Fastest and Cheapest VPN Review

Surfshark Features

Now that you know Surfshark as a company, it’s time to get to know Surfshark as a VPN. We tested Surfshark on multiple devices, and we’re ready to break down to you the features that it offers.

Of course, as a VPN, Surfshark’s primary job was to hide our IP addresses and web activity, and we’ve proven that it does exactly that with our DNS and WebRTC leak tests below.

Aside from that, Surfshark had other features that made us giddy. Check them out below.

Torrenting and Streaming

We use VPNs primarily to protect our privacy, but there’s no harm in using them for a little entertainment, right? Surfshark let us torrent from our favorite torrent sites and stream on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and a bunch more services.

Here’s why that’s important: Our government frowns upon the use of torrenting services because it’s used for piracy, so when you’re torrenting, using a VPN is necessary. It keeps your online activity hidden away from Big Brother’s watchful eyes, so you can download torrent files to your heart’s content.

On the other hand, streaming from a streaming platform with a VPN allows you to unlock regional libraries outside your own. For example, if you connect to a server in Australia, the streaming service will see your Australia-based IP address, so you’ll gain access to, let’s say, Netflix Australia.

Camouflage and No-Borders Mode

Back to the more serious stuff. Camouflage Mode and No-Borders Mode are both Surfshark settings that make it easier and safer to connect to a VPN when you’re in a more restrictive country. There are countries that ban the use of VPNs, and while using Surfshark can land you in jail in those countries, it has features that can help you evade detection.

Camouflage Mode, otherwise known as obfuscation, makes your VPN traffic look like normal traffic so that governments don’t detect that you’re using a VPN. This is helpful in countries or territories where using a VPN is illegal or frowned upon by the government.

No-Borders Mode, on the other hand, automatically kicks in when Surfshark detects that you’re in a restrictive country, and will limit your selection of servers to those designed to bypass censorship specifically.

Just remember that these features aren’t fool-proof, so use it at your own risk. Better still, stay on the good side of the law and don’t use a VPN when you’re in a restrictive country unless absolutely necessary.

Kill switch

No VPN is perfect, and dropping a connection unexpectedly every once in a while is normal. However, if that happens, it could expose your online traffic to your ISP. That’s where the kill switch feature comes in. It automatically disrupts all your internet traffic to prevent it from ever leaking out in case of dropped VPN connections. All online connections will only resume once Surfshark is up and running again.

Split tunneling

Through a feature called Whitelister, you can configure certain apps or websites to bypass Surfshark’s VPN tunnel. This is useful if you’re using services that don’t allow connections through a VPN, such as online banking. Instead of turning off Surfshark, which would compromise all the other tabs you have open on your browser, you can simply whitelist the online banking website to access it outside Surfshark’s VPN tunnel.

For Surfshark’s browser extensions, split tunneling is available through a setting called bypass list. There, you’ll list all the websites and domains you want to bypass Surfshark’s encryption, so that next time you open those sites, they’ll automatically connect outside the encrypted tunnel.

Dedicated IP Address

Normally, when you connect to a VPN, it changes your IP address to that of the VPN server you’re connected to. That’s advantageous for your privacy, but there are times when you’ll need a dedicated, unchanging IP address. For example, if you’re trying to use a website or service that identifies users based on IP addresses, such as P2P file-sharing services.

Surfshark recently added servers with dedicated IP addresses that users can connect to whenever they need a fixed IP address. These servers are located in the U.S, the U.K., and the Netherlands, with more locations coming soon.

MultiHop and Dynamic MultiHop

Want some extra security and privacy? MultiHop, otherwise known as a double VPN, connects you to not just one but two VPN servers. That means twice the data encryption and double the privacy.

Surfshark’s Dynamic MultiHop feature goes the extra length to provide a pleasant experience. Most VPNs that offer multi-hop have limited and pre-selected server pairings that determine the first and second servers for you. That seriously limits your options. With Surfshark, you’re free to choose your server pairings from a list of servers that support Dynamic MultiHop. Not all its servers support Dynamic MultiHop, though, but it’s still a whole lot better than having a fixed menu of pairings.

Surfshark One

Lastly, Surfshark One is an add-on service that is sort of an all-in-one digital security solution. It includes access to Surfshark’s , identity monitoring service, and secure search engine. Surfshark One costs $1.49 a month if you bundle it with any VPN subscription. The total cost of a two-year VPN and Surfshark One subscription is only $95.52.

How Secure Is Surfshark?

If your VPN isn’t taking good care of your data, you may be experiencing a “the call is coming from inside the house” situation. But have no fear: we walked around this proverbial house checking under every bed frame, and here’s what we came out with.

Encryption Methods

Using outdated encrypted methods is kind of like using an old lock on a safe; sure, it’s better than nothing, but we want better protection for our valuables. So, after some digging, we found that Surfshark encrypted our information using AES 256-bit, which is what we expect from VPNs in 2023.

On top of that, Surfshark encrypted our traffic through multiple servers, hiding our web traffic even more. This isn’t usually the case for even the best VPNs on the market, so we feel good about Surfshark protecting our web activity.

Logging Policy

But that wasn’t enough for us. No, we wanted to actually read the fine print of Surfshark’s privacy policy to see what data of ours they kept and vice versa. Our findings?

• What Surfshark logs: Surfshark kept our account information like our email addresses, our passwords, although they were encrypted, billing information and order history, diagnostic reports, which we opted out of, as well as anonymized information from its website like what pages we visited and how long we stayed there. Also, it kept our IP addresses and unique device identifiers, but only from its website as opposed to the actual VPN app. Like most companies, Surfshark collected cookies, which we could opt out of, as well.

• What Surfshark doesn’t log: Surfshark didn’t keep our IP addresses, session information, browsing history, the times we connected, the amount of bandwidth we used while connected to the VPN, our network traffic, etc.

Compared to other VPNs we’ve tested, Surfshark keeps the minimal amount of data necessary to run its service, making it a great choice for privacy.