Surfshark VPN Review

Surfshark stands out for how good a VPN it is at unblocking streaming platforms.

The VPN service works with Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, ITVX, Channel 4, and HBO Max.

Surfshark unblocks Netflix effectively

Without a doubt, Surfshark is a top Netflix VPN.

We easily streamed these different Netflix regions in our tests, experiencing sharp picture quality and no buffering.

While Surfshark doesn’t have dedicated streaming servers, the vast majority of US servers work with Netflix. In our most recent tests, only the Charlotte and St.Louis servers didn’t stream American Netflix.

Surfshark Streams BBC iPlayer, HBO Max and Disney+

Surfshark’s UK servers all work with BBC iPlayer, Channel 4 and ITVX. This is highly impressive.

Moreover, Surfshark was the first VPN to unblock Disney+ on its release, and has been our top-rated Disney Plus VPN ever since.

Furthermore, Surfshark is a reliable VPN for HBO Max and US Amazon Prime Video.

To our surprise, Surfshark still isn’t a good VPN for unblocking Hulu.

Surfshark is a top VPN for torrenting. Its privacy-focused logging policy and high encryption help hide your P2P activity from your ISP.

Also, the VPN’s kill switch stops your IP address from showing if your VPN connection drops. This keeps your download activity safe from any accidental exposures, and lets you torrent safely using Surfshark.

All Surfshark servers allow P2P file-sharing, but some servers are specifically optimized for P2P activity. You can find these servers by typing in ‘P2P’ into the app’s server search bar.

These fast P2P-optimized connections let you torrent anonymously using torrent clients like qBittorrent, BitTorrent, Deluge, Transmission, uTorrent, and Vuze.

You’ll also be able to stream anonymously P2P-based services such as Ace Player, VLC, and PopcornTime

Surfshark doesn’t allow port forwarding

However, Surfshark does not allow port forwarding for security reasons. The lack of this feature means upload (seeding) speeds are very slow at times.

We tested our connection speed before and after connecting to a server in London, close to our real location.

Surfshark’s same-country local connection speeds are very good, dropping just 15% to 85Mbps. If you’re in the US and connect to a nearby US server, you can expect similar results.

The VPN’s speeds have been consistetnly improving over the years, in part thanks to the upgrade of many servers from 1Gbps to 10Gbps. Some servers in the US, Canada, Germany, France and more are already upgraded, with more scheduled.

While Surfshark is reasonably fast on short-distance connections, rivals Private Internet Access and NordVPN recorded even faster speeds.

Surfshark’s long-distance speed tests

Surfshark’s speeds over long-distance connections are also good.

We connected to its US, Australia, Canada, and Germany servers from our London office and measured our connection speeds before and after.

We recorded an average speed loss of 42% when connected to the US, and 40% connecting to Australia.

This is not unusual for long-distance connections, though VPNs like Hotspot Shield recorded speed losses of just 17% on US servers.

Surfshark’s international speeds are good and stable across the board, with speed loss consistently under 50% when connecting to servers very far away.

Surfshark’s speeds compared to other VPNs

In addition to testing VPN speeds manually, we’ve also developed an automated VPN speed test tool that constantly tests VPN speeds around the world.

Tests run automatically four times per day, and test connection speeds are capped at 100Mbps to recreate a typical home internet connection.

The graph below compares Surfshark VPN’s average loss of internet speed to other popular VPNs for New York to New York connections:

Use our Speed Test Tool to see Surfshark’s worldwide speeds.

Surfshark’s VPN speeds have been improving month by month, and the gap with faster VPNs is narrowing down.

Moreover, Surfshark is now regularly beating CyberGhost in many speed tests.

Surfshark does not keep user activity logs or connection data. The service’s logging policy is sensible and privacy-focused, but not completely zero-logs.

While Surfshark isn’t a no-logs VPN by definition, it comes close to it. It doesn’t collect personally identifiable data, meaning it won’t store your internet activity or originating IP address.

The VPN service’s privacy policy states the following:

“To maintain a perfect quality of our Services and provide you with efficient support we collect diagnostics information and monitor crash reports on our apps. The information we collect contains aggregated performance data, the frequency of use of our services, unsuccessful connection attempts and other similar information.”

There are some very minor causes for concern in the above wording.

Firstly, we were alarmed by the phrase “other similar information.” A good privacy policy is as specific as possible – it’s unclear what “similar information” entails exactly.

Secondly, Surfshark collects advertising identifiers – unique, resettable IDs for advertising provided by third parties. You can opt out of personalized ads by adjusting the settings in your app.

In addition, there has still been no independent audit of Surfshark’s logging policy, specifically.

Without a confirmed audit, there’s always room for doubt around logging practices. Many major VPN companies, like ExpressVPN and VyprVPN, have already done so to earn even greater trust.

