PROS
- Unlimited simultaneous connections
- Large global server presence
- Multi-hop and split tunneling tools
- Intriguing potential in Surfshark Nexus
CONS
- High monthly price
- Privacy policy needs clarification
- Confusing long-term subscription pricing
SURFSHARK VPN SPECS
| Free Version | × |
| 500+ Servers | √ |
| Simultaneous VPN Connections | Unlimited |
| Blocks Ads | √ |
| Server Locations | 100 Countries |
| Geographically Diverse Servers | √ |
| Free Version Data Limit | No Free Version |
By sending all of your web traffic through an encrypted connection to a remote server, VPNs can increase your online privacy, but that security may come at a cost—in the case of Surfshark VPN, a cost expressed in actual money. Our most recent Editors’ Choice winner for VPNs, Surfshark VPN, is also one of the priciest. With unlimited device connections, a growing and evolving product, and top-notch apps, the company does a good job of justifying that price. Surfshark VPN have also used A third-party audit to support its claims. Surfacing in a crowded field, Surfshark VPN is still impressive.
What Is the Price of Surfshark VPN?
The monthly subscription fee for Surfshark VPN is $12.95, which is more expensive than the $9.90 average for the services we’ve tested. This places Surfshark among the priciest VPNs we have yet reviewed, far surpassing the $9.99 monthly fee for Mozilla’s VPN or the 5 euros ($5.03 at the time of writing) monthly fee for Mullvad VPN, our most affordable Editors’ Choice VPN.
Like many VPNs, Surfshark VPN offers significant discounts to encourage long-term commitments. A yearly plan begins at $47.88 and costs $59.76 to renew the following year. The cost of a two-year plan is also $59.76; however, after the first two years, it automatically renews for the same price. Even though that’s a little perplexing, the annual renewal cost is still considerably less than the $67.73 average for the VPNs we have reviewed. Long-term plans do in fact save you money, but we advise starting with the smallest subscription to ensure the VPN works for you before upgrading to a longer subscription if you find the service to be satisfactory.
Major credit cards, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and a number of cryptocurrencies via CoinGate or CoinPayments can all be used to purchase a Surfshark VPN subscription. Other services, like Mullvad VPN and IVPN, even accept cash payments. IVPN is an inexpensive Editors’ Choice winner known for its emphasis on transparency and privacy.
Despite the pricey monthly plan, Surfshark VPN provides excellent value for the money. Surfshark VPN allows you to use an unlimited number of devices with one account, in contrast to the vast majority of VPNs. Most businesses disconnect you after just five concurrent connections. Only three other VPNs we’ve tested, Avira Phantom VPN, IPVanish VPN, and Windscribe VPN, do not impose a cap on the number of connections that can be made at once.
Locations and Servers for Surfshark
Recently, Surfshark announced that it now provided VPN servers in 100 countries, significantly more than the industry standard and even that of ExpressVPN and Hotspot Shield VPN. It’s a significant accomplishment, to be sure, but the company’s claim that it is the “first premium commercial VPN” with access to 100 countries (Opens in a new window) is a little fanciful. While PureVPN boasts of having servers in 140 countries, HMA VPN has long bragged about having VPN servers in 190 countries.
It is undeniable that Surfshark offers a diverse selection of server locations. With six server locations in Africa and twelve in South America, the business has exceptional coverage in two areas that VPN providers frequently completely ignore. We hope that more rivals will follow Surfshark’s lead. You are more likely to find a server location nearby your home or wherever you may be traveling if there are many server locations available, and there are many options for spoofing your location.
Additionally, Surfshark provides servers in nations with restrictive internet regulations, such as China (Hong Kong), Turkey, and Vietnam. The company still has servers in Ukraine, but no longer in Russia.
Some VPNs employ fictitious virtual servers and locations. Since virtual servers are software-defined, a single physical server can accommodate a number of them. These are widely used by businesses to handle spikes in demand. Servers, whether virtual or physical, can be set up to appear in virtual locations that are different from their actual locations. Although neither is inherently bad, we prefer businesses to be upfront about where and how their servers are used. A recent shutdown of Surfshark VPN’s physical servers in India was caused by legislation that endangered the security of user data. Many other businesses have followed suit. Indian IP addresses are still provided with virtual locations by Surfshark VPN.
According to Surfshark, each of its servers is a real physical device. We were pleased to see that the company’s website(Opens in a new window) clearly identifies its virtual locations (Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, India, Philippines, and South Korea). These servers, according to a representative, are physically situated in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Colombia.
Having more servers increases your chance of finding a connection that works well for you, so this is good. However, it does not ensure better service. In contrast, Surfshark boasts more than 3,200 servers, which is more than twice as many as the typical VPN we’ve tested. Despite this, CyberGhost continues to dominate the market with more than 8,277 servers available.
