Abang Tech: Surfshark VPN review: Our best-budget VPN is now cheaper than ever with this great Christmas deal

Our Rating

Price when reviewed

One of the cheapest feature-packed VPNs on offer just got cheaper

Pros

Unlimited devices

Supports Netflix, iPlayer and torrents

Browser extensions audit

Cons

No indication of fastest servers

Basic iOS app

Since we last updated this review, Surfshark VPN has been updated with a variety of new features. The best among these is the recent inclusion of the speedy and secure WireGuard VPN protocol. WireGuard’s strengths lie in its simplicity, speed and ease-of-use. To put this in context, the most popular VPN protocol – OpenVPN – uses about 400,000 lines of code whereas WireGuard has under 4,000. Surfshark provides a dynamic IP address to all WireGuard users, so that every time you connect using WireGuard, your IP address changes to a different one.

The service is clearly pulling away from the rest of the VPN competition at an alarmingly-quick rate with the addition of useful new features. In September, Surfshark added RAM-only servers to ensure that all your data is wiped every time the servers are refreshed, and two-factor authentication to make your browsing even more secure. The Surfshark VPN Android app now also has GPS spoofing, so you can pretend you’re browsing from another country.

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Our original Surfshark review continues as usual below…

Surfshark VPN has over 1,000 servers in 60+ locations worldwide that you can use to access 15 Netflix libraries, including the US, UK, Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Canada and Germany. They’ve even unblocked access to popular websites and online streaming services, including Sky Go, BBC iPlayer, DAZN, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and HBO.

Surfshark is a relative newcomer to the VPN waters, having launched in spring 2018. New VPNs can sometimes suffer teething problems as they try to scale quickly, but Surfshark seems to have got its priorities straight, focusing from the outset on security and privacy. The service still has a little way to go before catching up with the bigger names in the VPN space – the iOS app, in particular, feels rather underdone – but overall it’s already a competitive product at an alluring price point.

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Surfshark VPN review: What you need to know

Surfshark is a VPN service based in the British Virgin Islands, which have no surveillance or data-retention laws. It originally launched in 2018 as a browser extension, but it’s now available on almost every platform. We tried out the Windows client, Chrome extension and mobile apps for Android and iPad app; there are also desktop clients for Mac and Linux, a Firefox extension and apps for Amazon Fire TV Stick and Android TV. Your subscription allows you to use any number of different devices at once. The precise capabilities vary across platforms, but the feature set is extensive, beating some much longer established VPN competitors.

Development continues apace, too. During the time we were testing the VPN, we noticed that additional locations became available and the Android app received a redesign, adding new features that had previously been limited to the PC client.

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Surfshark VPN review: Setup and basic use

Signing up for Surfshark is easy: the company accepts all major credit cards, plus PayPal, Google Pay, cryptocurrencies and even AliPay, an online payment platform that’s popular in China. Open up the Windows client and you’ll be greeted by the Locations tab, with a list of more than 1040 servers in 61. Most countries just have their name listed, but you can specify individual cities in some regions: the US has 12 cities and Canada, Italy, India and Australia and Poland all give you multiple options, too. Unlike certain VPNs, Surfshark gives you access to all the same locations regardless of whether you’re using the full desktop client, a browser extension or one of its mobile apps.

One thing that’s missing, however, is latency bars showing the relative speeds of different servers. This means you may have to resort to a bit of trial and error to get the best connection. Of course, as a general rule, the further the location is from where you are, the lower your speeds become. You can also improve performance using the VPN’s Whitelister tool, which lets you tunnel only specific programs or websites through a VPN – so everything else on your computer gets the full bandwidth of your local internet connection.

Surfshark VPN review: Privacy and security

Surfshark is located in the British Virgin Islands, which don’t have any data-retention or sharing laws. The company has a strict no-logs policy, insisting that online activity isn’t monitored, logged or shared with any third party in any way. The only thing the company records about you is your email address and billing information.