It’s worth noting that there’s a separate privacy policy for its BlindSearch and HackLock features.

BlindSearch collects an aggregated number of performed searches, and HackLock stores your email address. Both tools are separate from the main VPN applications.

In the spirit of transparency, Surfshark publishes the number of government agency requests it receives on its warrant canary page. As of writing, it has received zero requests for information.

Surfshark is based in the Netherlands

Surfshark is owned by Surfshark Ltd, whose CEO is Vytautas Kaziukonis.

In 2018, the company was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) where there are no intrusive data retention laws or practices and is widely viewed as a privacy-haven.

In 2021, the company moved to the Netherlands, renaming itself to Surfshark B.V. in the process.

The Netherlands is a member of the European Union, and the Nine Eyes intelligence sharing network. While this move isn’t the best for privacy, Surfshark insists no Dutch laws force it to collect user data.

The Netherlands jurisdiction shouldn’t be an issue as long as Surfshark continues to maintain its current logging policy.

Surfshark’s merger with NordVPN

In early 2022, Surfshark merged with Nord Security, the company behind NordVPN, to form one company called Cyberspace.

As a result, Surfshark and NordVPN now work together to improve their services while also maintaining some independence as separate entities.

This merger isn’t surprising; many VPNs are now being consolidated under larger companies, like Ziff Davis and Kape Technologies.

Surshark is an exceptionally safe VPN service. It includes all of the essential security features you would expect from a top-tier VPN service.

You’ll benefit from robust encryption, secure protocols, IP and DNS leak protection, and a kill switch on all applications. We also found no evidence of IP, DNS, or WebRTC leaks.

The kill switch isn’t enabled by default, though. Surfshark needs to fix this, but for the time being you’ll have to go into the app’s settings and switch it on.

AES-256 encryption is used on all platforms, with ChaCha encryption also available for Android users.

Surfshark’s strong VPN protocol selection

WireGuard is now the default protocol used on most of Surfshark’s apps, though you can choose IKEv2 in the settings menu.

OpenVPN is only available on Windows. If you want to install it on macOS, you have to do it manually.

WireGuard and OpenVPN are both very fast and secure protocols, however WireGuard used less bandwidth in our tests.

Surfshark uses RAM-based servers

Following in ExpressVPN and NordVPN’s footsteps, Surfshark has moved away from hard drive technology and now operates a completely diskless, RAM-only server network.

This vastly improves security, as information cannot be physically extracted from the servers, and it enables central management of the whole network. Very few VPNs have this feature.

Surfshark’s extra features

Surfshark is filled with advanced security features, built to enhance your experience and safeguard your data.

Here’s a list of the VPN’s advanced security features:

• Surfshark Search (formerly BlindSearch) is a private search engine designed to allow users to search the web with no ads or trackers. You can add BlindSearch, along with an Surfshark Antivirus and HackLock, to your existing subscription for an extra $1.49 per month.
• Camouflage Mode, also known as obfuscation. This is a technology that disguises your VPN traffic to make it look like ‘normal’ browsing. This means even your ISP can’t tell you’re using a VPN.
• CleanWeb is Surfshark’s proprietary ad, tracker, and malware blocker. It is not turned on by default.

• Cookie pop-up blocker prevents annoying cookie banners appearing whenever you visit a website. This is exclusive to the Chrome browser extension. To be clear, this isn’t a privacy feature, it just stops you seeing pop-ups.
• MultiHop, sometimes known as Double VPN, routes your traffic via two different VPN servers instead of one. This additional step makes you harder to track, though it may reduce connection speeds.

• Surfshark Alert is a breach detection tool that scans the web in real-time, checking that your email and login information hasn’t been leaked online. This feature comes as an added bundle with BlindSearch and Surfshark Antivirus.
• Surfshark Antivirus is an antivirus tool available on Windows and Android. It offers real-time protection against malware, viruses, and apps that do things on your device without your permission.
• Rotating IP automatically changes your IP address every 5-10 minutes while keeping you connected to the same server location. This adds extra anonymity.
  

  Surfshark’s rotating IP feature on macOS.

• Bypasser is a split tunneling tool that lets you define which applications and websites shouldn’t use the VPN connection. You can find it in the sidebar menu of the Surfshark app, under ‘Features.’ It’s not available on iOS or Mac.

• Surfshark’s VPN kill switch prevents your true IP address from leaking if your VPN connection drops. To enable it on Windows, toggle the setting in the app’s security menu. On Android devices, you’ll need to enable it manually in the device settings.

To clarify, Hacklock, Surfshark Antivirus, and Blindsearch are add-ons that are part of the Surfshark One bundle, which costs an extra $1.49 per month.

Surfshark also developed an Android-only GPS spoofing feature found under Virtual Location.

