from anywhere. There were no issues streaming on this platform, which made for a promising start to our tests.

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Unfortunately, that didn’t remain the case for long. We weren’t as lucky with the other platforms we attempted to stream.

Doesn’t Work With: Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and BBC iPlayer

All of our remaining tests were failures. We could eventually sign in to Hulu once we realized that port 443 was fast enough (although still slow) to adequately load its pages. Unfortunately, we were met with an error message any time we tried to stream a video.

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We couldn’t even get to the login page with Disney+ US or France. There was also no way to watch Amazon Prime Video as we were presented with a similar error screen on that site as well.

Almost every streaming platform has anti-VPN technologies. But, the top VPNs are still capable of safely accessing them since they’re constantly updated. You can check out the best VPNs for streaming here for the best experience watching content online.

Speed — One of the Slowest VPNs We’ve Tested

All of Trust.Zone’s servers dropped our speeds significantly. Before we get into our tests, let’s discuss the 3 main categories of internet speeds:

• Download speeds let you know how quickly you can receive information. It’s important for things like downloading files, but it also plays a significant role in streaming, loading web pages, and more. They’re measured in megabits per second (Mbps).
• Upload speeds are the opposite. They are a gauge of how long it takes to send information. You’ll want it fast to quickly send emails, upload videos, or for video conferencing. They’re also recorded in Mbps.
• Ping rates tell you how long it takes your data to travel. It’s measured in milliseconds (ms), and it’s crucial for things like gaming where you want your inputs to be responded to instantly.

To record our tests, we rely on our speed expert from the UK. This lets us get results from the same connection in the same location, so it’s easier to compare results between VPNs. The following tests were done with port 443 as it gave us the best speeds (port 1194 could never connect).

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The top VPNs lower nearby speeds by 10-20% and rarely over 55% on distant locations. So, Trust.Zone’s performance here was bad. If you don’t have base download rates of at least 100Mbps, I’d expect to have severe issues doing any high bandwidth activities including streaming, torrenting, or gaming.

The best VPNs often have such a small effect on speeds that you barely notice it. We’ve tested many of the most popular VPNs regularly for years. To find some of the most consistent performers, look into our list of the fastest VPNs available today.

Local Speed

The closest server dropped our download speed significantly, although upload and ping rates held up better. So, at least Trust.Zone isn’t a complete failure when it comes to speeds. However, download speed is crucial for almost everything you do online, and drops like this could even make browsing a chore.

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Keep in mind, this was the fastest test. When we tested it out with other ports, the results were even worse.

Long-Distance Speed

Farther servers always lower your speeds but rarely as much as Trust.Zone’s do. All VPNs reduce your speeds because your traffic is being encrypted and rerouted which has to have an effect. The server below is 9500+ km away from our tester, but we’ve tested some providers (like ExpressVPN) that only lower speeds by 30% at this distance.

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Trust.Zone also doesn’t give you many ways to optimize your speeds. Many other VPNs offer fast protocols like WireGuard to help improve your rates. Technically, Trust.Zone does let you connect through WireGuard, but it has to be done manually, and I’ll explain why it’s not worth it below. Its small server network could also cause overcrowding to lower speeds.

Overall, you’ll have a hard time finding a slower VPN. Sadly, we’ve even tested some free VPNs that are faster than this provider.

Gaming — Too Slow For Competitive Play

Trust.Zone performed poorly for gaming and even prevented us from playing at times. Ping rates are crucial for online gaming. You want yours to be below 85ms, so you can play without lag. When your ping gets higher, you’ll experience a noticeable delay between when you press buttons and when your character reacts.

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We reached out to some of our gaming experts to test out Trust.Zone, and even on the closest servers, their ping was over 200ms. We mostly tested it with the fast-paced shooter Counter Strike 2, and there were times when certain maps were completely inaccessible simply due to slow speeds.

Gaming was also impossible on distant servers, but that’s common. I haven’t found any VPNs that let you enjoy online gameplay on far off servers because ping rates get too high. But, I have found many VPNs that work great on nearby servers. You can check out our list of the best VPNs for gaming to stay safe while you remain competitive in your favorite games.

Server Network — Small With Poor Worldwide Coverage

Trust.Zone (not “Trust Zone”) VPN has a pretty meager 180 servers in 93 countries. This can be a problem because fewer servers might lead to slowdowns caused by overcrowding. The information on the website is misleading as well. It claims to offer 92 locations, but only 71 were available during testing.

