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.
Surfshark has dropped the price of its VPN from £10.42 a month to £1.85 a month. Head over to Surfshark now to pay a one time price of £48.08 for 26 months of Surfshark and save 82%.
Key Features
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.
Pricing and subscriptions
A monthly subscription to Surfshark costs £10.72/$12.95, which isn’t particularly remarkable. For new subscribers, an annual subscription is £39.63/$47.88, and a two-year subscription is £44.10. Both of these renew as an annual subscription, priced at £49.47/$59.76 per year. While I’m not a fan of renewal price increases, this is still cheaper than most of Surfshark’s comparable rivals. There’s no limit to the number of devices you can connect to your Surfshark account, and you can pay using cryptocurrency if you feel that would protect your anonymity.
Privacy and Protection
Recent move to the Netherlands could have legal implicationsNow maintains a transparency documentRetirement 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. 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 platformsFeatures include a kill switch, NoBorders Mode and an ad blocker
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. Surfshark’s security-minded features go beyond those of most of its rivals, particularly on Windows, where you get the entire Surfshark One security suite, which includes data breach monitoring for your email addresses, a privacy-focused web search tool and Surfshark Antivirus. Currently, there’s not enough data from testing houses to draw solid comparisons between Surfshark Antivirus and its competitors in this space, but it’s passed Virus Bulletin’s VB100 certification. If all you want is a simple VPN client, these extra features can be set up separately rather than being thrust upon you by default.
Performance
One of the fastest VPNs in our group testGreat for TV streaming
The service’s HTTPS speed test results compared well against an average of some of our best-performing VPN providers in my latest round of tests and put in the fastest connection speeds to the UK. Although its performance is more consistent than most of its rivals’, I’ve not seen it match ProtonVPN and NordVPN‘s connection speeds via some of its servers in the Netherlands. But, with an average speed of 368.80Mbps across all our endpoint locations, 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.
Latest deals
Surfshark has dropped the price of its VPN from £10.42 a month to £1.85 a month. Head over to Surfshark now to pay a one time price of £48.08 for 26 months of Surfshark and save 82%. One of Surfshark’s standout features is that it can run on an unlimited number of devices, making it a good option if you have lots and lots of gadgets, from tablets and smartphones to laptops. Surfshark clearly values security. It has a credible policy of not logging user activity, maintains a warrant canary and has commissioned security audits. But its policies are yet to be tested by legal action or server seizures – unlike a handful of rivals, most notably Perfect Privacy. Surfshark has proven its track record when it comes to performance, but for those who value security above all else, Perfect Privacy remains your best bet despite its other limitations.
