The worst thing I can say about it is that the interface stuttered a little at times, though that could also be because I tested it on a virtual machine running Windows 10. It’s simple and gives you a great overview, so you never truly feel lost. Each time I sent our polite request for them to honor their money-back guarantee, I got something back asking us to reconsider, usually reciting one of their marketing claims about how Surfshark is the best, etc, etc.Īgain, I got our money back in the end, it just wasn’t exactly a smooth process. However, you should know that, while you will get your money back, you’ll need to put up with some shenanigans to do so.įor example, when I went to get our refund, I had to send a total of four emails to Surfshark support. If you’re not too sure about Surfshark but two years of service for $60 sounds good, then you’ll be happy to know that there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee in place.
I don’t recommend paying full price for Surfshark. After four years have passed, you can then opt for another, third, cheap service. For our money, I recommend you sign on to either one for two years, and then the other once that period is up. NordVPN does much the same, offering a very low rate to start with and then upping it dramatically when it’s time to sign on for real. For that money, you’d be much better off signing up to ExpressVPN-we compare the two providers in our ExpressVPN vs Surfshark piece if you’d like to know more details. Unsurprisingly, automatic renewal has been switched on for the customer’s convenience.Īt $30 per year, Surfshark’s teaser rate is an okay buy, but at almost $100 once the promo period ends, I’m a lot less keen on it. As it states in the fine print that is a little too translucent for our taste, after the initial period ends, you’ll pay $96 per year. However, there are a few caveats attached to this price: it only applies the first time you sign up. Any VPN can handle this for you, so if you don’t like Surfshark, you can simply use another service. This may seem like a great buy if you need to escape censorship, but thankfully you don’t need anything special to do so. Surfshark NoBordersĪnother interesting feature Surfshark offers is NoBorders, which promises special technology to get past internet blocks. Whatever the case may be, right now it works, and well. That said, the other explanation could be that Surfshark managed to get its hands on a large number of “clean” IPs to get into Netflix. The improved speeds promised by Nexus are still far away. While I admit I was a little skeptical of this at first (VPNs make a lot of promises they rarely fulfill), it seems to be working pretty well, at least for Netflix. Surfshark Nexus is a newly developed technology that allows Surfshark to randomize IP addresses.
However, there’s one development that may hold the answer: Surfshark Nexus.
I was very surprised at how well Surfshark manages streaming services, to be honest, as it used to have some trouble in this department. Hulu also seemed to work pretty well, though it seems Amazon Prime Video is still off-limits, which is normal. In fact, it went so well that I only tried three times instead of the normal five or so. When I tested, every single UK server I tried worked right away, as did the ones in the United States. Right now, though, Surfshark is where it’s at. In the past, for example, Surfshark had great trouble cracking Netflix, as did other VPNs, like NordVPN and ExpressVPN. The simple fact remains that when using a VPN for Netflix, you’re never sure if it will work or not. However, a lot of these minor criticisms are made good by how well Surfshark handles Netflix, or at least how well it works at the time of writing, in June 2022. It’s little annoyances like this that make Surfshark feel a little unpolished at times. NordVPN, for one, only takes a few seconds to do this. While I appreciate establishing a VPN tunnel between two servers isn’t instantaneous, I’m a little unsure why it takes Surfshark up to ten seconds at times. While 65 countries is fine and will do well for most people, it doesn’t make Surfshark stand out, either.Īnother thing that irks us a little about Surfshark is its very long connection times. Then again, ExpressVPN serves over 90 countries, while HideMyAss boasts servers in 210 countries (which is more countries than are in the UN it designates several dependencies as independent countries to make that math work). This is roughly on par with NordVPN, which has about 5,000 servers, albeit in fewer countries (60). For example, in June 2022, it has a widespread server network, with over 3,200 servers in 65 countries.