Surfshark VPN review: good performance, with DNS leaks

Surfshark VPN is a commercial VPN service based in the Netherlands, initially launched in 2018. Surfshark is available for MacOS, Windows, and Linux, as well as browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Versions are also available for Fire TV 2 and later, and Android TV OS 5.0 and later.

Surfshark at a glance

• Unlimited simultaneous connections with any compatible device
• Static servers available
• Available multi-hop servers
• Protocolos IKEv2, OpenVPN, Shadowsocks y Wireguard
• Split tunnel
• RAM-only servers
• Kill switch
• GPS impersonation for Android users

Surfshark Features

Surfshark, like other VPN services like IPVanish or NordVPN, works very similarly when it comes to how their services are offered, paid for, and managed. All features are the same regardless of the plan or subscription period you have, and the only differentiating factor is price. There is no free version of the Surfshark VPN service.

The one-month subscription is the most expensive way to get the VPN, with a current price at the time of writing of $ 12.88 USD per month ($ 15.95 CAD, converted using Google). If you choose to pay for two years at a time, that price drops by 81% to $ 2.49 USD per month, or a third option for a 50% discount if you sign up for 6 months at a time, at a rate of $ 6.42 USD per month. The 2-year plan also comes with a 30-day warranty / refund option, but no refunds or trials are mentioned for the 6-month or monthly plans.

Surfshark offers a variety of payment methods, including:

• Credit card
• Paypal
• Google payment
• Amazon payment
• Criptomonedas como Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin y Dogecoin.

Surfshark offers unlimited simultaneous connections regardless of the devices being used, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited P2P traffic, although it does not have specific servers for P2P, so the speeds can vary depending on the server load. However, something that is quite rare in commercial VPN services is the option to use multi-hop connections, where you first connect to hop # 1, say UK, and then connect next to a server in France. Obviously this will probably slow you down, but it adds another layer of protection. However, even when using multi-hop servers, you should never assume that your connection is bulletproof, or completely anonymous or protected, but it is a nice feature to have it absolutely help.

Surfshark – Supported Clients and Protocols

The Surfshark client displays a number of different pieces of information directly on the main page, such as a list of favorite connections, all locations, specific static IP locations, and MultiHop locations; as well as a connect button that changes to display information such as your IP address once you have connected to the specified server.

There is no default protocol selected for Surfshark, instead the “automatic” option is the default, continually choosing the fastest and most stable option for you. However, you can easily switch to other protocols via the drop-down box. There are other options available, such as “NoBorders”, which is useful for bypassing Internet restrictions, such as the Great Firewall of China, as well as a built-in speed test option to see what your connection to different servers would look like. When I logged in using the “automatic” setup, WireGuard was the most frequently chosen client for me, and it is becoming a popular and respected protocol, so I had no complaints about that decision.

Surfshark: servers

Surfshark has servers in over 65 locations, with countries ranging from Algeria, Canada, the US, Singapore, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, and more.

Surfshark doesn’t have specific servers for things like P2P traffic or Netflix connections, so its performance for P2P traffic can vary by connection, as can the connectivity of its streaming services.

Surfshark: privacy and security features

On the side of security features, Surfshark provides:

• Internet Disconnect Switch: Automatically turns off all networks and access to the public Internet if you disconnect from the VPN, when enabled. It should be noted that even if you close the VPN software; If you have this enabled and you forget to disable it, all Internet access will be cut off until you disable the feature; This may be useful for security reasons, but it is something to keep in mind if you suddenly find that you do not have internet access when using this VPN service / feature.
• Wireguard Protocol – A promising new protocol in the world of VPNs, featuring open source code, significantly faster and more secure speeds, and more power saving than other protocols.
• Shadowsocks – This is primarily used to bypass firewalls and censorship, and is not really designed for privacy or anonymity.

