Turbo VPN Review 2025 – The Red Flags You Can’t Ignore

Global Coverage:

One place where Turbo VPN shines is its server list. With 111 servers covered, you will be well served. This even includes the likes of Russia, which is a rare sight after the Kremlin took aim at VPN providers in the country and stopped them from operating.

Specialised Servers:

Turbo VPN doesn’t have much in the way of specialised servers like you may find elsewhere. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the VPN industry is very competitive and Turbo VPN really doesn’t have anything that makes it stand out. All you get is:

• Free servers: You get access to seven different servers for free that inject third-party ads
• Standard VPN servers: Your average VPN server without anything special and no explicit P2P support
• Streaming servers: Supports both streaming platforms and P2P

Server Speed & Reliability:

I have been using VPNs for a very long time, and something I haven’t run into very often with other providers is servers just timing out. Multiple times I tried to connect to the UK London server only for it to time out.

And for other servers, I also found the connection times to be strangely long within the app. It doesn’t make for the most responsive and premium feeling experience.

When connected, everything was responsive and nothing interrupted my browsing experience from a speed or reliability aspect.

Privacy and Security:

There are no specific servers optimized for the best possible security, like so-called “quantum-resistant” servers found at competitors. But the efficacy of such servers isn’t really clear. Turbo VPN claims to store zero logs.

Turbo VPN doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to security and privacy. Is this fair? Let’s have a look.

Encryption & Protocols:

The protocol selection at Turbo VPN is bizarre. You get access to IKEv2 (or “ipesc/iKEv2” as it’s written on the website), OpenVPN, and “TurboLepus”. Turbo VPN is using AES-256 where possible.

I couldn’t find any public information on TurboLepus when I started writing this review, so I stepped into the live chat and eventually managed to find out it’s “based” on WireGuard.

What changes they made, the CS rep didn’t know. If I had to guess, nothing. WireGuard actually requires companies to give credit to Jason A. Donenfeld’s copyright. Perhaps this is a way to just bypass this altogether?

You also get access to V2Ray and SSR/ISSR, both of which are closer to proxies than VPN protocols.

It would serve Turbo VPN well if they dropped the TurboLepus branding and instead made everything WireGuard-compliant. As it stands, TurboLepus just isn’t trustworthy as a potential black box.

Jurisdiction:

Turbo VPN is based in Singapore and operated by Innovative Connecting. Evidence suggests hat Turbo VPN and its many sister VPNs have links to China. VPNpro did a great breakdown of how small the VPN industry actually is revealing this information.

Singapore isn’t officially part of any surveillance alliances, but it has been confirmed as a key “third party”.

Due to this, Singapore is not the best place for a VPN company to be based. And the possible links to China are just more nails in the coffin.

Logging and Trackers

A zero-logs VPN is critical if you care about your privacy and security. Turbo VPN claims to not store any logs in their Privacy Policy:

“We do not collect any data related to your online activities. We do not collect data logs of your activities, including:

1. Browsing history;
2. Traffic destination;
3. Data content; and
4. DNS queries.

We do not collect data of your connection logs, including:

1. Your IP address;
2. Your outgoing VPN IP address;
3. Connection timestamp; and
4. Session duration.

As we do not collect data logs of your activity or connection logs, we would not have information about:

1. The websites you visit;
2. The time you connected to Turbo VPN; and
3. The set of original IP addresses of your computer or the temporarily assigned network addresses.”

But says it collects:

“We collect the following data related to your use of Turbo VPN:

1. Data related to versions of Turbo VPN: we collect data related to your version of Turbo VPN. This allows us to efficiently identify and eliminate technical issues that you may face.
2. Data related to VPN connection: we collect abstracted data related to your use of Turbo VPN. This would include success of VPN connections, VPN location you connected to, your country, and your internet service provider. You cannot be identified from this abstracted data.
3. Amount of data transferred: we collect the aggregate sum of data transferred to ensure that individual users do not use excessive data at the expense of other users’ experience.
4. Anonymous data for network diagnostics, study and analysis: We collect anonymized data to operate Turbo VPN, including diagnostic data such as VPN connection failures, speed test data, and crash reports.”

A user can be singled out based on what Turbo VPN does collect.

Turbo VPN has not undergone any independent audit to prove they don’t store (their definition of) logs. So, if you use Turbo VPN, you will have to take their word for it.

Looking at the Exodus report for the Turbo VPN Android app it is chock-full of trackers — 14 to be exact. The website as well is another vector for them to track you.

This is just another example that security and privacy are not Turbo VPN’s primary motivators.

