Surfshark - Best VPN at Best Price
A VPN is a program or app that allows you to use the internet via secure, encrypted tunnels. That makes getting the best VPN a go-to online tool for staying safer and more anonymous online. In a time where it feels like you're being tracked and monitored more than ever, using VPN services is an easy way to ensure that everything you do in your digital life is hidden from view.
But the best VPNs are more than just a cybersecurity tool. Because they can effectively trick your laptop or mobile device into thinking it's in another location entirely, they have become game-changing software for streamers and anybody getting to get around online censorship and blocked apps.
Today we are going to review the Surshark VPN.
Surfshark VPN is one of the biggest names in the VPN space, and for good reason. It provides access to more than 3,200 servers. Surfshark manages to stand out with a list of unique features. That includes split tunneling, allowing you to send only selected apps through the VPN tunnel, and multi-hop connections, which bounce your tunnel across multiple servers for extra security and is reasonably priced at approximately $47.88 for a year. a perfect balance of pricing, features, and usability.
Compared to players such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and CyberGhost, Surfshark offers the most value for money in its 2-year plan. Moreover, the company itself regularly holds sales that offer discounts going as high as 81%. And if you’re someone anxious about dumping a chunk of money on a VPN at once, Surfshark also has a 30-day money-back guarantee. Compared to players such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and CyberGhost, Surfshark offers the most value for money in its 2-year plan. Moreover, the company itself regularly holds sales that offer discounts going as high as 81%. And if you’re someone anxious about dumping a chunk of money on a VPN at once, Surfshark also has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
If you're a gear hoarder, Surfshark's unlimited simultaneous connections policy will be very attractive. Essentially, you can install one plan on any number of devices – great for complete protection, or even sharing with those in your home.
The company has a solid range of app support, running on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Fire TV and routers. Additional devices such as game consoles can be configured for Surfshark via DNS settings. We particularly like the feature that allows you to whitelist certain apps and websites to automatically bypass the VPN. For some business uses, this can be critically important.
There's also ad and malicious URL blocking, P2P support on most servers, VPN chaining (use two servers for one hop), split tunneling, the company's own zero-knowledge DNS servers, and 24/7 support via email and live chat if anything goes wrong.
Additional Features
- CleanWeb for ad-free browsing
- Camouflage Mode to limit ISP snooping
- No Borders mode to access the VPN in restricted areas and more.
- Number of Server Locations: 65
- $2.30 a month for a 2 year plan + 2 months free
- Speedy and helpful live chat support
How To Install and Use
Installing and connecting to Surfshark for the first time is a very straightforward procedure. For the purpose of this review, we downloaded the Windows app from the Surfshark website and were surprised to learn that we could sign up and pay for the service during the installation process.
To start the VPN, all we needed to do was tap the connect button. After this, a desktop notification appeared to tell us we were connected. Once selected, the interface displayed our IP location.
Speed and Performance
Speeds are good when WireGuard is used,. To see if the Surfshark VPN can actually give me a decent connection speed, I decided to connect to 5 different servers around the globe (London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong). Using a connection that offers me native download and upload speeds of 100 Mbps and 100 Mbps, respectively, it was now time to put the shark to the test.
Surfshark VPN dishes out amazing speeds, we got 95Mbps Download and 93Mbps Upload Speed.
The VPN service handled them all on the chin as my connection maintained extremely fast connectivity. The connection itself happened within seconds and was stable.
Surfshark VPN User Interface
As a typical online user who is always short on time, I look for apps that are easy to use and still do the job effectively. Surfshark nails that right from the very beginning. A simple download and sign-in got me up and running within just 2 minutes. The VPN comes with a unified scheme of apps available on PC, macOS, iOS, Android, and even as extensions for your favorite browsers.
Connecting to a server itself is as simple as tapping on a country’s name. That’s it. Within a few seconds, your connection will be established, and you will be located in New York. While I would have appreciated a map selection to sort through countries, the list itself is to the point, and you have flags to represent the countries.
Is Surfshark VPN Secure?
Surfshark Security Features:
- Surfshark VPN supports OpenVPN, IKEv2, and Wireguard.
- It does not keep any harmful logs.
- It comes with an automatic kill switch.
- The registration only requires your email address and payment info.
Protocols
Surfshark has AES-256-bit encryption and uses, among others, the two safest VPN protocols right now: OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPSec. This shows they clearly aren’t willing to compromise when it comes to their users’ security.
Since the start of November 2021, Surfshark no longer offers Shadowsocks, its encrypted proxy specifically designed to bypass censorship in China. Instead, its NoBorders mode can help users in restrictive regions.
Further, Surfshark has recently introduced the WireGuard protocol for all Android, Windows, iOS, macOS, and Linux users. Wireguard uses the ChaCha20 encryption algorithm and is incredibly fast when compared with other protocols.
WireGuard has under 4,000 lines of code (while OpenVPN has 400,000+), which reduces loading times and vulnerabilities hackers might exploit. In fact, even NordVPN‘s proprietary NordLynx protocol is based on WireGuard.
Finally, Surfshark also offers perfect forward secrecy, no matter what protocol you choose. Forward secrecy constantly changes encryption keys, so if there’s ever a breach, the stolen keys become useless once you turn your VPN off.
Kill switch
A kill switch is an essential security feature for any VPN. It instantly “kills” your internet connection if your VPN stops working for whatever reason. This prevents data leaks (like your IP address) and keeps you protected when your VPN falters. Surfshark offers a kill switch on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. You can turn it on by going into the settings in the Surfshark app.
Surfshark Nexus
Surfshark Nexus is the VPN’s latest upgrade to improve security and user experience. Nexus is an innovation based on software-defined networking (SDN) technology. The update connects the user to the VPN’s entire network of servers instead of connecting to an individual location (or subgroup of servers).
Connecting every user to the entire network and moving their traffic around could cause latency or security concerns, but Surfshark seems to be handling it well. The Nexus infrastructure has already been deployed into the current Surfshark VPN, although the full features will be gradually rolled out over the next year or so. Because of this, we haven’t been able to test Nexus fully at this time, but we have not noticed any change in speed yet.
Nexus appears to be an improvement for Surfshark users’ online privacy since they will be able to change their server without losing the VPN connection, protecting their real IP address from others.
What information does Surfshark VPN need?
All you need to do to create an account with Surfshark VPN is to provide your email address and a password. Therefore, if you make sure neither contains any information about you, you’re good.
Verdict
I can safely say that I am pleased by the experience Surfshark VPN has to offer. With extreme safety features like multi-hop, split tunneling, RAM Only servers, and a privacy policy I could actually understand, I felt safe using this service.
Surfshark is a great option for those who want a simple VPN to set and forget. It's perfect for streaming almost any service, the apps are powerful and simple, and you'll get a 30-day money-back guarantee as standard so you can test-drive the VPN before you commit.
Try Surfshark VPN NOW!
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