Surfshark VPN review | Macworld

Price When Reviewed

Starter plan from $2.19 a month for two years + 3 free months. Usually $15.45 a month.

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We’ve updated this review for 2025.

The joy of VPNs becoming more popular is that services spring up all over the place aiming to be worth your time and money. One such option is SurfShark, which remains a reliable, affordable option that there’s a good chance your favorite tech YouTuber has endorsed at some point in time.

SurfShark has more than 3000 servers spread across 100 countries, making its network one of the widest and most varied of any VPN, as well as a backbone of excellent apps across just about any operating system, Apple or otherwise (although I did find it slowed my MacBook down a little during testing). Surfshark has a VPN app for Apple TV too, which should simplify the process of accessing region-locked content on that device.

It supports multiple protocols and excellent encryption, as well as a privacy-minded no-logs policy that’s regularly audited – something even big hitters like NordVPN can’t guarantee.

So, whether you’re looking to buy a product from another country, access a different country’s selection of streaming service libraries from the comfort of your home, or want to just keep your data private when using coffee shop Wi-Fi, SurfShark is well worth a look.

For more options take a look at our round-ups of the best VPNs for Mac, best VPNs for iPhone and best VPNs for iPad.

You can sign up for Surfshark here.

Surfshark Features & Apps

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As with many of its competitors, SurfShark offers three tiers of features at varying price points. The most basic option, aptly named SurfShark Starter, offers VPN functionality as well as an ad blocker and the option to generate a proxy email address and personal details for sites you don’t feel comfortable about giving your information to.

SurfShark One, which the company refers to as the ‘Best choice’, adds email and payment detail breach alerts, as well as personal data security reports, antivirus and other malware protection, while the One+ plan adds data removal from company databases and people search sites (in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and EU).

It’s a comprehensive feature set, but while SurfShark certainly tempts with a price starting at just $2.39/£1.79 per month at the time of writing, it’s tied to a two-year bundle. With VPN legislation seemingly always in flux, there’s a risk in tying into anything longer than a year – and there’s no guarantee the price won’t go up after any length of membership.

Once it’s installed, it’s easy to get connected to one of its dizzying array of connections – simply click the country on the left column and it’ll start connecting immediately. The macOS app offers light and dark modes, and you can opt to have it shown in the dock or the menu bar which is a nice touch (although I always prefer the latter). As well as an iOS app there is an app for Apple TV.

I also took the iOS version of SurfShark for a spin and was pleased to see features like MultiHop and Dedicated IP are baked in. Many mobile apps are watered-down versions of their desktop VPN offerings, but there’s even the Alternative ID function here.

Surfshark Performance

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When I reviewed SurfShark previously, I found the performance to be inconsistent with results others had seen, but since then my own network has seen an upgrade and I’ve moved to a more recent MacBook model, so we wanted to run the test again.

You’ll notice connection speed fluctuations with a VPN more with a slower connection than with a superfast one, but my use case falls somewhere in the middle.

With WireGuard, SurfShark is, quite simply, the slickest VPN around, removing very little speed from my connection. In fact, testing on around an 800 Mbps connection (up from the last time we tested), the drop was to around 720 to 750 Mbps which is still absolutely fantastic and tears away from the opposition.

OpenVPN is better for compatibility, though, and after the fine folks at Surfshark asked us to crunch the numbers again, I’m pleased to say things are much swifter than when I tested before. OpenVPN still sees a steeper drop, but it’s still running at anywhere between 400 and 450 Mbps.

Whichever protocol I used, I was able to flick between streaming libraries with ease, do a bit of shopping for digital goods, and there were no real issues – at least in so far as connectivity.

In my prior testing, SurfShark’s Mac app felt as though it was grinding my daily login to a halt, but on the M3 MacBook Air whatever issue was there before seems to be fixed, with no discernible performance drop (thank goodness).

Surfshark Privacy & Security

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Geoblocking aside, those protocols also offer varying degrees of encryption, all end-to-end to keep your data secure at source and in transit.

The Kill Switch feature is billed as a “safety net”, and like a safety net, it’s something you’ll hope to never use – but you’ll be glad if you have to. It’ll shut down your connection if your VPN connection falters, preventing personal data from sneaking out to bad actors. It won’t reconnect automatically, which in this case is a good thing.

Surfshark is headquartered in the Netherlands and has undergone a series of security audits in recent months. A “no logs” policy is hard to prove (how can a company show you it doesn’t have your data if it never collected any in the first place?) but Surfshark’s process means it logs a small amount of data that’s then scrubbed from its servers with 15 minutes of closing the connection.

This data isn’t attributed to a user by name, so a user ID and connection time are all that’s logged, and then those are removed.

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The Antivirus Scan is handy, too, and it’ll run scheduled background scans if you leave the app open. Two beta features, Ransomware Shield and Webcam Protection can stop your personal folders and hardware camera from falling into the wrong hands respectively, and the app will constantly look to update its database of viruses to cross-reference files.

While Google’s algorithm continually tries to eat itself, Surfshark offers a handy tracker-free browser within the app that moves to your browser of choice. This “private” search is intended to surface “truly organic results”, but in my testing it was hit and miss, oscillating between YouTube videos, old Reddit posts, and the articles I was genuinely looking for.

Surfshark pricing and plans

As mentioned earlier, two years is a long time to be tied into a VPN, but to its credit, SurfShark’s prices are so low that it almost feels worth the risk. $2.19/£1.69 per month (for 24 months, plus three three months) is very little indeed, and while that doesn’t offer some of the more advanced security features, even the priciest tier is only $4.29/£3.09 at a month for 24 months (plus three free months). Just note that Surfshark frequently adjusts these savings, so you may find it costs fractionally more or less. We round up the best VPN deals separately.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to be stuck in a plan you can sign up on a monthly plan. Monthly plans range from $15.45/£12.29 to $20.65/£14.99, depending on which features you opt for.

You can sign up for Surfshark here.

It’s one of the cheapest options out there, and that may just make it worth a look even if you’re looking to use train Wi-Fi while commuting each month, even if you don’t end up springing for one of the pricier plans with additional features. Still, there’s no guarantee it’ll stay as cheap as this when it comes to renewal.

Verdict

I’d always advise against a two-year plan for any VPN, but the price of Surfshark’s cheapest plan is so cheap over that time that it remains tempting.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that it’s a remarkably privacy-focused, secure VPN that’s easily capable of getting around geo-blocked content, too. Whatever you’re looking to use a VPN for, there’s a good chance you’ll get what you’re looking for with SurfShark.