It has good coverage in Europe and North America, but it was really disappointing that it doesn’t offer servers in South America. On a positive note, it does have a rare Russian location. This selection is quite disappointing when compared to its competitors.

One strange thing is that the map on its website shows Johannesburg, South Africe as a location, but it wasn’t available in my app. When I asked support about this, they added it to my favorites. I found this very odd and asked them how many servers like this are available upon request, but I never received a response.

Although there are several servers for countries like the US and the UK, it took me a while to figure out which servers are specialized and whether they were city-level (some are). The best VPNs make all this information perfectly clear right in the app.

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Support confirmed that it only uses physical servers and it rents its infrastructure. When a VPN owns its servers, it cuts out a middleman who could access your data. Virtual servers aren’t unsafe, but they might reduce your speeds if they’re farther away than you expected. So, it’s nice that all of Trust.Zone’s servers are where you expect them to be.

Finally, it can take a while for the VPN to connect. Many times we had to wait upwards of 20 seconds for connections. It never worked with port 1194, which would either load indefinitely or leave us with an error message.

I was thoroughly unimpressed with Trust.Zone’s server network. You can easily find a VPN with a vast network that offers reliable connections in this list.

VIP Servers

These are simply additional servers unavailable with the free trial. During its 3-day free trial, Trust.Zone offers a limited VPN that has fewer locations. You’d think with a name like this there would be some special function these locations serve, but we didn’t notice any difference when it came to speeds or reliability.

You’ll need to pay for the VPN to connect to India, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Russia, Poland, Spain, or France. Overall, it’s just another feature that makes their server network more cluttered and confusing. They could have withheld these servers without giving them a special name that means nothing.

Dedicated IP Addresses

Static IP addresses can be purchased at an additional fee, which goes up if you opt for port forwarding. I was impressed that they’re offered in so many countries (14). Oddly, you get a different selection of servers if you want port forwarding. For example, you can get an Estonian server with port forwarding, but it’s not offered without.

Another issue is that the dedicated IP address with port forwarding can only be used on one device. This is especially frustrating because I can’t recall encountering any other VPNs that are so restrictive about their dedicated IPs. However, the static IPs without port forwarding can use all the device connections you have with your purchase tier.

A dedicated IP address is useful if you need a consistent address for something like running a website. However, I’d recommend checking out other options before paying Trust.Zone even more for these. You can choose a VPN with faster speeds and better security with dedicated IP addresses in this list.

P2P & Streaming Servers

Streaming servers are offered for several platforms, but they’re difficult to find. First of all, the website is out of date. For example, there’s a BBC iPlayer UK server in the app, but there’s zero information listed about it on the website.

The network is also difficult to navigate since locations are named with confusing abbreviations. Because of this, there are a few server locations where I have no idea if they’re a city-level connection or optimized for a streaming service. In the end, it didn’t matter much since several streaming servers didn’t work in our tests.

There are Netflix servers in Israel, Hong Kong, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Russia, Canada, the US, and Australia. In addition, there are streaming locations for ITV, Hulu, and Raiplay.

There is only 1 P2P-optimized server, and it’s in Australia. I found this a bit odd, and when I reached out to support they simply said that you can torrent on any server, and this location is only recommended for Australian customers.

Security — Customizable Features With a Few Drawbacks

Trust.Zone’s security features are generally good and should keep you safe. However, it tries to sell you extra add-ons that other VPNs offer by default, such as DDoS protection. On the other hand, I appreciate that it’s working on adding some more features to its base apps. For example, it started rolling out double VPN recently (only for Android and iOS apps so far).

No matter what you pay, you’ll miss out on many features such as split tunneling, ad and malware blockers, private DNS servers, and more. If you want a VPN with more security features, check out this list of VPNs designed for maximum security and privacy.

Encryption and Security Protocols

Trust.Zone uses AES 256-bit encryption, which is extremely secure and is used by banks and militaries.

The VPN claims you can choose between several protocols, but this is a little misleading. By default, the apps connect you through OpenVPN. Within the app, you can only change the port, which has a significant effect on speeds.

However, to use anything besides OpenVPN, you’ll need to do a manual configuration. This means there’s no easy way to use WireGuard, which is generally the fastest protocol. It’s frustrating because Trust.Zone could definitely use a boost in speeds. OpenVPN is one of the safest protocols available, so it’s not a bad default, but most VPNs offer more variety.

