Surfshark Review 2026: Cheap, Fast, and One Real Catch

Disney+ blocks VPN desktop apps by default. Surfshark has opened it without a browser extension. That is the standout result of this Surfshark review, and it came from a VPN that costs $2.49 a month. The rest of the picture is more mixed. MultiHop cost 2.9% of the download speed but took 10 seconds to connect. CleanWeb blocked 107 of 135 domains on d3ward’s test, or 79%.

OpenVPN TCP collapsed to 87.51 Mbps, less than half what UDP returned on the same server. And Surfshark keeps your IP address for up to 15 minutes after a session ends. Its marketing pages never lead with that one.

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Surfshark Review: Quick Look

Starting price	$2.49 per month, $67.23 for 27 months (Starter plan)
Renewal	$79 a year on the Starter plan, so $6.58 per month
Money-back guarantee	30 days, refunded in about 10 minutes in our test
Protocols	WireGuard, OpenVPN UDP and TCP, Dausos on macOS
No-log policy	Yes, with IP addresses kept for 15 minutes after a session
Countries	100, counted in the app
Download speed loss	9.6% averaged across our three server locations
Upload speed loss	5.9% averaged
MultiHop	Yes, custom pairs, at a 2.9% speed cost
Streaming	13 of the 14 streaming services we tested
Port forwarding	No
Ad and tracker blocking	CleanWeb, 79% on d3ward’s test
Simultaneous connections	Unlimited
Supported devices	Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Fire TV, Apple TV, routers, browsers
Customer support	24/7 live chat, email, help center

Surfshark Speed Test Results

For this review, we measured on a 190.36 Mbps connection on Windows 11 from Europe, via Ethernet, using Speedtest. Each location was checked at three times of day across three days, on WireGuard.

Server	Download	Upload	Ping	Download loss
No VPN	190.36 Mbps	19.37 Mbps	10 ms	n/a
UK	186.96 Mbps	18.93 Mbps	51 ms	1.8%
US	170.38 Mbps	18.23 Mbps	150 ms	10.5%
Japan	158.84 Mbps	17.54 Mbps	243 ms	16.6%
Average	172.06 Mbps	18.23 Mbps	n/a	9.6%

The British figure is the best this review has recorded from any VPN. At 186.96 Mbps, Surfshark took 1.8% off a 190.36 Mbps connection. Nothing about daily use changes at that level. The American server is where the cost shows, at 10.5%, and Japan at 16.6% is the price of distance. Upload behaves better than the download figures suggest, losing 5.9% on average. The old reputation for weak Surfshark uploads is not something our measurements support.

WireGuard, OpenVPN and MultiHop Compared

We measured each protocol on the same British server, in the same session, and timed each one from a cold launch. WireGuard and OpenVPN UDP finished 1.4 Mbps apart, so the protocol choice makes no practical difference between those two. OpenVPN TCP is the outlier. At 87.51 Mbps, it returned less than half the UDP figure on the same server.

Protocol	Download	Upload	Ping	Connection time
WireGuard	186.96 Mbps	18.93 Mbps	51 ms	4 to 5 seconds
OpenVPN UDP	185.56 Mbps	18.47 Mbps	64 ms	4 to 5 seconds
MultiHop	181.59 Mbps	18.60 Mbps	58 ms	10 seconds
OpenVPN TCP	87.51 Mbps	18.38 Mbps	82 ms	4 to 5 seconds

The loaded ping climbed to 149 ms on download and 851 ms on upload. TCP is where Surfshark applies Camouflage Mode, its obfuscation layer, and that is the most likely explanation for the drop. MultiHop deserves its own note. Chaining Manchester through Frankfurt cost 2.9% of the download speed, cheap for a second encrypted hop. The catch is the wait. It took 10 seconds to connect, compared with four or five on a single server.

The app also lets you build your own pair from the full server list, instead of picking from preset combinations. NoBorders is on by default, and switching it off changed nothing we could measure. Turning on Rotating IP, which cycles your address at intervals without dropping the connection, produced the same result. Both features cost nothing to leave on.

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Surfshark Price and Plans

Three tiers share the same VPN in this Surfshark review, and the 24-month terms arrive with three extra months, so the first term covers 27 months.

• The Starter plan: $2.49 a month, $67.23 for 27 months, then $79 a year. Covers unlimited devices and includes the VPN and Alternative ID.
• The One plan: $2.79 a month, $75.33 for 27 months, then $99 a year. Adds the antivirus, Alert Breach Monitoring, and Surfshark Search.
• The One+ plan: $4.49 a month, $121.23 for 27 months, then $119 a year. Adds Incogni data broker removal and identity theft coverage.