Surfshark: speed tests

To test the speed of Surfshark, a basic test was first run without the service. The PC used was connected to a 250down / 20up connection in Canada. Using speedtest.net for testing, the results were as follows:

Without the VPN, connected to a speed test server in my city:

• Ping – 12 ms
• Download – 245.71 mbps
• Upload: 19.60 mbps

Next, connecting to the VPN and letting it use the server location it deemed best, which ended up in a neighboring city for me, returned the following results:

• Ping – 12 ms
• Download – 219.16 mbps
• Upload: 18.61 mbps

Result 2, I selected Iceland as my country of choice and once again took the speed test, with the following results:

• Ping – 131 ms
• Download – 233.04 mbps
• Upload: 9.06 mbps

Overall I really thought the speeds were quite acceptable, and nothing I can really complain about, a quick P2P test also confirmed that these speeds were all accurate. Overall, there were no speed or connectivity issues that I had issues with. As I have written about other VPNs in the past, I personally would not use this VPN while gaming if I was connecting to any kind of international server as higher pings (> 100) would probably negatively affect my gaming experience, but it would. I see no problem with using a local server while playing the game, if someone had the need to do so.

Surfshark privacy testing

If your VPN is leaking your IP address or any DNS information, it is not doing its job, so two tests were used to see how Surfshark performed.

DNS Extended Version Leak Test: FAILED (https://www.dnsleaktest.com)

When testing a DNS leak, the test site saw my connection to the United States, but it also saw that I was located in Canada and the name of my Internet service provider, which means it failed the test. I checked what protocol was being used at the time and it was using WireGuard. Not to say it was WireGuard’s fault, it only gave that additional information.

IP Leak Test: PASSED (https://ipleak.net/)

We had no problems running the IP test, with the IP address showing as American, however the ipleak site noticed Canadian DNS addresses as well, thus confirming that a DNS leak was indeed taking place.

Interestingly, Surfshark also offers its own DNS leak test (https://surfshark.com/dns-leak-test) which I ran… and the VPN failed horribly, showing 1 result from your server and 4 results from my actual information. Then there is a big red button that says “Stop DNS leaks” that leads to your order page … I did this, while connected to an American server of yours … So, needless to say, I was not impressed by this, and Surfshark I lost a lot of points in my books, especially when even his own test confirmed everything.

Surfshark Unlock Streaming Platforms Test

Surfshark has a limited ability to unlock regionally locked content. There are no specific servers designed for this purpose, and many of the major streaming services have Surfshark IP addresses blocked or blacklisted.

I wasn’t able to watch any content on Netflix when I tried it… However, oddly enough, it wasn’t that an error was popping up, or that Netflix was calling me for using a VPN… Rather, the videos just wouldn’t load, and I’d be faced with a black screen.

I tried several servers and this same incident occurred; so I could only be made to believe that it was still Netflix starting / breaking my connection / not feeding me content due to the VPN. I did not test all the servers available to me, so perhaps others have better results or luck; but after testing a handful of servers and only getting the same result, I considered this to be a sufficient test for the sake of this article, and moved on, considering this to be basically a bug.

A look at the Windows desktop of Surfshark application

Interacting with the Windows client is a breeze, although it took me a second to find the options menu, located by clicking the gear icon in the bottom corner of the user interface. However, after discovering that, it was no big deal and clicking through the menus allowed me to find everything I was looking for fairly quickly and easily.

Verdict

Surfshark is loved by many for its speed and ease of use… Even winning 4 stars and an editor’s choice award in 2020 for VPN… But, when I ran my own tests, I was very disappointed. Sure, the speeds were fine, but massive DNS leaks were something I wanted to avoid at all costs. I didn’t see any option in the options menu that should be enabled to avoid this, and almost all the settings were left at their default settings, which seemed fine as is … So Surfshark would not be one that I personally recommend to my friends or family who ask me what would be the best secure VPN service. If you are simply trying to bypass firewalls, Surfshark may be fine, but there are plenty of other cheaper services available for such tasks.

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