VPNs help protect your privacy by routing your Internet traffic over an encrypted connection to a remote server. However, this protection can come at a price – in Surfshark’s case, that means you’ll have to pay for it in dollars and cents. Surfshark has done a lot to justify its price in a crowded field: It offers rarely seen features and thoughtful apps and places a high value on protecting its customers’ privacy.
Surfshark also stands out from the crowd of Editors’ Choice winners because it can connect unlimited devices simultaneously. This makes it a perfect choice for large families or households with many devices.
Costing
As you can see in our Surfshark pricing and deals guide, the monthly plan is more expensive than others at $12.95, and if you pay for six months upfront, the cost drops to $6.49. The 12-month plan + 12 months free is a good deal at $2.49 for the initial term but doubles to $4.98 for the annual plan when you renew. This initial price beats most competitors, but there are a few exceptions. For example, Private Internet Access’ three-year subscription costs just $2.19 per month and includes essential on-demand virus protection.
The new Surfshark One plan offers the same VPN features, Avira-powered antivirus protection, data breach monitoring, and privacy-friendly Internet search. You can activate it for an additional $1.99 per month. Cheap? Well, it’s a very basic setup. For example, the antivirus supports on-demand scanning but doesn’t offer real-time protection, so it’s not a substitute for a full antivirus app.
Privacy
Protecting privacy, sensitive personal data, and essential information should be your primary concern as an avid Internet user. Stream over 500,000 movies and TV episodes at your leisure, block all annoying ads and enjoy all media without buffering or speed drops at home and on the go!
Surfshark is packed with privacy features. You’ll find all the classic privacy measures – AES-256 encryption, as well as OpenVPN UDP and TCP, IKEv2, and WireGuard secure protocols. However, there are also several advanced privacy features. Surfshark uses a private DNS on each of its servers, allowing users to add an extra layer of protection and disables third parties from intercepting browsing sessions.
The service also uses a VPN chaining mechanism. This system allows users to route their traffic through two separate servers. It can be accessed through the MultiHop button and enable users to connect to one location and go from another.
Platforms supported
Surfshark VPN supports Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, Fire TV, Apple TV, other TVs, PlayStation, Xbox, Chrome & Firefox (browser extensions).
Surfshark Servers and Server Locations
Surfshark offers above-average coverage for South America and Africa, both regions often ignored by other companies. Surfshark also offers servers in countries with repressive Internet policies, including China, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam. We would like to see more competitors follow Surfshark’s example.
When you have many server locations worldwide to choose from, you’re more likely to find one near your home or another country where you’re traveling. Surfshark covers 65 countries with its servers, which is above average, and ExpressVPN leads the pack with servers in a whopping 94 countries.
Speed and Performance
US OpenVPN results were slightly below average at 170Mbps, and UK downloads only reached 100-110Mbps. Most top VPNs achieved 150-300Mbps in recent tests, with ProtonVPN even reaching 400-460Mbps. Surfshark has a secret weapon with its WireGuard support, and the change in protocol pushed downloads up to 270-300Mbps in the US and 400-475Mbps in the UK. Even that’s a bit below average; we’ve seen the best of the competition hit 700Mbps and above – but Surfshark is probably more than fast enough for most devices and Internet connections.
Note that the results were obtained using this VPN at a specific time of day and location. Your results will undoubtedly be different, but this method allows us to compare services, taking variables into account. Speed alone should never be the main criterion when choosing a VPN.
Streaming and Netflix
However, the somewhat mediocre performance data is made up for by Surfshark’s excellent streaming capabilities. Many other VPN providers make this claim but fail to deliver what they promise; Surfshark is different. As a Netflix VPN, Surfshark has been very capable in the past. However, in recent months, Netflix has changed its VPN blocking technology, and as a result, almost every VPN provider on the market has limited its capabilities.
We had no problems accessing US Netflix from five different locations in our tests, but the UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan were not available. That’s not surprising, though, since of all the VPNs we tested, only ExpressVPN and ProtonVPN could access Netflix outside the US. Elsewhere, however, Surfshark is one of the best. We could watch content from US YouTube with ease, although this block is probably the easiest to navigate.
The speeds aren’t the best, but Surfshark outperforms everything else and offers several advanced features for a meager price (at first). An absolute must for your VPN shortlist.
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