Surfshark Review (2022) – Low Cost, Safe & Fast VPN

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There has been a lot of buzz around Surfshark lately. The company is turning everyone’s heads in the VPN market thanks to its low pricing and premium features. But is Surfshark VPN any good in reality? Or is it just like any other pretender enjoying a honeymoon period with the users? We decided to put it to the test in this unbiased Surfshark review.

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’d know we love disassembling VPNs and spending a fair amount of time with them to get a good idea of their performance. We did the same with Surfshark. We took it apart and tested it to the core, leaving nothing untouched. It took us more than two weeks, but the effort was worth it. Still, if you find anything missing from the review, feel free to drop your questions in the comment section below, and we’d try our best to answer them.

So without any further ado, let’s get the ball rolling…

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Surfshark VPN jurisdiction

Surfshark is based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), a British overseas territory in the eastern part of the Caribbean Sea. The company was founded in 2018.

Although aligned with the British Common Law, BVI doesn’t share any security or data agreements with the UK. That’s good to know. 

Moreover, the local government is a big advocate of internet freedom and imposes no such laws that would otherwise put its citizens’ online privacy at risk.

Having its headquarters in the British Virgin Islands also means Surfshark doesn’t have to worry about the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, or Fourteen Eyes member countries influencing its operations. 

To make sure that is indeed the case and customers remain informed, the company maintains a fully-updated warranty canary on its website:

To sum up, Surfshark is situated in a safe jurisdiction, and the company’s management could not have made a more sensible choice.

Who owns Surfshark?

Surfshark is owned by private shareholders who opted not to disclose their personal information to the public. To be fair, they are not legally required to do so, but at least some transparency would have been appreciated. 

We tried to dig for info on our own but could not find much. Surfshark does not have an About Us page, which hardly helps. Google tells Par Kaz is the company CEO. When you scratch the surface, you realize it’s just a pseudo-name. We did, however, manage to find out about their CTO, Magnus Steinberg; he regularly features on Surfshark blogs.

Should all this secrecy be considered a red flag? 

That did initially cross our minds. But then we decided to review the VPN Trust Initiative and found Surfshark as an active member of the group. This at least clears up that the company isn’t operating with any malicious intent.

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Surfshark servers and server locations

Surfshark operates 3200+ servers in 65 countries worldwide. The coverage includes all major regions, including Europe, North America, South America, Central America, Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Middle East. 

Europe has got the most extensive support. There are thirty-one European countries that you can connect to at the city-level. These include the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, the Netherlands, and more. Albania, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Moldova are limited to single server locations.  

Among countries, the United States leads, having more than twenty cities available for connection. Each city offers multiple servers. The total US server count adds up to 500 plus.

Surfshark also maintains servers in Australia. These servers are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide. We connected to the locations to check if they were working and found no problems whatsoever.

So, did the company impress us with its network depth and coverage?

Well, we wouldn’t say it left us impressed, but it didn’t disappoint either. We know a few VPN companies that offer a more extensive network of servers compared to Surfshark. However, we also realize that having 3200+ servers in 65 countries is no small feat. 

All in all, Surfshark has got a definite room for improvement.

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Can I trust Surfshark to keep me secure online?

While no VPN can guarantee 100% security, Surfshark does a pretty good job of making you feel safe online. It uses advanced tunneling protocols, like WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, and Shadowsocks, to secure your web traffic. Additionally, it encrypts your data with military-grade 256-bit cipher keys. Both these features make your online communications virtually impossible to hack. If you are interested in learning more about VPN security and how it works, check out this VPN guide. 

There is one very impressive feature that we would like to talk about in particular here. It’s called the Camouflage Mode. The Camouflage Mode makes sure that even your internet service provider (ISP) can’t tell that you’re using a VPN. It is enabled by default on all Surfshark servers under the OpenVPN protocol. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Windows, Android, and iOS users.

Likewise, Surfshark also provides complete protection against IP leaks. An IP leak is always a risk to your online masked status and can leave your location exposed. It can occur through DNS request leaks, WebRTC leaks, or leaks in the VPN tunnel itself. Surfshark takes care of all potential leak sources and stops them from giving away your real IP address.

Surfshark provides complete protection again IP, DNS, and WebRTC leaks

Other security and privacy features offered by Surfshark include:

Automatic kill switch

An automatic kill switch is a special VPN feature that temporarily disconnects your internet if your VPN connection is lost, preventing involuntary IP and data spills.

CleanWeb

CleanWeb is Surfshark’s built-in adblocker. Ads can be annoying. Worse, they can carry malware and infect your system. By keeping CleanWeb on, you can improve your browsing experience and online security.

Whitelister

Whitelister is all about split tunneling. It allows you to select apps, websites, and IPs that you don’t want the VPN to cover. It’s a useful privacy feature to have.

