I’ve decided to try out Surfshark given that it is probably one of the cheapest VPN if you are willing to lock down for 2 years, and I am not too demanding on features. Up until now, I have only ever used Private Internet Access, so this is my sole reference point. This is just a first impression given that this is only the second day. I must also point out that I have a pretty slow internet connection (approximately 16Mbit down, 6-8MBit up) at the moment, so I am nowhere near the limit of what the VPN can provide.
Speedwise, both Surfshark and PIA are similar on my connection, giving speed very close to no VPN (on the fastest server it is about 15.xx/6.xx). After a couple of tests on different servers, including servers much further away, I found that PIA seem to provide a fraction more bandwidth, while SS seem to have a slightly lower ping, but for the most part, there is not to distinguish the two on my current connection.
Once connected, I haven’t had any issues with disconnections (after about 10+ hours of use) with either VPN.
However, I find that Surfshark can take a while to connect. It might be just the first connection after booting, I am not too sure right now, but sometime it takes up to three attempts to finally connect (but it has never failed to eventually connect) which takes a bit of time. After doing that earlier though, right now I can disconnect and reconnect and it will do so pretty quickly without issues. With PIA though, I never had any connection issues.
I also prefer PIA’s software. Functionally, like that PIA shows the ping to their various servers, and I also think that Surfshark’s software load a bit slower when it first start up. Aesthetically, Surfshark takes more screen estate compared to PIA at the smallest, and some of the font they use is kinda small. Not a big deal breaker since you’ll probably just set it up and minimise it anyway, but still.
The streaming service I use is Amazon Prime (JP). PIA has never worked as long as I’ve tried. Surfshark worked for about 90min earlier before it stopped working. I might try again with a different server. The fact that it did work for a short time is pretty big plus over PIA.
SS also have servers in more countries including regions where I spend time in. As someone who travels often, this could be a plus if they perform.
There are other points that are often raised but I am not sure if it really makes practical difference. For instance fact that PIA is in the 5 eyes, whereas SS is not in the 14 eyes. PIA supports port forwarding (that I’ve not used) but SS doesn’t. I am also in no position to know how secure each service is.
If you don’t want to lock yourself down for 2+ years, then Surfshark isn’t cheap. Well, it wouldn’t make sense to take their 1 year plan at the moment given that their 2 year plan is cheaper in absolute term so you are gambling that their service won’t get oversold and become unusable in those two years. If the service doesn’t go down the drain though, it is great for the bargain shopper.
I bought the 2 year deal and I haven’t regret it. Use it mainly on my Shield Android TV and the UI is easy to use. Speeds are good enough, and it never disconnected on me yet.
Remember: Surfshark doesn’t have unlimited connection. They’re simply conning people. How do I know this? Because I tried to connect 25 devices at once and I was blocked for 24 hours. After contacting support I came to know they do this to prevent account sharing. WTF?
Just a short summary of my personal experience - have been using surfshark for a few months now (also got the two year deal) and overall it has been working well for me. Some days connection takes some time, some days it happens in a sec or so. Once connected tho everything seems to be sailing smoothly. Have no problem with torrenting also, use it with utorrent currently, thinking about switching to qbittorrent. Whitelister (split-tunneling) and cleanweb also have been quite beneficial additions. I did contact their support a couple of times and the live chat seemed to pull through so no bad mouthing there. Pretty happy with the amount of service you get for the little cash you pay. Been reading a lot before comitting to a long term plan and honestly there’s allways something controversial about all the providers, but surfshark seems to have as much trustworthiness as a VPN company could have.
That is good. It’s a relief to hear that they count how many active connections each account has. Because it means that their service won’t degrade by someone giving his account to 10000000 friends.
For a true person who buys it for THEMSELVES/their family, 25 devices is the same as “unlimited”. That’s a LOT of phones, tables and computers, mate!
doesn’t matter how cheap it is, if the owner is questionable…
Before 2017, Crossrider was not in the VPN business, but rather, the malware business (we’ll cover this below). However, in March 2017, Crossrider purchased CyberGhost VPN for about $10 million.
Crossrider (Kape) created “high risk” malware and adware
Before changing its name to Kape Technologies in 2018, the company was called Crossrider.
If you take a minute to research Crossrider, you see that it is a company that built a (bad) reputation from creating malware and adware products. There are many different articles about Crossrider’s malware and adware, such as this article from Malwarebytes:
tell me again how it’s a great deal, when the owners reputation is in the mud and how you can trust such people with your data responsibly? lel
by cure53? and that digitalocean/datapacket stuff, i didn’t know about that good points.
i found this
This is where things get fishy.
Surfshark did not allow the auditors infrastructure or backend access, so although the browser extensions are believed to be ‘safe’, this accreditation only extends to the code that runs locally on your machine. It doesn’t, and this is extremely important, validate the security and encryption of your connection, the best practices used by Surfshark or how secure their infrastructure is. Additionally use of any other platforms, other than the two browser extensions, have not been audited.
In summary, running the Surfshark VPN is like connecting to a blackhole. Not even the independent security auditors know how secure your data is, and this should worry you.
Who would you recommend if not PIA and CyberGhost? I am trying to do my research but its so confusing. Its almost like no one is anygood but I really have no idea.
Yeah most if not all have sone kind of problem. In my opinion if you just want a vpn that does the job just get surfshark. UI is very friendly and has shadowsocks as a protocol which is nice.
no netflix though…