Surfshark VPN is a service founded in 2018 and headquartered in the Netherlands. It's owned by the same parent company as NordVPN (Nord Security) but operates independently. It has servers in 100 countries, allows for unlimited simultaneous connections, and offers apps for various platforms. It also offers numerous additional features, including multi-hop, obfuscation, and more.
Our Verdict
Surfshark VPN is very good for torrenting. Its security is acceptable, as it keeps your IP address and DNS queries within its tunnel while you use it. However, its kill switch doesn't work properly, as it allows some unencrypted traffic to leak past the VPN in the event of a system reboot or a software crash. It also lacks anonymity-preserving registration options, requiring an email address and password to create an account, but you can pay with cryptocurrencies. It allows you to download P2P files in most countries and doesn't have a data limit. However, P2P is blocked on servers in several countries, so if you're in those locations, you'll need to connect to different servers to download torrents, which will result in a loss of speed.
Accepts cryptocurrencies for payment.
Proper TLS implementation doesn't leave you vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Doesn't leak your IP address or DNS queries.
Torrenting is blocked on several servers.
No registration options that preserve anonymity.
Kill switch doesn't work properly.
Surfshark VPN is a poor choice for private browsing. The privacy policy states that the company collects personal data and can use it for analytics and marketing purposes. Additionally, they retain your user ID, your IP address, and which VPN servers you connected to for 15 minutes after you end your session. On the technical side, the VPN keeps your IP address and DNS queries hidden while you're connected, but the kill switch doesn't function properly and leaks unencrypted traffic after a software crash.
Accepts cryptocurrencies for payment.
Proper TLS implementation doesn't leave you vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Doesn't leak your IP address or DNS queries.
No registration options that preserve anonymity.
Kill switch doesn't work properly.
Collects, retains, and shares user information.
Surfshark VPN has bad policies and business practices. Its privacy policy and terms of service clearly state that the company can collect a significant amount of your personal information for various reasons and share it with third parties. They even retain your IP address and the VPN servers you connected to for 15 minutes after disconnecting. They're under the same corporate umbrella as NordVPN and a VPN review site that rates both services highly, presenting a conflict of interest. Additionally, although the company publishes third-party security and privacy policy audits, they aren't conducted very frequently, and some have a limited scope.
Collects, retains, and shares user information.
Surfshark VPN has acceptable security. It doesn't leak your IP address or DNS queries while you're connected to it, and it has proper TLS implementation, protecting you from man-in-the-middle attacks. Unfortunately, its kill switch doesn't work as intended, as it leaks some unencrypted traffic upon rebooting your system and after a software crash. This is a concern if you need all your traffic to be encrypted after a system crash.
Proper TLS implementation doesn't leave you vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Doesn't leak your IP address or DNS queries.
Kill switch doesn't work properly.
We're testing this VPN's speed on an ongoing basis and will update this verdict when we have more data. See the Performance section of the review to look at the data we've collected so far.
Performance Usages
Changelog
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Updated Jan 23, 2026:
We've updated the text throughout the review to reflect the changes from Test Bench 0.10.1.
- Updated Jan 23, 2026: We've updated this review to Test Bench 0.10.1! This is a minor update to how we conduct our speed tests. Read the changelog for more info.
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Updated Dec 16, 2025:
We've added text throughout the review to correspond with the new privacy tests in Test Bench 0.10.
- Updated Dec 16, 2025: We've updated our review to Test Bench 0.10! This update focuses on privacy and evaluates the trustworthiness of a VPN in keeping your personal information private. Read the changelog for more details.
Check Price
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
Surfshark has three tiers that come with different sets of features in addition to the regular VPN features. We bought and tested the Starter plan.
| Plan | Antivirus | Identity Theft Alert | Ad-Blocker | *Incogni |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surfshark Starter | No | No | No | No |
| Surfshark One | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Surfshark One+ | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
*Incogni is a data broker removal service that removes your personal information from the web.