Whitelister settings

Multihopping

Commonly known as double VPN, multihopping allows you to route your traffic through two different VPN servers. This adds another layer of encryption to your communications. The drawback is that it slows down your connection.

HackLock

HackLock provides you real-time alerts when your passwords and emails are at risk of being hacked. It is available as an add-on feature and can be purchased with your standard Surfshark plan for $0.99 per month.

BlindSearch

BlindSearch is Surfshark’s own version of Google incognito. It lets you perform searches you don’t want anyone else to see. It can be purchased as part of the Privacy beyond VPN bundle, which includes HackLock.

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Does Surfshark keep logs?

 

Logs are of four types:

1. Connection logs (connection time stamps and incoming and outgoing IP addresses) 
2. Activity logs (amount of bandwidth used, network traffic, browsing or downloading history, website URLs, VPN servers you use, and session information) 
3. Customer logs (login credentials and billing info)
4. Diagnostic logs (app use frequency, unsuccessful connection attempts, crash incidents, and other similar information) 

Surfshark does not keep connection or activity logs. However, it does store customer and diagnostic logs (you can choose to opt-out from the latter) to manage your account and provide better services. This is also stated in the company’s privacy policy:

Regarding connection and activity logs

We do not collect IP addresses, browsing history, session information, used bandwidth, connection time stamps, network traffic and other similar data.

Regarding customer logs

We do need to keep the information you provide when you’re creating your account, though. Usually we ask for your email address and basic billing information. It’s the only way we can make sure your account works.

Regarding diagnostic logs

If our apps misbehave, we’d appreciate a diagnostics report (it shows us what went wrong without giving away anything about you or what you do online). You can opt out, but it helps us fix any issues much more efficiently.

That’s an impressive privacy policy and one which should fill you with plenty of confidence when you’re browsing online.

Furthermore, in July 2020, Surfshark announced that it has moved all its servers to RAM-only profiles. This was done to align the company’s infrastructure with its no-logging vision. With the upgrade, Surfshark became one of the few providers in the VPN industry to have RAM-only servers. 

Surfshark’s motivation to respect its customers’ online privacy is also reflected in the regular third-party audits it voluntarily participates in. 

In 2018, the company hired an independent web security testing firm, Cure53, to audit its browser extension. The investigation team concluded that the applications presented no issues in terms of privacy or general security realms. You can read the full report here.

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Devices Surfshark supports

Surfshark makes clients for a wide variety of platforms. These include Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, FireStick, Apple TV, smart TV, Xbox, PlayStation, and Chrome and Firefox browsers. You can even manually set it up on your router to secure your entire home or office network. 

Having tested well over seventy VPNs to date, we can comfortably say that’s one of the best device supports offered on the market. What’s actually amazing is the fact that Surfshark allows unlimited simultaneous connections on a single account. The second best VPN service in terms of multi-logins is PureVPN, and it supports ten connections.

How do I use Surfshark on my smart TV?

Setting up Surfshark on your smart TV is easy. The first thing you need to do is activate the smart DNS feature on your Surfshark account. 

Head over to https://account.surfshark.com/login and enter your Surfshark credentials. This should open up a new page. Scroll down and find the red Activate button under the Smart DNS section. Click the button. Make sure you aren’t connected to the VPN during this whole process. 

Wait for 15-20 seconds for Surfshark to detect your IP address. Click Activate again. You should see a smart DNS address displayed on your screen. Note the address down.

Next, open your smart TV and go to Network Settings. Access the IP address tab. Once inside the tab, locate your current DNS server profile. Change the profile by entering the smart DNS address obtained in the previous step. 

Congratulations; Surfshark is now configured on your smart TV. You can start watching your favourite shows and movies of different regions on various streaming platforms.

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Does Surfshark work with Netflix USA?

Surfshark does an excellent job of unblocking Netflix USA and provides twenty-four server locations to choose from. We tested each location to see which produces the best streaming results. Seattle, Atlanta, Denver, and Las Vegas all caught our attention with their fast and no-lag performance. San Francisco and Manassas struggled to put together the required resources and were too slow. While Tampa and Detroit failed to connect altogether. The rest of the locations did a decent job.

Watching Netflix on Surfshark

We also tested other streaming services on Surfshark. BBC iPlayer of the UK worked like a breeze. Hulu of the US and HBO Max didn’t report any problems either. Most impressively, it unblocked YouTube TV, which only a few VPNs can do. The findings are summarized in the table below.

Surfshark speed performance

Speed is always one of our top considerations while conducting VPN reviews. After all, no one wants to use a VPN that would significantly slow down their internet connection. Our testing approach follows a simple plan: we conduct multiple speed tests to get an idea of the averages and avoid any possible anomalies. 

In the case of Surfshark, we randomly picked three US, UK, and Australian servers and ran them on Ookla’s speed test tool. We then calculated the average ping and upload and download speeds. The results were as follows:

Surfshark US Servers Speed Performance