Surfshark Review: Fast Streaming VPN for All Your Devices

Surfshark may seem dangerous, but it’s actually a VPN that protects your privacy, quarantines malware, and hides your location and online activity from intrusive trackers.

As one of the leading VPNs for streaming, Surfshark is known for maintaining fast speeds, but I wanted to find out how fast it was and if there were any performance gaps.

In my review, I also tested the antivirus protection included with a Surfshark One subscription, checked pricing, and tested customer support.

Tiers and pricing (free, trial, subscriptions)

Surfshark is one of the few VPNs that supports unlimited devices, which is an added value if you share an account with family members and close friends.

You can try Surfshark for free for seven days before paying, and the 30-day money-back guarantee gives you even more time to decide whether it’s worth the cost of a subscription.

If you’re looking for a completely free solution, check out our guide to the best free VPNs that protect your privacy with a few limitations.

Surfshark Starter costs $15.45 per month, but savings start when you subscribe for one or two years. An annual subscription costs $45 and includes three free months. It renews for $60 per year, which is average for a good VPN.

The two-year $59 plan is a great deal, plus you get three months free. After 27 months, renewal reverts to the annual plan at $60. Still, the price is above that of some top competitors. For example, NordVPN is an excellent VPN, but the cost of the subscription more than doubles when you renew.

Surfshark also offers cybersecurity packages. Surfshark One includes malware protection for less than a dollar more per month. Surfshark One+ costs $2 to $3 more per month and protects your privacy with constant requests to remove your personal information from data brokers.

If you’re looking for a better VPN deal, there are usually sales and promotions that can help you save more. Just be sure to keep an eye on renewal dates so you don’t get caught off guard when prices go up.

Design

I tested Surfshark One, which seemed to be the best choice in my opinion. The installation was quick and included useful tips on installing apps and browser extensions.

The Windows app is well designed, and the right-hand panel allows you to quickly check whether VPN is enabled, what features are enabled, and which server I’m connected to.

On the left there is a list of servers around the world with quick links to featured, recently used and favorites at the top of the list. I can also search for a location and filter the list to only show static IP addresses or multi-hop servers.

It’s easy to use the basics without understanding the advanced features, and you can fine-tune it with just one click whenever you want.

The toolbar on the left allows me to change VPN connection settings, access my account, get help, and use features like antivirus protection and identity alerts.

The browser extension is convenient because that’s where I’ll most likely want to change my VPN settings. However, the app has more settings.

Features (reliability, speed, hidden location, cross-platform, special)

In addition to privacy protection, I want a VPN to be fast and reliable. To test Surfshark, I connected to several servers located around the world. The results were impressive.

With the Surfshark Windows app and browser extension, I was able to enjoy fast connections that never dropped and good speeds around the world. My ISP provides 900Mbps download speeds over Ethernet. Most streaming VPNs cut this in half, even if I choose a nearby server.

With the nearest Surfshark VPN server, I measured 728Mbps on SpeedTest, one of the fastest I’ve ever recorded for a VPN. The upload speed was 38Mbps and the ping was around 44ms round trip. I live in Nova Scotia, Canada, on the east coast, and the nearest Surfshark server was in Montreal, over 1,100 km away.

Fast speeds domestically are nice, but I often use VPNs to browse the internet around the world as if I were a resident of the country, so the real challenge is maintaining good bandwidth abroad.

Surfshark still delivered blazing speeds: 667Mbps down, 17Mbps up, and a 75ms ping for the US server. Upload and ping speeds always drop abroad, which was the case with Surfshark, but downloads were very fast at 579Mbps in the UK, 651Mbps in France and 630Mbps in Germany.

The first significant drop occurred with an Australian server that managed 306 Mbps download speeds. Data transfers of 5 Mbps and ping of over 100 ms on European servers dropped to 2 Mbps upload and 244 ms down.

Overall, Surfshark outperformed fast VPNs like ExpressVPN and the fast and cheap TorGuard. While Surfshark was consistently fast, the other two performed well with nearby servers but lagged when connecting to more distant locations.

Surfshark One includes a virus scanner and real-time protection for up to five devices. Surfshark antivirus received a perfect score in a June 2024 evaluation by the independent cybersecurity laboratory AV-Test.

In my random check of Surfshark One’s CleanWeb feature, it did not block any of the Wicar malware tests. This is because Surfshark blocking is based on reputation. This means it won’t block or warn you about unsafe websites or downloads unless they’re in its database.

After downloading the EICAR malware test file, I ran the Surfshark One virus scanner, which quickly identified and quarantined the threat. While Wicar.org is safe, more advanced antivirus software detects browser exploits and malicious files, preventing potential threats before they are downloaded to your computer.

Support

Some VPN providers have good but slow support as responses come via email. Surfshark offers 24/7 live chat support so you can get help all day, every day.

I tested this by asking about CleanWeb, Surfshark One’s blocking feature. The AI ​​chatbot was helpful, offering several buttons to narrow down questions and pointing to relevant help documents.

When I surprised the bot, I asked for a human and was immediately transferred. I learned that the Surfshark browser extension is designed for convenience, but provides the same VPN and antivirus protection in the app.

Privacy and security

Surfshark makes it easy to understand its privacy policy by focusing on the most important details first: a minimal amount of data is collected, only what is needed to provide the service you are paying for. Surfshark requires your user ID or IP address and timestamp while browsing, but deletes this data within 15 minutes of your session ending.

I have not been able to find any records of Surfshark security breaches, and I have checked the privacy policy. Although Surfshark is headquartered in a Nine Eyes country, its audited no-logs policy indicates that the company will not have any data to share even if official requests are made.

Surfshark does not sell or share your email address with third-party advertisers.

Is Surfshark right for you?

Surfshark has a well-designed app, great customer support, and one of the fastest VPNs for streaming with a large number of servers around the world. Unlimited device support makes it hard to go wrong with this service, especially if you subscribe for one to two years.

For less than a dollar a month, Surfshark One includes a good malware scanner and dark web monitoring. It’s a tempting offer, but it offers limited browser protection. You’ll want to keep your dedicated antivirus software active to block viruses. Surfshark Starter is the best choice for most people.

I was impressed by the speed, reliability, and depth of Surfshark’s features. Quick Help makes it easy to get help or learn more about using Surfshark apps and extensions.

I recommend Surfshark as one of the best VPNs with excellent speeds, good privacy protection, easy to use, and great value.