It lets you easily change your GPS location and bypass geo-blocks set by MLB and other mobile apps.

Surfshark uses high encryption standards

The VPN service has also gone the extra mile to include a two-factor authentication (2FA) option for its users too.

For more technically minded users, Surfshark’s encryption uses an RSA-2048 handshake and HMAC SHA256 data authentication.

Perfect Forward Secrecy is implemented through the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange (DHE), meaning encryption keys are not reused between sessions, for an added layer of security.

Surfshark’s Server Network Audit

In 2021 Surfshark commissioned an audit of its server infrastructure. This was performed by Cure53, a Germany-based IT security firm.

The full audit identified some ‘medium’ level security concerns, which the Surfshark team swiftly handled.

The report concludes:

“The overall outcome should be regarded as good and the testing team has no doubt that the Surfshark maintainers have a clear understanding of security and privacy challenges associated with being a VPN provider.”

It’s good to see Surfshark commissioning audits of its server security, something very few providers do. While some issues were identified, these were fixed quickly.

Surfshark’s doesn’t leak IPv4, WebRTC, and DNS data

Surfshark uses private DNS on every server to protect your DNS requests.

We tested this on our VPN leak test test tool by connecting to a US server from our office in London, and recorded zero DNS, IPv4, or WebRTC leaks using its apps.

You can also see leak-free results when using Browserleaks.com:

Surfshark doesn’t support IPv6

Surfshark currently has no IPv6 support. Instead, it re-routes IPv6 connections to IPv4.

That’s fine, but we’d like to see Surfshark made compatible with IPv6 connections. For example, Hide.me has full IPv6 support.

It also means Surfshark won’t work at all if you have a new IPv6-exclusive router.

There are no viruses or malware in Surfshark’s apps

Surfshark is virus-free too. We scanned the VPN software for any malicious files and it came back completely clean:

Surfshark’s Android app doesn’t contain malicious trackers

We also scanned the Android app for trackers that could potentially compromise your privacy, using the εxodus tool. Here’s what we found:

Surfshark’s Android app has four trackers for Google Analytics, GoogleCrashLytics, Google Firebase Analytics, and AppsFlyer.

We often find analytics trackers in VPN apps. They help VPN services maintain high performance and understand how users interact with app features.

Other top VPN apps have similar trackers in place, although Astrill VPN contains zero trackers.

The use of AppsFlyer is a little more concerning. This advertising tracker “uses artificial intelligence and machine learning for big data analytics.”

It’s not uncommon for VPNs to use AppsFlyer, though, and its privacy policy states that it doesn’t share data with third parties.

No intrusive Android app permissions

The Surfshark Android app contains 16 permissions, which dictate the level of access the software has to your mobile device.

Three of these permissions are considered ‘special’ or ‘dangerous’ according to Android’s protections levels, including:

• Access to your camera
• Access to the contents of your SD card
• Permission to modify and delete the contents of your SD card

These permissions are unnecessary for a VPN application designed for privacy. We’d like to see these removed, or at the very least explained, in future app updates.

Surfshark has clearly put a lot of work into bypassing aggressive online censorship.

We can confirm it’s currently one of the best VPNs to circumvent web blocks in countries like Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

According to out test results, it’s also capable of getting around the strictest Chinese censorship, but only 30% of the time. Astrill, on the other hand, works 100% of the time.

Surfshark’s anti-censorship tools

Its additional anonymity features allow Surfshark to work reliably in highly-censored countries.

Camouflage Mode is an obfuscation tool designed to make your VPN traffic appear as normal traffic, disguising your VPN usage from ISPs and thereby eluding web censors.

This feature is automatically activated whenever you connect with the OpenVPN (TCP or UDP) protocol, and is the main reason why Surfshark works in high censorship nations.

NoBorders Mode is specifically built to beat internet restrictions and censorship. It detects when you’re connected to a restricted network or in a censored country, and automatically redirects your traffic elsewhere.

While NoBorders Mode is likely to work in countries like Russia and Turkey, our China tests show that it has only worked 14% of the time over the past year to get around the more advanced Great Firewall.

Surfshark also used to have a Shadowsocks protocol option, an open source proxy that often bypasses strict web censorship. In November 2021, the company removed Shadowsocks from all its apps.

Surfshark provides fast, friendly, and helpful customer support with 24/7 live chat and a ticketing system available.

There’s also an online help section featuring installation guides, troubleshooting, an FAQ, and a knowledgebase.

To access Surfshark’s live chat simply head to the website and click the Chat icon in the bottom right corner of the page.

We found the company’s customer support team to be fast and informative, and we got an answer to our query in under a minute.

However, technical questions might take a little longer. When we asked about ChaCha encryption, our support agent took a while to respond and their answer was lacking in detail.

If you have a particularly technical question, we recommend using Surfshark’s email ticketing system instead.