Popular VPN Comparisons
SurfsharkVPN is a solid choice with comparable performance to most VPNs on the market. It offers a variety of additional features like obfuscation, split tunneling, multi-hop, unlimited simultaneous device connections, and more if you opt for one of their more expensive tiers. Like most VPNs, however, it fails the kill switch test, so your system could leak your IP address if you reboot it or the software crashes. It also doesn't allow for P2P downloads on many of its servers worldwide, so if you're in an unsupported region, you'll have to connect to a server elsewhere, likely slowing your connection down in the process.
Surfshark logs your personal IP address when you connect to one of its servers, which is an issue if you don't want your VPN service to collect more personal information than necessary. Other options, like Mullvad or IVPN, have significantly better privacy policies and business practices.
To learn about the services we recommend, read our article on the best VPNs.
NordVPN and Surfshark VPN are VPN services owned by Nord's parent company, Nord Security, but operate independently. They both have similarly disappointing privacy policies and company practices that prioritize their bottom line over transparency and preserving your privacy. The two generally perform similarly, but NordVPN has more consistent latency, while Surfshark's latency fluctuates more over time. Feature-wise, Surfshark supports WireGuard while Nord doesn't, and instead offers NordLynx, their proprietary protocol. Lastly, doesn't limit how many of your devices you can connect at once, while Nord has a maximum of 10.
ExpressVPN and Surfshark VPN each have strengths and weaknesses. ExpressVPN has much better security than Surfshark VPN, since the latter's kill switch leaks some data outside of the tunnel after a system reboot. On the other hand, Surfshark delivers significantly faster speeds and better latency for a snappier experience and quicker downloads. Also, Surfshark doesn't have a limit on how many devices you can have connected at the same time, while Express has a maximum of 8.
Test Results
The kill switch doesn't work as intended, as network traffic leaks outside the VPN tunnel after a reboot. This can be problematic if you're concerned about keeping your traffic encrypted at all times, like when your system freezes and you have to restart it.
Like most VPN providers, Surfshark VPN doesn't implement BGP properly. BGP primarily focuses on high-level internet routing rather than end-user traffic. As a result, it's only a concern for highly targeted and resource-intensive attacks that are feasible only for governments or large corporations to orchestrate.
Surfshark VPN has very bad privacy policies. Its no-logging policy stipulates that Surfshark retains your user ID, your IP address, and which VPN servers you connected to for 15 minutes after you end your session. They state that the information they collect is for analytics and marketing purposes, and that they also collect and share data with third parties; however, they aren't clear about which specific partners they share it with.
While Surfshark publishes independent audits of its no-logging policy, the company only publishes summaries of the audits publicly, with the full reports only available to logged-in VPN subscribers. Further, while the audits confirm that Surshark adheres to its no-logging policy, the scope of the audits is limited and doesn't cover the entire privacy policy.
Surfshark VPN's company practices are disappointing. It's part of Tesonet's portfolio of companies, along with NordVPN. While NordVPN and Surfshark claim they operate independently, the exact relationship and level of control that Tesonet has is unclear and not communicated in a completely transparent manner. Tesonet also owns CyberNews, a VPN review site that recommends both Surfshark VPN and NordVPN. Surfshark doesn't disclose this relationship or acknowledge the conflict of interest. On the plus side, Surfshark has both a warrant canary and a transparency report. The company has also published security and infrastructure audits conducted by reputable third-party organizations, yielding positive results.
You can pay for SurfsharkVPN with Google Pay, credit card, debit card, PayPal, and a variety of different cryptocurrencies.
We're testing this VPN's performance on an ongoing basis, and will update the text for the download speed, upload speed, and latency tests when we have more data.
Peer-to-peer services are blocked in several countries. You can see the complete list on Surfshark's website.
This VPN has native apps for various Linux distributions, and you can also configure it manually.
It's also available on various platforms, including iOS, Android, smart TVs, and as extensions for Chrome and Firefox.
