Surfshark VPN: Affordable VPN Packed with Powerful Features

Surfshark does not keep identifying logs. We’ve examined its logging policy in detail and can confirm that sensitive data — like your IP address — is not stored. This has also been confirmed by an independent audit from Deloitte.

Surfshark temporarily stores information about which VPN server you connect to, including your user ID and connection timestamps. However, this data is deleted within 15 minutes of disconnecting from the VPN and poses no meaningful privacy risk.

The only information Surfshark keeps is your account data, including:

• Email address
• Account registration date
• Encrypted password
• When you use the Smart DNS
• WiFi name if the Auto-connect feature is enabled

Although this means Surfshark is not technically a “no-logs” VPN, it only retains a small amount of non-sensitive information used to maintain the service. If you’re particularly concerned about privacy, you can sign up using cryptocurrency to avoid sharing any personal payment details.

Surfshark also operates diskless RAM-only servers that prevent your data from being written to a hard drive. This is an excellent privacy measure that ensures no identifying information is available in the event of a server seizure.

Based in The Netherlands (EU Jurisdiction)

Surfshark moved its company headquarters from the British Virgin Islands — a privacy-friendly jurisdiction with no data retention laws — to the Netherlands, which is in the EU and has stricter data retention rules.

Surfshark has reassured users that being based in the Netherlands still allows it to maintain its no-logs policy. However, the country is part of EU intelligence-sharing networks, and we would prefer to see Surfshark operate from a more privacy-focused jurisdiction.

Who Owns Surfshark?

Surfshark is owned by Cyberspace, a company incorporated in the Netherlands. The founder of Surfshark is a Lithuanian national called Vytautas Kaziukonis, and most of Cyberspace’s employees are based in Lithuania, where it also has an office.

Cyberspace was formed after a merger between Surfshark (Surfshark B.V.) and Nord Security, which runs NordVPN. Surfshark and NordVPN now collaborate to improve their separate services.

While the services are very similar, NordVPN performs better in most of our tests and still operates out of a privacy haven — Panama. However, NordVPN has experienced a data breach in the past, whereas Surfshark has never been involved in any major controversies.

Access to 9 Netflix Libraries

Surfshark works very well with Netflix. Our tests show that it unblocks 9 Netflix regions easily and streams without buffering.

As well as US Netflix, Surfshark reliably bypasses geo-blocks for:

• Netflix Brazil
• Netflix Canada
• Netflix France
• Netflix India
• Netflix Italy
• Netflix Mexico
• Netflix Singapore
• Netflix UK
• Netflix US

In our tests, most of Surfshark’s city-level servers successfully unblocked the corresponding country’s Netflix library. On rare occasions you may need to switch to a different server in the same country to get Netflix working.

We’d like Surfshark to label servers that are optimized for streaming, as this would make it quicker and easier to find a working server.

Streams Every British & US Streaming Site

Surfshark unblocks HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video. It used to struggle with Hulu, but our recent tests show a big improvement, and we can now confidently recommend Surfshark for watching Hulu outside the US.

The first UK Surfshark server we tested unblocked BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, ITVX, My5, Now, and Sky Go without issues, making it one of the best VPNs for connecting to the UK as well.

Surfshark remains one of the best VPNs for bypassing Disney+ blocks and lets you stream Europe-exclusive Star content from the US.

Surfshark is also a good choice for watching The Roku Channel and most other free streaming platforms, including Peacock and SBS On Demand.

In our testing, all of these platforms streamed at maximum video quality without buffering.

Overall, Surfshark is an excellent streaming VPN, especially given its price. However, it can’t quite match ExpressVPN for speed or reliability, particularly with Netflix. Windscribe VPN, meanwhile, unblocks significantly more Netflix regions overall.

Surfshark supports the security protocols WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2. These are among the best and most secure options currently available. Surfshark has rightly dropped outdated protocols like PPTP.

Surfshark also uses the industry-standard AES-256 encryption cipher to protect your data. AES-256 is considered effectively unbreakable with current technology.

We verified this by testing Surfshark’s encryption using the packet-sniffing tool Wireshark. Our analysis showed that all web traffic was fully encrypted and unreadable.

Does Surfshark’s Kill Switch Work?

Surfshark’s kill switch is not enabled by default, which we see as a drawback. We strongly recommend going into Surfshark’s settings and turning it on.

We tested Surfshark’s kill switch using our in-house test tool. If the kill switch works correctly, our real IP address should never appear — even when we change servers or when the internet connection drops unexpectedly.

Our results show that Surfshark’s kill switch successfully prevented IP leaks in every case except when changing servers on macOS devices. This is a common issue with many VPNs on Mac. However, VPNs like Mullvad and Private Internet Access have already solved this problem, so we expect Surfshark to catch up.

Impressively, Surfshark’s Android TV VPN app is the only one we’ve tested that includes a built-in kill switch. With other VPNs, including ExpressVPN and NordVPN, our IP address leaked whenever the connection dropped on Android TV.

First-Party DNS Servers to Prevent Leaks

We tested Surfshark for IP, DNS, and WebRTC leaks using our own leak test tool. It passed all tests and no sensitive data was exposed.

This is largely because Surfshark uses its own private DNS servers, meaning it handles your DNS requests internally instead of sending them to third-party DNS providers. This is a notable security advantage.

However, Surfshark does not support IPv6. Instead, it reroutes IPv6 traffic over IPv4. This approach prevents IPv6 leaks, which is good, but we would still like to see full IPv6 support in the future. If you own a router that only supports IPv6, Surfshark will not work on it at all.

Surfshark’s servers are distributed across 100 countries, making it one of the largest and most diverse VPN networks available.