Leak Protection:

Not leaking your real IP address is about the bare minimum you should expect from a VPN provider. Turbo VPN can’t even clear that bar. I can report no IPv6 or WebRTC leaks were present, but the same can’t be said for DNS.

I tested the UK London server, and there was a DNS leak, revealing my public IP address. Completely unacceptable. Add another mark to the board for reasons not to touch Turbo VPN.

Extra Security Features:

Turbo VPN doesn’t offer anything out of the ordinary regarding extra security features. You get your bog-standard Kill Switch and Split Tunnelling. And their Wi-Fi protection feature automatically connects you to a VPN server when you connect to an unprotected Wi-Fi hotspot.

A VPN isn’t just about security any more. With the popularity of streaming, it’s important for many that a VPN give them more bang for their buck from their ever-growing stable of streaming platforms. Turbo VPN does an adequate job for streaming, but it isn’t perfect.

Netflix

I couldn’t log in to Netflix while connected to the US Netflix streaming server on TurboVPN. But if I disconnected and logged in without the VPN, and then connected, Netflix worked well. This is not unique to Turbo VPN, most VPNs require this dance to log in. When signed in, everything played at high quality and had no buffering or speed issues.

Prime Video

There is no dedicated Prime Video streaming server available on Turbo VPN. I tried each of the US streaming servers that were available with Prime Video, but each one detected the VPN and offered only a limited library.

Disney+

Disney+ was fully accessible via the Turbo VPN US Hulu server. All tested content streamed seamlessly at the highest quality without buffering.

BBC iPlayer

Turbo VPN’s BBC iPlayer support seems generally to work, but it can take a while for videos to load. Once you are watching something though, everything works as expected with quick seek times, no quality dips, or buffering.

Overall, Turbo VPN is ‘fine’ when it comes to streaming. It unblocks what it claims to, but that doesn’t include all the most popular streaming platforms. If you only care about streaming, Turbo VPN is not a good choice compared to competitors.

If you are looking for a VPN purely for torrenting, I would avoid Turbo VPN. There is conflicting information on the website, where “torrenting anonymously” is mentioned as a positive for the service. But, upon contacting customer support for a definitive answer, I was told it was not supported.

Enquiring further about the contradictions on the website regarding this, the CS agent asked me to wait whilst they double-checked this information. After a few minutes, they returned stating that torrenting is supported, but only on their streaming servers.

I tried torrenting a Fedora ISO from a UK streaming server and a UK non-streaming server. Whilst both worked, the former was faster, clocking in at around 40MiB/s compared to single digits for the non-streaming server. There is no port forwarding support, though this is not unexpected and a feature very few VPN providers offer nowadays.

Most importantly, Turbo VPN leaked my real IP address when torrenting. Making it a non-starter. I tried both non-P2P servers and P2P servers and got the same result. Shameful.

Ping/Latency:

Latency when using Turbo VPN is not too bad, my tests had an additional 10ms of ping over baseline. If you are just a casual gamer, you are unlikely to run into latency issues when using Turbo VPN for gaming. If you are a competitive gamer, look elsewhere.

Geo-Blocking for Games:

By connecting to a US server I could access region-specific games with no issues. The Sum of All Fears for example here on Steam.

When your installer is flagged as a virus by Virustotal, you know you are onto a winner…

App Usability:

The app’s design is easy to navigate. But there are some niggles that make it seem amateurish. Like at the top of the server list, many locations are missing country flags. Servers are separated into two lists “Global” and “Special”. This is very poor categorisation and isn’t descriptive enough.

In the app, you also have access to your standard Kill Switch, Split Tunnel, and protocol selection.

I would also like to draw focus to the adware-like experience I got; which brought back memories of infecting the family computer when I didn’t know any better. The moment I opened Turbo VPN for the first time I was assaulted by multiple ads and banners to pay for their shoddy VPN. Thanks for the nostalgia hit!

Device Support:

You will find apps for all the major platforms including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. There is no client for smart TVs or streaming boxes, so keep that in mind.

There is no option to connect manually using configuration files. It’s a baffling omission.

Browser Extensions & Add-ons:

Turbo VPN also offers a browser extension proxy for Chromium browsers. There is no add-on for Firefox users.

Speed Tests:

Speeds are acceptable and scale high enough that they shouldn’t interrupt anything you are doing online. Especially when it comes to streaming. Ping times were also surprisingly decent as well. Only increasing 10ms over baseline. For reference with no VPN, I was getting 290Mbps down and 660Mbps up.

Compared to competitors though, it’s slow. I tested hide.me VPN for a comparison point, and my ping only increased by 1ms and my speeds adhered to the baseline.

I don’t think speed is the biggest problem that Turbo VPN faces, during my time using it I didn’t run into any scenario where I felt the speed was holding me back. If you have a faster FTTP internet connection, Turbo VPN isn’t the option for it to stretch its legs.