In order to supply its server infrastructure, Surfshark claims to rely on “trusted third-party data centers.” The business does make use of servers that can only run RAM. This implies that the server would be immediately erased if it were to be physically removed in order to access the data inside. The company’s blog post explains how diskless servers guard against the theft of private encryption keys from server configurations. A few businesses, including ExpressVPN, long ago made this change.
Is Surfshark VPN a Reliable Source?
A VPN service could easily eavesdrop on your traffic or make money off of your online activity. It is crucial to comprehend the company’s privacy policy as well as the laws that govern how the business is run. As far as we can tell, Surfshark VPN does a good job of preserving user privacy. Having said that, trust is a necessity for security. Look elsewhere if you don’t feel like you can trust a company.
The Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for Surfshark VPN are both very readable and contain breakout sections that explain concepts in simple terms. editor’s choice award Similar tactics are used by TunnelBear VPN, and other businesses should follow suit. However, we found a few issues with the most recent Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that Surfshark VPN ought to fix.
Surfshark VPN emphasizes in its policy documents that it does not log IP addresses, browsing histories, bandwidth usage, or network traffic. That is the exact response you want to receive from a VPN provider. Additionally, the policy states that the organization does not log connection timestamps, but this is only partially accurate. The company does log connection timestamps, according to the Terms of Service documentation, but deletes them 15 minutes after your connection has ended. When we contacted Surfshark VPN, they explained that this was done to stop people from abusing the company’s policy of offering unlimited simultaneous connections by connecting an absurd number of machines. That makes sense, but Surfshark VPN needs to make this more explicit in its privacy policy. The business does gather some data, including account details and billing history in addition to anonymized aggregate analytical data. This is a fairly common practice for VPNs. However, Mullvad VPN has made efforts to collect much less data than its rivals by doing away with recurring subscription fees.
Additionally, Surfshark VPN mentions that it receives advertising IDs from outside sources, using Google Play as an illustration. You can reset these identifiers on your own. These IDs are used, according to the company’s policy, to determine whether the company’s advertising is causing installations. Ads are not present in the apps. Surfshark VPN goes to great lengths to detail every cookie on its website and every analytics service it makes use of elsewhere in its policy. Despite the intimidating size of the list and the scope of the data, we appreciate the effort made to be transparent.
According to company representatives, Surfshark is a highly decentralized company with offices in the UK, Cyprus, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and the Philippines in addition to remote workers all over the world. We value the company’s openness on this matter.
The Surfshark BV company, which was founded in the Netherlands and operates under Dutch Law, is the owner of the Surfshark VPN service. The business had previously been governed by the laws of the British Virgin Islands. Strangely, the current privacy policy doesn’t make this clear, and the business needs to fix this. The company claims that the no-log policies of Surfshark VPN have not been impacted by this change.
On its transparency report, the company has a live Warrant Canary(Opens in a new window). The company claims that, if contacted by law enforcement for information, it would be impossible to pinpoint a specific user.
The merger of Surfshark VPN and NordVPN was announced on February 2, 2022. The brands will continue to exist as separate entities with their own business strategies and infrastructure, according to both companies. In a press release, the deal was described as a chance for the two businesses to collaborate and concentrate on various market segments. According to a Nord Security representative who spoke with PCMag reporter Michael Kan, neither company is buying the other, and this was not an acquisition. Both businesses will be owned by a new holding company called Cyberspace, which was registered in the Netherlands.
To validate claims about customer privacy and security, many VPN providers commission independent audits. In 2018 and 2021, respectively, Surfshark ordered its first and second audits. Cure53 performed both of them. The second audit(Opens in a new window) focused on Surfshark’s infrastructure and VPN setup, providing some assurance regarding the business’s hidden operations. The company’s audit by Deloitte(Opens in a new window) in January 2023 concluded with a finding that Surfshark was adhering to its stated policy not to keep user activity logs.
Although audits are not perfect tools, they are an important step a VPN can take to build trust. For instance, TunnelBear VPN has committed to yearly service audits. We’re pleased with the findings of this most recent audit and hope Surfshark will carry out more of them in the future.
We discussed the privacy implications of Surfshark Nexus technology with the company. Some of the features, like traffic routing that is optimized, seem like they might compromise user privacy. We appreciate the company’s assurances that this is not the case. However, we’d like to see new audits of these infrastructure changes to support that assurance.
Is Surfshark a Reputable VPN?
There are many positive aspects of Surfshark VPN. It offers split tunneling and the infrequently used multi-hop connection tool, as well as a generous unlimited devices policy that allows you to connect as many devices as you like. Additionally, it is evolving and growing with new goods and services; even though we do not endorse the Surfshark One package, it is still encouraging to see. We hope that Surfshark VPN will continue to conduct these audits on a regular basis to demonstrate that the company adheres to best practices and is willing to share its work. However, there are some sections of the most recent versions of the terms of service and privacy policy for Surfshark VPN that should be clarified.
- Unlimited simultaneous connections
- Large global server presence
- Multi-hop and split tunneling tools
- Intriguing potential in Surfshark Nexus
