Surfshark VPN – A Review of an Excellent VPN Service | VPN365

Surfshark VPN

★★★★★

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Surfshark VPN, which only officially launched in 2018, is a rising star among VPN services. This newcomer to the VPN service market is gaining more and more attention each year. Impressive test results with great server speeds and advanced security features only underline the excellence of this young service, which is now under the protective wings of the prestigious company Nord Security.

9.6

Verified VPN service

Surfshark VPN

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WHAT WE LIKED

• Support for all operating systems and devices
• Unlimited connections
• WireGuard support with excellent speeds
• Has passed an independent security audit several times
• Large, secure server network running on RAM disks
• Works well with Netflix and other streaming services
• Dynamic MultiHop, CleanWeb and Bypasser functions
• Great pricing and money back guarantee
• Excellent 24/7 chat support

WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED

• Lack of an app for routers
• Jurisdiction in the Netherlands

Surfshark VPN has had a stellar run since its launch in 2018. Over the years, the popularity of this VPN service has steadily increased as it offers excellent features, secure apps, and great performance, all at a low price.

In 2022, Surfshark teamed up with the renowned Nord Security. Fortunately, we can see that Surfshark continues to operate independently, but now also with the support of a major security company, giving the VPN a very good vision and stability towards the future.

In addition, we see that Surfshark continues to innovate with new products and services. In addition to the VPN, it now offers a new antivirus product, as well as a private search engine, ad blocking, and a tool that alerts you to potential online identity theft.

Surfshark is doing a great job of ensuring customer privacy. In the past, this VPN service was based in the British Virgin Islands, just like ExpressVPN, for example. However, in October 2021, Surfshark announced that it would be moving to the Netherlands, primarily for business reasons.

We strongly recommend avoiding jurisdictions like the US or the UK (and other Five Eyes alliance countries). Jurisdictions in Europe are less of a concern, despite the Netherlands being part of the Nine Eyes alliance. The Netherlands has no data retention laws and Surfshark states on its website:

After reviewing Surfshark’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, we found that the service does not keep any logs that could identify the user or their online activities.

Another great news is that Surshark has undergone multiple external security audits. The company is thus progressing along with this (positive) trend. The first audit was carried out in 2018 by Cure53, a renowned cyber security firm based in Germany. The audit focused on Chrome and Firefox browser extensions.

Surfshark underwent a much more significant audit in 2021, when Cure53 audited the company’s complete infrastructure. Commenting on the audit, Surfshark CEO Vytautas Kaziukonis said:

The service underwent the biggest audit so far in January 2023, when Deloitte, one of the big four audit firms in the world, confirmed that the Surfshark service complies with all principles of not logging the activities of its users.

Surfshark also offers a Bug Bounty program to reward users who find any security weaknesses in their apps.

Although Surfshark is a young service, it currently has more than 3200 servers in 100 countries. It is the first ever VPN service that supports at least 100 countries. On the other hand, we have to mention that a number of servers are only virtual.

Let’s first define what we are talking about. A virtual server is when a VPN server lists its location as being in Chile, for example, when it is actually located somewhere else, such as the USA. There are several advantages and disadvantages associated with this.

However, Surfshark is very transparent in this regard and clearly identifies in its application the countries (with a V icon) that use virtual locations for their servers. When we went through the list of countries, we counted over 30 countries that use virtual servers.

On the other hand, we have to mention that this is nothing groundbreaking in this regard. For example, even ExpressVPN, the veteran among VPN services, uses virtual locations to support remote regions in a limited number of cases.

All servers run in RAM mode, without the use of hard disks.

Surfshark VPN achieved fantastic results in our speed tests, often outperforming even the stellar NordVPN and ExpressVPN services. We tested the service on a Windows system with the WireGuard protocol set up. All tests were performed on a dedicated 500 Mbps network located in Hungary at different times.

The measured speeds were great, whether we connected to a server in the USA, England or other countries. In addition, we did not experience any significant speed fluctuations or dropouts.

Nearest / recommended server (Slovakia)

• Lowest measured speed: 322,04 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 453,74 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 415,23 Mbps
• Average PING: 21,40 ms

England, London

• Lowest measured speed: 158,04 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 370,07 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 347,60 Mbps
• Average PING: 36,23 ms

USA, New York

• Lowest measured speed: 83,26 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 205,59 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 191,73 Mbps
• Average PING: 114,09 ms

Australia, Melbourne

• Lowest measured speed: 28,97 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 101,84 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 93,55 Mbps
• Average PING: 259,71 ms

We don’t have much to complain about with Surfshark’s security.