One particularly reassuring thing about Surfshark is that its Chrome and Firefox extensions have been independently audited. Browser extensions, by their nature, have the capability to monitor and store information about your activity, but Surfshark has independent confirmation that they’re not leaking or logging any sensitive data.

When you connect to a VPN server, Surfshark automatically selects the best protocol on the Windows client; if you prefer, you can manually choose OpenVPN (both UDP and TCP) or IKEv2. All of these protocols are protected by AES-256 encryption and, for even stronger protection, Surfshark hosts its own DNS on each server to ensure your website connection requests don’t get sent to a third party. We checked for DNS leaks using three different testing sites and discovered none.

There’s also a multi-hop feature which lets you route your connection through two VPN servers in series. Most VPNs ask you to choose which countries you want to multi-hop through, but Surfshark offers 13 preset routes that are optimised for speed and security. We like this approach because it makes it quick and easy to get make a highly secure connection, rather than having to experiment with country combination settings.

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Surfshark also has a killswitch, which automatically freezes internet access if your VPN connection drops unexpectedly, ensuring that nothing gets accidentally sent via your UK ISP. The CleanWeb feature, meanwhile, automatically blocks ads, trackers, malware and phishing attempts, so you can’t be tricked into accidentally exposing more information than you want.

Surfshark VPN review: Performance and speed

Surfshark has over 1040 servers in more than 60 countries. That’s not as many as NordVPN, ExpressVPN and CyberGhost, which have server counts in the thousands, but it’s a decent selection and it’s been consistently growing since the company launched last year. The VPN also offers 15 dedicated Netflix servers – based in the US, UK, Australia, France, the Netherlands, India and Japan – and allows you to stream Amazon Prime US from the UK, as well as BBC iPlayer from abroad. We found all of these video services worked perfectly, which is certainly not something you can say for all VPNs.

For torrenting, Surfshark recommends you use US or UK servers – if you don’t, it’ll automatically re-route you through the Netherlands or Canada, whichever is closest to where you’re based. This is fine for European users, although if you’re using the service from the other side of the world, these locations are quite a long way away, which can considerably slow down your download speeds.

Regular browsing performance is pretty good. Connecting via European servers caused us to lose about 30% of our regular browsing speed, which is on par with the VPN competition – and, impressively, this didn’t change much when we used the multi-hop option to route our traffic through the UK and then France. Speeds were halved when browsing through New York or India, but that’s still good enough to watch Netflix in 4K over our 60Mbits/second fibre connection.

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Surfshark VPN review: Chrome extension

For fuss-free privacy protection, Surfshark’s Chrome extension can be activated with a click. It connects to the nearest location by default, but it’s easy to manually pick a specific country and all the same servers are available as in the desktop client.

The Chrome extension also includes the CleanWeb feature. This streamlines your browsing experience, but it’s not as comprehensive as a dedicated ad-blocking extension such as uBlock Origin. There are no other features, but everything you need is here. And since – as we’ve mentioned – Surfshark VPN’s Chrome extension has passed an independent audit, you can be confident that your privacy is protected while you’re using it.

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Surfshark VPN review: Mobile apps

Surfshark offers native apps for both Android and iOS, but the two look and work slightly differently.

The Android app is well stocked with features, offering the same Whitelister and CleanWeb tools as the desktop version. Within Settings, you’ll also find options to auto-connect to Wi-Fi networks, activate the automatic killswitch and select between IKEv2 and OpenVPN protocols.

The iOS app is more basic. As with Android, you get the full list of locations and multi-hop locations to connect from, but the only setting to configure is a slider to turn the killswitch on and off.

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Surfshark VPN review: Price

Surfshark VPN offers a seven-day free trial, although you’ll need to be using the Android or iOS app to sign up for it. Once that’s done, you can install the software on as many other devices as you like, and you can cancel at any time during the trial period via the Google Play or Apple App Store. There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can change your mind even after the initial trial is over.