Surfshark VPN

Verdict

The performance of Surfshark VPN knocks the socks off many of its more expensive rivals. Check out the two-year subscription for the best value.

Introduction

Surfshark is a fast, media-focused VPN service with a solid emphasis on privacy. Users may connect an unlimited number of devices simultaneously; it uses RAM-disk servers throughout its infrastructure and supports torrenting across all its servers.

Although it’s headquartered in the Netherlands, having moved from the more famously privacy-friendly British Virgin Islands, Surfshark has a clear no-logging policy, and the security of its software and systems is independently audited. Most recently, its no-logging policy was audited in January 2023.

Pricing and subscriptions

Surfshark is cheap, but not quite as cheap as its main pricing page would have you believe. All prices exclude VAT until you get to the payment stage. This means that a monthly subscription to Surfshark listed as costing £10.72/$12.95 actually costs £12.60 every month if you’re in the UK. For new subscribers, an annual subscription listed at £39.63/$47.88 costs £46.61 and a two-year subscription listed at £44.10 costs £58.18 including VAT. Both of these renew as an annual subscription priced at £58.17. Currently, the two-year subscription comes with an extra free month, taking it up to 25 months.

Not automatically listing VAT for the regional pricing you’re displaying is not normal for VPN providers – I’ve only seen it lately from Surfshark and its sibling VPN provider, NordVPN, and I can’t say I’m particularly happy with this approach to pricing.

Meanwhile, while I’m not a fan of renewal price increases, this is still cheaper than most of Surfshark’s comparable rivals. You can pay using cryptocurrency if you feel that would help to protect your anonymity.

It’s also worth noting that Surfshark requires you to contact its representatives via its live chat service if you wish to cancel a recurring subscription, as opposed to simply allowing you to do this from your account page.

Privacy and Protection

• Recent move to the Netherlands could have legal implications
• Now maintains a transparency document
• Retirement of IKEv2 for Windows closes potential security risk

Surfshark’s 2021 move from the British Virgin Islands to the Netherlands disconcerted a number of users. Although it remains less than clear what the practical legal implications of this are for a VPN that keeps no logs, it’s worth noting that the Netherlands is one of the “Nine Eyes” international government intelligence information sharing cooperative.

I’m pleased to note that Surfshark now publishes a warrant canary and has, at the time of writing, received no US national security letters or gag orders, nor warrants from any government organisation.

Surfshark has ended support for the IKEv2/IPsec protocol on Windows, thus resolving potential issues surrounding its use of self-signed certificates. IKEv2 support is retained for mobile users.

Features and usability

• Supports a wide range of platforms
• Features include a kill switch, NoBorders Mode and an ad blocker

There are official Surfshark clients for the expected major platforms: Windows, Linux – now with a glossy GUI app alongside its command-line connection tool – macOS, iOS and Android. It also has clients for Amazon’s FireTV stick, and Chrome and Firefox browsers. You get detailed connection information for setting up your VPN on other devices, including routers and servers, and on sharing a connection from your PC to a games console.

Features include multi-hop connections (which go through two VPN endpoints in an attempt to further obfuscate your point of origin), an on-by-default NoBorders Mode (which attempts to evade national-level firewalls), endpoints with static IP addresses, a whitelist for applications/IP addresses that you want to use with your un-VPN’d internet connection, and an ad blocker that’s disabled by default.

As you’d expect, there’s a kill switch to prevent data leakage if the VPN disconnects (you’ll need to manually enable this), optional local network invisibility and auto-connect on login.

Performance

• One of the fastest VPNs in our group test
• Great for TV streaming

The service’s HTTPS speed test results exceeded all rivals by a long margin in my latest tests, becoming our best-performing VPN providers in my latest round of tests. It’s always quick, but improved on its previous results by over 200 Mbps in some cases. Surfshark was one of the few services I tested that didn’t experience any speed reductions from US endpoints

The performance data speaks for itself here, but even though it’s not always been quite this quick, Surfshark is one of the most consistently fast consumer VPNs – particularly if you’re a UK customer using UK endpoints.

Surfshark uses the fast WireGuard protocol by default, and clearly has the infrastructure to match, evidenced by some of this month’s fastest speed test results. It’s also a popular choice with those who don’t want to shut down their VPN whenever they watch a streaming video service.

Repeated speed tests over the course of the past year have shown that Surfshark persistently places among the top scorers, and it does a consistently good job of hiding the fact that you’re actually connected to a VPN.

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