Surfshark is one of the newer players to the VPN market. However, they have certainly made a big “splash” in the community. They have free apps for multiple platforms when you sign up their service and are becoming extremely popular. Everything seems to be well organized, and very easy to use. They also have great pricing on their plans and several items you might expect in bigger providers. They also have great, 24-hour customer service. In this review, we will take you through the ins and outs of the service and show you the features you can expect to find inside.
About Surfshark
Surfshark is based in the British Virgin Islands where there is no data retention law. That said, there is not much information available about the company outside of that provided to users. That lack of transparency makes us nervous at times. We can tell you that they have a very smooth looking website and we are encouraged by the unlimited devices allowed on the account.
Pricing
Pricing is pretty straight forward for Surfshark as you can see below. For one month of service, you pay $15.95 a month. With 12 months of service, your price is $47.88 for the which works out to $3.99 a month. By far, the best deal is the one for 24 months + 3 months free. In that case, you pay $59.76. That works out to $2.21 a month with our offer.
Features
One of the big draws with any VPN service is the features they offer. Let’s take a look at what Surfshark has to offer.
- CleanWeb – A bonus ad, tracker & malware blocker.
- Obfuscated Servers – Blocks your ISP so that others will not be able tell you are using a VPN.
- Whitelister – The whitelister is also called split tunneling. You can use this to protect some apps with a VPN and not others.
- Unlimited Simultaneous Connections – allows you to have unlimited simultaneous connections so you can protect your entire family and devices.
- Kill Switch – This feature allows you to kill your internet traffic in case the VPN server disconnects.
- Multi-hop – When you use this feature, it greater protects your privacy but it is slower. It does so by routing you through 2 different locations instead of just one.
As you can see there are a number of features that this one has.
Server Locations and Countries
As far as servers and locations go, they state that they have more than 800 servers in over 50 countries. We’ll now list the countries alphabetically, but not the specific cities. Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, UK, US, and Vietnam.
Of course, this list is subject to change if the company adds more countries.
Hands-On Testing
For testing purposes, we use the Windows version. However, Surfshark does its best to provide uniform apps on their desktop and mobile products. They make it extremely easy to navigate. Once you download the Windows version, go ahead and open it. As you can see in the first image, there is not much to do when you start out. Enter your Surfshark credentials. Next, you see a screen that allows you to quick connect. The software will typically suggest the closest server for you for that feature.
To access the features we mentioned earlier, click on the gear that you see below. That is where you will find them.
If you want to see a list of the countries, click on all countries at the bottom of the app as you see here. That way, you can type in the location by city or country. You can also select the MultiHop option in the upper right-hand corner.
Surfshark Speed Test
One of the biggest factors that make a good VPN are the speeds you get. No one wants to have low performance when using one. As you see below we came up with some great speeds. That is only about an 11% drop. Of course, that is subject to change, but that is better than the normal range.
What About Leaks?
With all the great things that are part of this VPN, another factor is leakage potential. We used our favorite comprehensive leak tester at www.doileak.com. As you can see by the images below, we did not encounter those issues. The issues we did have came from our browser choice instead of the VPN service.
Why you should use a VPN
As more and more establishments offer free WiFi, it is very important to use a VPN. While WiFi is great, the cybercriminals think it is great as well. By connecting to the server of your choice, you create a secure and encrypted connection. That way, you greatly reduce the chance that criminals will steal your sensitive data.
Another reason to use a VPN is to help you get around geo-restrictions. That is especially important if your activities include sites that are restricted in some countries. No matter where you are, connecting to a server there will help. That is because it makes the blocking software think you are located somewhere else. That can be a real advantage if you are trying to access certain regions or you are being blocked from viewing adult content. Simply connect to a server and you can start browsing or viewing the content you want to access. We are sure you can think of several applications where that could be an issue.
Should I Use Surfshark?
Whether or not you should use Surfshark is up to you. There are many great advantages to this service, and it is very reasonably priced. It should do exactly what you would expect a VPN to do. At the price they offer, it certainly is worth a try.
Final Thoughts About Surfshark
All and all, it is hard to find bad things to say about Surfshark. It is not as well known as some the other competition but it seems to check all the boxes that we typically expect from larger services and has some great features. We enjoyed testing Surfshark and recommend you give them a try. All new members are covered by their 30-day money back guarantee. You can sign up for unlimited VPN access from just $2.21 a month.