For encryption, Surfshark uses the industry standard AES-256-GCM (Galois/Counter Mode) cipher with RSA-2048 key exchange. In addition, Surfshark offers the following VPN protocols:

OpenVPN – generally considered the “gold standard” of VPNs because it offers good performance, is open-source, and is considered very secure.
WireGuard – is the latest addition to Surfshark’s applications and is open-source, while offering the highest speeds and the latest encryption technologies. WireGuard is supported directly in the Surfshark VPN apps (no extra configuration required).
IKEv2 – is considered to be a highly secure protocol with excellent performance. While it usually outperforms OpenVPN, it is not open-source, which is a drawback.

Depending on which Surfshark app you’re using, you can choose one of the available VPN protocols directly in the app’s settings. Surfshark currently supports the WireGuard protocol on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Android, and iOS.

Of course, there is the Kill Switch function, which blocks data transfers if your VPN connection goes down. This ensures that your location and IP address remain protected even if the VPN connection fails (for whatever reason).

For this Surfshark review, we tested the Windows, Mac OS, and Android clients through some basic tests and checks. We have not been able to find any IP address leaks or DNS data leaks. In short, everything with Surfshark worked well in our tests.

Surfshark VPN also offers a Bypasser function that can split the VPN tunnel. You can thus choose which applications will be encrypted (internet traffic will pass through the VPN server) and which will not (standard internet connection).

Surfshark supports almost all operating systems available on the market:

• Windows
• macOS
• iOS
• Android
• Android TV
• Amazon Fire TV
• Linux
• Add-ons for all the most common browsers (browser extensions)
• SmartDNS for smart TVs and game consoles
• settings for routers

Surfshark does not offer an application for routers.

Note: Do not confuse browser extensions or SmartDNS with a dedicated VPN client on your operating system. In short, browser extensions only work in the browser and do not encrypt all communications on your operating system. Smart DNS simply just modifies your DNS settings instead of encrypting all traffic.

The applications are very simple, straightforward, and easy to use by virtually anyone without technical knowledge. Below is the application for Windows.

If you need a good VPN service for Netflix, Surfshark is a solid choice. They offer access to over 16 regional Netflix libraries, including all of the most popular regions such as Netflix USA, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, Korea, and more.

We decided to test Surfshark’s ability to unblock US and UK Netflix libraries and everything worked perfectly.

The streaming quality was also perfect without any interruptions. This is to be expected given the high speed and reliable connection. Surfshark certainly outperforms several competing VPN services in this regard.

In addition to Netflix, Surfshark was also able to work well with many other streaming services including BBC iPlayer, Disney Plus, Hulu, DAZN, and more.

Surfshark also handled torrenting with flying colors, which is no surprise with the measured speeds in our tests. The service doesn’t restrict torrenting in any way.

Dynamic MultiHop

The new Dynamic MultiHop feature, introduced by the company in January 2023, gives you full customisation of your connection across up to two VPN servers. The old MultiHop offered several preset pairs of servers. Now you can choose any pair of countries from over 100 server locations that Surfshark has to offer.

In addition to full customisation and better security, Dynamic MultiHop will give you even better connection speeds. This is because you can now create your own server pairs that work best for you based on your current location.

It’s a good feature if you’re looking for an even greater level of encryption and privacy beyond a one-hop connection.

Additionally, the measured speeds were very good even with this connection. Below you will find the results for MultiHop connections across Great Britain and France.

• Lowest measured speed: 223,89 Mbps
• Highest measured speed: 352,88 Mbps
• Average measured speed: 333,49 Mbps
• Average PING: 62,79 ms

Static IP address

Surfshark offers several dozen servers with a static address (Germany, Japan, USA, Singapore, Great Britain). You can use them if you need to keep your IP address from changing after every single connection to the VPN server.

CleanWeb feature

Surfshark also offers a useful filtering function called CleanWeb. This feature blocks ads, tracking codes, malware, and phishing domains, as well as “suspicious links” that are blacklisted.

This feature is available in apps for Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS.

NoBorders feature

Surfshark has a built-in feature called NoBorders, which it developed to help users bypass blocking VPN services. This will be especially useful in China or other censorship-ridden countries.

Rotating IP addresses

A special feature at the end – you can start rotating IP addresses in the application. IP addresses will keep changing even if you are connected to one server.

Surfshark also currently offers three extra paid services:

• Surfshark Alert – real-time alerts when your email addresses and/or passwords are at risk of being hacked (identity theft)
• Surfshark Search – truly anonymous internet search
• Antivirus – custom antivirus solution

We have no reservations about the support on the site. Live chat is available 24/7, and can be used even by users who are not logged in. The response from support was very quick and our questions were answered satisfactorily.

There is also a very rich library of tutorials and guides on the site, as well as a blog where you can find a lot of interesting information.

If you were expecting Surfshark to have high prices given the service options offered, we have a surprise for you – the service is one of the cheapest on the market. The performance/price ratio is simply fantastic. You can request a refund within 30 days of purchasing the service.

Payment is available via credit cards, PayPal, Google Pay, Amazon Pay and cryptocurrencies.

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