The 30-cent difference between Starter and One is the easiest decision. For that, the antivirus and breach monitoring arrive, and buying either separately costs far more. Annual plans cover 15 months at $3.39, $3.59, and $7.49 a month. Monthly plans are $16.45, $18.95 and $21.85, which no calculation makes sensible beyond a short trial. A dedicated IP address is an add-on at $3.75 a month.

The full pricing breakdown covers each tier, and current Surfshark coupons move the entry rate through the year. A 24-month plan renews on a 12-month term instead of another 24. The Starter plan’s $79 a year comes to $6.58 a month, so the second year costs 2.6 times the first. Surfshark also states in its terms that it conducts price testing on the renewal figures it displays.

Refunds, the Free Trial and Payment

Every plan includes a 30-day money-back guarantee. For this review, we asked through live chat, paid by PayPal, and the money was back in about 10 minutes. Card refunds take longer. The Surfshark free trial is 7 days on iOS and Android, the longest mobile trial in this category, and it requires a payment method. Payment methods are card, PayPal, Apple Pay, and cryptocurrency through CoinGate, and refunds apply to crypto payments, which some VPNs exclude.

Surfshark Security Review

The feature set goes deeper than the price implies, and this review tested the One plan. The app was version 6.18.0 at the time of this review.

The Kill Switch Passed Both Tests

Surfshark’s kill switch has a history of failing under specific conditions, so this was the test we cared most about. We tested it on Windows 11 the two ways that break most apps. First, the Ethernet cable was pulled mid-session.

Second, the app process was killed from Task Manager, with a continuous ping active. No packets escaped in either test. The earlier weakness has been fixed.

CleanWeb Scored 79%

CleanWeb blocks ads, trackers, and malware domains at the DNS level, so it covers every app on the device instead of one browser. On d3ward’s blocklist test, it stopped 107 of 135 domains, or 79%. Here is that figure beside the other ad blockers we have measured on the same test:

Blocker	Domains blocked
PIA MACE	96%
Proton VPN NetShield	93%
Surfshark CleanWeb	79%
NordVPN Threat Protection Pro	76%
ExpressVPN Advanced Protection	71%

The Web Content Blocker is inside the same settings panel and blocks whole categories, including adult sites, gambling, weapons, and drugs. We tested the adult and gambling categories, and both were blocked on the first attempt, which makes it a usable parental control without a second subscription.

CleanWeb has no counter. Nothing in the app reports what it stopped or when, so the feature works invisibly and the result is a matter of trust unless you test it yourself.

Bypasser, Alternative ID and Alert

Bypasser is Surfshark’s split tunneling. It covers applications and individual websites on Windows, the wider of the two approaches, while macOS covers apps only. Alternative ID generates a full persona, with a name, date of birth, country, and a forwarding email address, for sites that demand personal details you would rather not hand over. It is included on every plan, including Starter.

The forwarding address puts Surfshark between you and every message sent to that alias, which is worth understanding before using it for something important. Alert monitors a registered email address against breach databases and reports what was exposed in each one. It stops at reporting: there is no password change and no removal request, so acting on the findings is left to you.

Antivirus and Scam Text Protection

The antivirus on the One and One+ plans is a real-time scanner with a threat database that updates throughout the day and web protection that blocks malicious downloads. Depth is where it trails a dedicated product, since there is no behavioral analysis for zero-day threats. Our Surfshark Antivirus review covers it on its own terms. Scam Text Protection on iOS and Android scans incoming messages and moves suspected scams to spam.

It works, and it overreaches: during testing, it flagged a bill reminder from a telecom operator as a scam. Check the spam folder for the first few weeks.

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Surfshark Review: IP and DNS Leak Test Results

For this review, we checked ipleak.net and browserleaks.com on the British, American, and Japanese servers. Windows 11 throughout, with the browser cache deleted between sessions. No IP address leaks, no DNS leaks, and no WebRTC exposure. Our home IP address appeared nowhere, including the IPv6 test.

One qualification applies to the browser extension. It works as a proxy instead of a full tunnel, so it covers browser traffic alone. A torrent client alongside it stays outside the tunnel unless the desktop app is connected as well.

Surfshark Privacy Review: What It Keeps

Surfshark operates from the Netherlands, a Nine Eyes member, which means a court can compel the company to hand over what it stores. That makes the contents of the policy more important than usual. The privacy policy states that Surfshark stores no browsing history, session information, bandwidth used, timestamps, or network traffic. It does keep an email address, payment details, and your IP address for up to 15 minutes after a session ends to prevent account abuse.

That retention is the detail worth understanding. It comes with no timestamps and no browsing data, so it cannot show what a subscriber did. Deloitte’s 2025 audit verified the 15-minute deletion window instead of taking the policy’s word for it, and Surfshark publishes a transparency report listing the legal requests it receives and what it hands over.

