Surfshark Review 2024: A Low-Cost VPN, but Is It Any Good?
- Our Score: 9.3/10
- Worth Considering
With VPNs, you tend to get what you pay for. So when I saw Surfshark’s low prices, I was skeptical about its rave reviews. To see if it could actually live up to these claims, I tested every aspect of Surfshark, including its speeds, security features, streaming abilities, network reliability, and device compatibility.
I also took a closer look at Surfshark’s privacy policy to verify its validity and put its customer support team to the test. The results were impressive — Surfshark is incredibly safe to use, has a lot of strong security features that the average VPN doesn’t offer, and it’s very user-friendly.
Overall, I would recommend Surfshark because it offers great value for what you get. For such a low price point (you can sign up for $2.19/month), you get unlimited device connections, top security, and good overall performance. And as added assurance, you can always ask for a full refund within 30 days if you’re not totally sold on it.
Surfshark Features — 2024 Update
| Price | 2.19 USD/month |
| Money Back Guarantee | 30 Days |
| Does VPN keep logs? | No |
| Number of servers | +3200 |
| Kill switch | Yes |
| Support | 24/7 Live Chat Support |
Confidentiality / Anonymity
Surfshark doesn’t lack in terms of security either. It offers all of the basics that you’ve come to expect such as DNS leak protection, automatic kill switch, secure encryption, and their very own version of a Double VPN called MultiHop which provides an extra layer of protection. Surfshark also offers a lot of extras such as the HackLock feature which alerts you in case of a data leak as well as a CleanWeb feature that effectively combats any tracking, phishing, or malware threats.
If you are tired of seeing random ads popping every time you’re online, you’d be happy to know that they now offer a special search tool that does not retain your browsing history. This means advertisers can’t use your preferences and browsing history to bombard you with tailored ads. And yes, Surfshark works in China, but the manual setup needed might be a challenge. But hey, if there’s a will, there’s a way! We’d be wary about trying to use any VPN service in China, though.
One of the more important concerns about privacy and VPNs is whether or not the provider keeps logs. Surfshark does collect some information such as your email address, password, and billing information but these are required only for maintaining your account. They don’t collect session information, IP addresses, bandwidth used, browsing history, network traffic, and connection time stamps. Also, this VPN provider is based in the privacy-friendly British Virgin Islands which means it is outside the Eyes Alliance jurisdiction. If there’s one thing to worry about, it’s that they may collect third-party advertising identifiers for marketing purposes but you can easily remedy this by opting-out in your app settings.
Speed and Reliability
Generally, you can expect a small loss in speed when you’re using a VPN service, depending on how strong the encryption method is. However, this loss shouldn’t be too drastic. After all, what good is a VPN when you can hardly browse the web? Fortunately, Surfshark performed really well in all of our tests. Before connecting to any of their servers, we had a download speed of around 40.70 Mbps. The speed went down to 25.40 Mbps while connected to the US server and approximately 20.07 while using a UK server. The speed is pretty consistent and fast enough for bandwidth-intensive activities like multi-player gaming and video chats. We tried connecting to a server in Asia, particularly Japan, and still got an impressive speed of 13.29 Mbps. All in all, the results were excellent, and we didn’t notice any connection failures or speed drop during the tests.
Platforms and Devices
As we have mentioned previously, one thing that sets Surfshark apart from the competition is that it offers unlimited simultaneous devices with just one subscription. It offers secure browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox and is compatible with major platforms such as macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. If you want to use Surfshark for your Playstation, Xbox, Linux, and game consoles, you may refer to their website for the manual installation guides.
Server Locations
Surfshark was established only in 2018 and yet it had managed to build an impressive network of servers in such a short time. This VPN now offers 1,040+ servers in over 61 countries.
Customer Service
Surfshark’s customer service is awesome. They have a 24/7 live chat option which you can find right on their homepage. You needn’t even go to their help page! We tried to submit a question and we didn’t have to wait long. In less than a minute, a representative attended to our query in a polite and professional manner. The agent was friendly and informative. In addition to the live chat option, Surfshark’s support page has a knowledge base full of tutorials, general info, and common billing questions.