Most countries have just one server location, but 11 countries include multiple city options, which is above average. We’d like to see more city-level options outside of Europe, but the list currently includes:

• Australia
• Belgium
• France
• Germany
• India
• Italy
• Poland
• Portugal
• Spain
• UK
• US

The US has the most choices, with 25 city servers in total. This is especially useful if you want a US IP address in a specific location to watch out-of-market NFL games or avoid MLB blackouts.

Although Surfshark offers IP addresses in 100 countries, it has only 3,200 physical and virtual servers. This is significantly fewer than the 18,651 servers offered by Private Internet Access and the 12,000 available with CyberGhost.

In March and June 2022, Surfshark shut down its servers in Russia and India after the authorities demanded that VPNs log user data. However, you can still obtain an Indian IP address using Surfshark’s virtual India servers.

Static IP Addresses & MultiHop Servers

Surfshark offers two additional types of servers:

Static IP: These servers assign you the same IP address every time you connect. This can result in more consistent speeds and easier access to geo-restricted services, but it slightly increases privacy risk, as your activity is always associated with the same IP.

Multi-Hop: Also known as Double VPN, MultiHop routes your traffic through two VPN servers before it reaches the internet. This adds another layer of privacy and security but usually reduces speeds.

A Mix of Virtual & Physical Servers

Surfshark uses both virtual and physical servers and clearly labels its virtual servers with a small ‘v’, which is a helpful touch that lets you choose between the two.

Virtual servers give you an IP address from your chosen country even when the physical hardware is located elsewhere. This allows Surfshark to offer more global locations.

The downside is that if the underlying server is much farther from you than the advertised location, your speeds and latency may suffer.

Overall, Surfshark has a large and flexible server network with a good mix of server types. Casual users can instantly connect using the ‘Quick Connect’ button, while advanced users can choose between virtual or physical servers, static or dynamic IPs, and single- or double-hop connections.

Surfshark is easy to install, set up, and use. You just need to sign up and download the appropriate software, and then sign in with your account.

The experience of using its applications couldn’t be more user-friendly. The apps are well designed and self-explanatory, and there are useful descriptions next to every technical feature.

Here’s a more detailed overview of our experience using Surfshark on every device:

Desktop & Laptop (Windows & macOS)

Surfshark’s desktop apps are a pleasure to use, with easy navigation, a clean layout, and a simple interface.

The server list appears as an alphabetical scroll-down list with a search bar at the top for quick access to specific servers. There are also buttons to connect instantly to the “Fastest Server” or “Nearest Country.”

The settings menu is straightforward. Both Connection Settings and Advanced Settings use on/off toggles with clear explanations, making all features easy to find and configure.

For customization, we like the dark mode option and the inclusion of 16 languages in addition to English. On macOS, you can also choose whether the Surfshark icon appears in the Dock or only in the menu bar.

However, we don’t like that the Surfshark Alert, Antivirus, and Search add-ons are integrated into the main menu as upsell prompts. They clutter the sidebar when, in most cases, you only need the “VPN” and “Settings” sections.

We also dislike that you cannot manually resize the macOS window, which takes up a lot of screen space. The Windows app is resizable, but only within certain limits.

Mobile (iPhone & Android)

Surfshark’s mobile apps are very similar to its desktop versions, which is great for consistency across devices.

The interface and overall usability are nearly identical. You’ll find many of the same features, including CleanWeb, MultiHop servers, and a kill switch.

There are just a couple of differences between the mobile apps: the iOS app has a “Pause” button that temporarily suspends the VPN connection without fully disconnecting, while the Android app has a system-wide kill switch that cuts internet access for all apps on the device if the VPN drops.

Windows and Android also include a feature called Bypasser (split tunneling), which lets you choose which apps use the VPN tunnel and which don’t.

As with the desktop apps, we wish the Surfshark One upsell did not appear so prominently in the interface.

Linux

Surfshark supports Linux on Ubuntu, Debian, and Mint distributions.

Once installed, you can use Surfshark’s Linux graphical user interface (GUI), which lets you change servers and switch between protocols without the command line. It also includes a kill switch.

Very few VPNs offer a full GUI for Linux. Surfshark previously only had a command-line client, so it’s a big improvement that it now provides a user-friendly visual interface for Linux users.

All Surfshark servers allow P2P activity. We tested it with popular torrent clients like qBittorrent, uTorrent, and Deluge.

Our torrenting speed tests recorded an average download bitrate of 8.7MiB/s. This is more than fast enough for quick downloads, but some VPNs are faster: PIA and ExpressVPN reached 9.6MiB/s and 9.8MiB/s, respectively.

Even if it’s not the absolute fastest P2P VPN, Surfshark is definitely safe for torrenting. Its privacy policy, AES-256 encryption, and first-party DNS servers ensure your torrenting activity is hidden from your ISP and copyright enforcement agencies.

This is only true, however, if you enable Surfshark’s kill switch in the settings menu. Since the kill switch is not turned on by default, we strongly recommend activating it before you start torrenting.

Overall, Surfshark is safe and capable for P2P file-sharing. But if you torrent frequently, you may prefer PIA, which is faster and better optimized for high-volume torrenting.

EXPERT ADVICE: Surfshark has servers optimized for P2P activity, but they aren’t clearly labeled. To find them, type “P2P” into the server search bar and you’ll see a list of P2P-optimized locations.

Smart DNS & Games Consoles

Browser Extensions

Double VPN, Rotating IP & Diskless Servers

Does Surfshark Block Ads?

Bad for Unblocking Websites in China

Fast Customer Support, but Chatbot Is Unhelpful