Audits and Verification

The audit record is long for a VPN at this price. Cure53 examined the browser extensions in 2018 and the infrastructure in 2021. Deloitte audited the no-log policy in 2023 and again in 2025. SecuRing reviewed the infrastructure in early 2026, and the mobile apps received a MASA certificate in late 2023.

Deloitte’s involvement is the strongest part of that record. Verifying a deletion window is a harder claim to check than the absence of logging, and the RAM-only server network leaves no persistent storage behind.

Surfshark Review: Streaming and Torrenting

Thirteen of the 14 streaming services we tested opened. ITVX was the only failure, blocking every attempt across several British servers.

Netflix US	BBC iPlayer	ITVX	Hulu	Prime Video	Disney+
Opened	Opened	Blocked	Opened	Opened	Opened

Disney+ is the result worth dwelling on. It blocked all VPN desktop apps in my tests, and Surfshark opened it directly; the browser extension worked as a second method. BBC iPlayer streamed at 1080p from the London server, and the Netflix libraries we tried loaded on the first attempt.

There are no separate streaming servers to hunt through, so any server in a country opens that country’s streaming apps. For torrenting, every server accepts P2P and speeds stay high enough that the tunnel is not the limit.

Port forwarding is absent, so seeding ratios on private trackers suffer, and that audience is better served elsewhere.

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Surfshark Review: Server Network and Infrastructure

The app lists 100 countries, with the network RAM-only throughout, so every reboot wipes the server. Coverage is strong across Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific, and thinner in Africa and the Middle East, so check your specific country before committing. Two pieces of infrastructure stand out.

Everlink is a patented self-healing layer. It reconfigures the tunnel when a server fails or goes down for maintenance, without dropping your connection or exposing your IP address. It applies automatically on WireGuard, with nothing to switch on. In testing, we saw two brief reconnects, each under three seconds. Surfshark is also testing 100 Gbps servers in Amsterdam, compared to the 10 Gbps standard across the rest of the network.

Its own announcement describes this as a small test deployment ahead of any wider rollout, so treat it as a sign of direction instead of something you can connect to today. Static IP addresses are available in Germany, Singapore, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, and the US, and a dedicated IP address is the paid alternative.

Does Surfshark Work in Censored Countries?

We haven’t tested Surfshark in China for this review. The mechanism is Camouflage Mode, which disguises VPN traffic as ordinary HTTPS on OpenVPN connections. NoBorders works alongside it, curating a server list when it detects a restricted network. The OpenVPN TCP figures further up show what that obfuscation costs in speed. Our Surfshark in China page tracks what keeps working on the ground.

On networks that filter instead of banning, a work connection or hotel Wi-Fi, NoBorders opened everything we pointed it at without a setting change.

Surfshark App Review: Ease of Use

The apps look consistent across devices, so the layout you learn on Windows applies to macOS, Android, and iOS. Connections took 4 to 5 seconds on both WireGuard and OpenVPN, which is slower than the quickest apps in this category, and MultiHop’s 10 seconds is the longest wait of any setting we timed. The sidebar shows more icons than the plan you are on will use.

Several lead to upsell prompts instead of features, which takes a few minutes to map. One behavior is worth recording. With NordVPN and ExpressVPN installed and idle, Surfshark detected them, showed a warning, and connected anyway on most attempts. That is the opposite of what several rival apps do in the same situation. Unlimited simultaneous connections apply on every plan.

We connected nine devices at once over 72 hours with no throttling and no dropped sessions, which makes it a straightforward buy for a full household, and the Fire TV app covers televisions, including the newer Vega OS sticks.

Compatibility

• Windows, macOS and Linux computers
• iOS and Android phones and tablets
• Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV and Nvidia Shield
• Routers, game consoles and Raspberry Pi
• Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Brave extensions

Surfshark Customer Support Review

Live chat opens with a bot, and the transfer to a human took under 20 seconds on every attempt. Agents answered product questions properly instead of falling back on a script. The design problem is finding the chat. It is at the bottom of the Help Center instead of the main site, so a first-time subscriber with a connection problem has to hunt for it. The knowledge base itself is thorough, and searches returned the right article for three of our four test queries.

Surfshark Review: Conclusion

This review finds Surfshark well past the compromise it used to be. The British speed figure is the best we have recorded, the streaming results are near-perfect, unlimited devices apply on the cheapest plan, and the audit record is longer than the price implies. The trade is a 15-minute IP retention window that stricter VPNs avoid, an ad blocker in the middle of the field, no port forwarding, and a renewal at 2.6 times the opening rate.

For a closer look at the alternatives, our Surfshark alternatives guide covers the other candidates, and the VPN and antivirus bundles page covers the security suite angle.

Frequently Asked Questions