We found the Windows configuration process for WireGuard annoying and buggy. We were finally able to install it after several frustrating tries. But, I don’t recommend attempting to use additional protocols with Trust.Zone. Top VPNs let you easily switch between protocols as soon as their apps are installed.

IP, DNS, WebRTC, and IPv6 Leaks

Trust.Zone never leaked my IP address. I ran DNS and IP leak tests using an independent leak detector tool, and it never failed to protect my IP address.

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However, I recommend you manually turn on its additional leak protections when installing the app.

Kill Switch

Trust.Zone also offers a kill switch, and our tests showed it works as promised. It’s not auto-enabled, so you have to turn it on at the point of installation. A kill switch kicks in if a server unexpectedly disconnects, blocking you from the internet completely. It’s a necessary fail safe, and I don’t recommend using a VPN without one.

DDoS Protection

Trust.Zone does offer DDoS Protection, but it comes as a paid add-on. It states that connecting to a server and hiding your IP address should sufficiently safeguard you against DDoS attacks. However, you can also pay extra to have further (unspecified) protection. The vague language around this feature worries me, and most VPNs offer this with a standard sub.

Port Forwarding

Trust.Zone also offers port forwarding, which comes at an extra fee. This feature can help you improve torrenting speeds or give you remote access to your devices. Once again, most top VPNs now offer this with a basic account. You can discover the best VPNs with port forwarding in this article.

Privacy — Brief Policy, but Has a Warrant Canary

Trust.Zone states that it doesn’t collect any unnecessary data, but its short policy hasn’t been audited. On the positive side, I like that it provides a warrant canary. This is a notification system that lets you know when the company has received legal requests for customer data.

Normally, this document is regularly updated to confirm no such requests have been made. If Trust.Zone does receive a request for data and is legally prevented from disclosing it directly, they will stop updating the Warrant Canary, subtly indicating to users that something has changed.

Does Trust.Zone VPN Keep Logs? No

Trust.Zone states that it doesn’t keep any logs, but the privacy policy is too brief for my liking. It claims to only keep the email used at registration, and that payment information is processed by third parties and inaccessible to them.

I’m more likely to trust a VPN that clearly states what type of personal information it stores (and what it doesn’t). All VPNs have to record at least some anonymized data to keep their service working. So, it’s a little worrying how vague this privacy policy is.

Was Trust.Zone VPN Audited? Unverifiable

I couldn’t confirm whether or not Trust.Zone’s privacy policy has been audited. I couldn’t find any information on the website or anywhere online about this. Once again, I tried reaching out to support to confirm this but didn’t receive any response. I’m most comfortable using VPNs whose privacy policies have been verified by independent parties.

Based in Seychelles

Trust.Zone is based in the Seychelles, which is outside of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliance. The VPN’s location means it is not required to provide anybody with information about your internet activities, even in the event of a government request.

Does Trust.Zone VPN Work in China? Maybe

Trust.Zone states it believes in internet freedom and will continue to keep its service up in China. I wanted to verify this with support, but my ticket went unanswered.

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As with many VPNs, you may need to download the VPN app before traveling to the country. The Chinese government has a strict ban on many VPNs but there have been no public reports of tourists getting into trouble for using them. With that said, I recommend reading up on the laws before choosing to use a VPN in China. My team and I don’t condone any illegal activities.

Torrenting — Decent for P2P if You Have High Base Speeds

We could download files without many added delays using Trust.Zone. With nearby servers, it was possible to download a 700 MB file in about 13 minutes. Regularly, it takes us around 12 minutes. Unfortunately, we were never able to test its P2P location in Australia since it failed to connect, but it would be impressive if it could top these speeds.

However, our testers had high base speeds, so I’d expect some extra wait times if your connection is slow. Downloads will take longer if you can’t find a nearby server as well. To download that same file on a server over 5,000 km away, the wait time was increased to 45 minutes.

Port forwarding might increase your speeds, but I don’t recommend paying extra for it. Trust.Zone is a decent VPN for torrenting based on these tests and its adequate security features and no-logging policy.

Torrenting is legal in the majority of countries, but downloading copyrighted material isn’t. My team and I don’t condone any illegal activities. We urge you to only access torrents within the public domain.