Price Comparison

You can get 27 months of Turbo VPN for $3.33 a month ($89.99 in total). This pricing isn’t too egregious in a vacuum. But, taking into account competitors, Turbo VPN doesn’t represent any kind of worthwhile deal.

When it comes to features, the big players like NordVPN and ExpressVPN completely out-compete Turbo VPN for only a few cents more monthly (or even cheaper in ExpressVPN’s case). Why pay $3.33 a month when ExpressVPN will set you back just $3.19 for a better overall package?

Free tier & Money-Back Guarantee

Turbo VPN offers an industry-standard 30-day money-back guarantee. There is also a free plan so you can test them out before dropping any cash.

The free tier of Turbo VPN isn’t worth using when there are much better offerings. PrivadoVPN, ProtonVPN, and Windscribe are more trustworthy from a security and privacy point of view and don’t bombard you with adverts.

Misleading “Deals”

Upon installing the Turbo VPN app to my PC, I was assaulted by multiple ads for a “limited-time offer”. It said there were only 10 minutes left on the promotion. It was lying. The offering is still available to this day. In fact, if you go on the website the deal is always ending at midnight.

This type of misleading marketing isn’t rare in the VPN industry, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. It’s nice to see some companies take a stance against these practices such as IVPN and Mullvad.

Customer support is available 24/7 via live chat and email, and you appear to speak with a real human, not a bot.

I contacted the live chat with the intent of confirming if Turbo VPN supports torrenting. I was third in the queue when I joined, and I didn’t have to wait too long to be connected with a live chat agent. When connected, it did take the agent a long time to respond to each of my messages, but nothing too outrageous.

I got conflicting information regarding P2P support, after further prodding, the rep stepped away and came back with a definitive answer for me (it does).

I also enquired about TurboLepus, their proprietary VPN protocol, to better understand it technically. The rep I spoke to needed a visual aid to know what I was even talking about. They eventually managed to share that TurboLepus is based on WireGuard.

I must say that I think a CS representative should know about Turbo VPN’s P2P support and what TurboLepus is. They provided a clear and concise answer eventually for the P2P question, so I think the customer support is adequate, but could do with more training on what Turbo VPN has to offer. For reference, I have worked Live Chat for a VPN provider, so I understand the role very well.

Turbo VPN is a free VPN service that claims to provide privacy and unrestricted access to content. While some Reddit users find it useful for basic browsing, many question its security, speed, and reliability.

Key Takeaways from Reddit Users

1. Reddit Opinions on Turbo VPN’s Privacy & Security

Turbo VPN’s safety is a major concern among Reddit users, with some warning about potential data risks and questionable ownership ties.

Common concerns:

• Possible links to the Chinese government.
• No clear no-logs policy.

📢 Reddit user comment:
“Turbo VPN has possible links to the Chinese government, so your data might not be visible to the Wi-Fi owner, but it may be visible to them.”

Read the full discussion on Reddit: Turbo VPN safety concerns

2. Reddit Discussions on Turbo VPN’s Speed & Reliability

Most users report that Turbo VPN is slow and inconsistent. While it can unblock some websites, speeds tend to drop significantly.

Performance issues:

• Slow speeds, especially during streaming.
• Unreliable connections.

📢 Reddit user comment:
“No, it’s not. Bad and slow.”

Read the full discussion on Reddit: Is Turbo VPN a good VPN?

3. Reddit Concerns About Turbo VPN’s Browsing Privacy

One user tested Turbo VPN and found it changed their IP, but a “transparent proxy” warning still appeared, raising doubts about whether it fully hides browsing history.

Privacy concerns:

• Users are unsure if browsing history is truly hidden.
  Possible leaks due to weak security.

📢 Reddit user comment:
“Does this mean the Wi-Fi owner can still see my browsing history?”

Read the full discussion on Reddit: Was my turbo vpn able to hide my browsing history?

🔹 Suggested alternatives according to Reddit users: NordVPN (reliability), ExpressVPN (speed), ProtonVPN (strict no-logs) or Mullvad (privacy-focused).

I Can’t Connect To a Specific Server

Many servers can take a few tries to connect. If the server isn’t completely down, you may have to retry multiple times to connect.

My Speeds Are Very Slow

In the settings of the Turbo VPN app, you can try different protocols. TurboLepus is based on WireGuard and by far the fastest but not all servers work with it. There is also no public information on the changes (if any) that Turbo VPN made to WireGuard, so there could be security issues.

Turbo VPN is a manifestation of everything wrong with the VPN industry. It is not fit for purpose and should not be used by anyone.