Surfshark VPN: Fast & Reliable Ratings and Reviews

I hardly EVER give 5 stars

Surfshark is hands down the best VPN I have used. And I have used quite a bit. Hola, Betternet, Hotspot Shield, ExpressVPN, you name it. Not one of them comes close to Surfshark! The servers are speedy. Your privacy is real. I looked up my IP several times and I am most definitely in the country I selected.

And privacy is what you really want these days. And Surfshark gives you that. Customer service? Are you kidding me? They answer immediately in chat and are extremely helpful? I don’t think I have ever had this much help from a VPN company. When I asked questions in chat over at ExpressVPN all they wanted to do was sell me an extremely expensive subscription. Surfshark takes the time to help you, guide you through the process, even if you know next to nothing about WiFi, VPN’s or are not really tech savvy.

Hands down, Surfshark is the best VPN I have ever used. I stated as much above and I will stand by it. And it really is very affordable. It works every single day, every single time you connect. And they are constantly making it better and updating the app. If you have an issue, which has been rare for me, they are on top of it. Very helpful. Very friendly. Very knowledgeable. I will definitively continue being a subscriber.

Developer Response ,

Hello! Unfortunately, you would only be able to access mentioned streaming service while using desktop devices only. Our tech-team is indeed looking for a solution regarding this matter and hopefully the matter will be resolved soon.

Works when I need it the least

****Update: Surfshark has requested I contact customer support. The first I’ve heard from them is after this review. I have sent several Bug Reports and submitted identifiable feed back several times, as well, with no response. The problem is, when the issues occur, I am then unable to access the web, due to the issue.****

Surfshark works when I’m at home or on a friends network. It works on cellular for the most part. I often have to click on fastest connection as mine slows. But, when in an airport, a restaurant, work, or public wifi with an anchor page, Surfshark is almost useless. The difficulties connecting to public wifi with anchor pages is beyond infuriating. Sometimes it will connect with little issue or immediately. Most times it takes 3-5 minutes. Those are usually the times when I have only 5-10 minutes to be on the web and I waste half of it trying to get Surfshark to connect. Then there are the occasional times like today. It took an hour and 15 minutes of waiting while it tried to connect. Waiting while it tried to connect after a VPN configuration reset. Rinse and repeat. Waiting more after configuration reset and iPad restart. Waiting after app uninstall and install. Then, waiting after uninstall, restart, and install. Finally, after one more uninstall, restart and install, it connects. Please fix this! Please! Pretty please!

Developer Response ,

Hello! We are sorry to hear that you have encountered issues with Surfshark. Could you please contact our customer success team at support@surfshark.com or via live chat on our website so that we could look into your issues further? We will do our best in order to provide solutions to them!

24/7 VPN without issues

I have tried about 4 different VPN services to protect my online life but haven’t found one that works well on LTE/5G until now. ExpressVPN was my favorite everything except when i was connected to cellular networks. The transition from a cellular network to WiFi and vice versa caused major issues and had me constantly fiddling with my phone to reestablish connection after the kill switch had been tripped.

Enter Surfshark!

After some more googling to hopefully find a cheaper replacement for ExpressVPN, I stumbled across Surfshark. Their impressive price point packed in LOADS of features and I couldn’t wait to try it. I was more than surprised by its performance.

In the past i don’t think I held a stable mobile connection for more than a few hours before a handoff between cell towers or a WiFi router caused everything to come to a halt.

…with Surfshark, I ran my VPN for 30 hours once and didn’t even realize it was still on!

To me that’s the beauty of this service. It’s a set it and forget type of service that can do as little or as much as you want. You don’t want security to be a hassle, and Surfshark is the exact opposite. The speed is nothing to sneeze at either. I wouldn’t rank it at the tip top, but it is not slacking. At an average of 100Mb/s - 150Mb/s, this VPN is plenty fast and will easily stream 4K video. So far, I haven’t found anything to complain about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- Happy Customer

After 1 1/2 years of using surfshark….

Overall good VPN service. There are a couple of issues I had like using surfshark with a couple of routers that support VPN. XBOX & PlayStation as well as Roku devices I wish I could have connected those as well but has proven to be very difficult if not impossible. Minor bugs like being able to login from some of my other devices. When trying to login using the passwords given from surfshark the app will allow you to type in the password on certain browsers and sometimes the passwords don’t work at all. Also when using surfshark you have to be careful to remember to turn it off on cellular because I notice my iPhone and iPad Pro will go through data like crazy when I’m not even on my devices very much like overnight when I wake up my devices used up more data while I was asleep than when I was actually using them. So that’s something to look out for. On the plus side Speeds are fast compared to other providers and connection time is super fast. Whenever I checked my ip and dns, connection was 100% secure everytime. So surfshark is very secure once your able to setup all of your devices which can be a task. I’ve used 3 different name brand VPN providers and surfshark I put at the top of that list.

Developer Response ,

Hey! Thank you for your review. Could you reach out to our support via LiveChat on our website? You can also send us a letter at support@surfshark.com and we're sure that our friendly support agents will help you solve the issues that you're having as quickly as they can!

UPDATE

UPDATE: Sept 2021 this app slows my IPhone so much I must shut off the VPN. Not sure why… talking to a tech is nearly impossible:-(

EARLIER: Four days without data/internet

And four days of incompetence from ATT phone techs who twice lost me when doing tests and never called back, a tech who said she couldn’t help me because others had tried and a supervisor who called me Monday night at 10:30pm to assure me she would solve the problem and call me back... it’s now Thursday night and she never called back. On Wednesday an online ATT tech sent me to an ATT store and I git a new SIMS card that didn’t help but the guy went they all my settings and found nothing wrong... I went home, called again and ATT tech sent me to the Geek Squad at Best Buy’s a waste of time (100 mile round trip) who told me to go to an APPLE store but online it said ALL APPLE STORES CLOSED UNTIL JUNE 1 (today May 27). I called Apple support who gave an appointment to the ONE Apple store open in Michigan for repair only the next day. Another 100 mile round trip but they fixed it. The solution was very simple that every ATT knucklehead should have asked or realized... my VPN had crashed causing me to lose all data/internet connection. SO BEWARE your VPN might crash and cause you problems! JUST shut it off, update and reboot to save all the headaches I had.

Developer Response ,

Hello! Let us sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you had to encounter with our secure VPN service. Could you please contact our friendly live chat support or drop us a line at support@surfshark.com so that we could help you resolve these issues as soon as possible? Thank you!

Works for some content, but not others

I downloaded this app to try to access content in the US as I am in Japan. For the most part, the app is easy to setup, turn on, & I had no trouble verifying that it is working as expected. Unfortunately, it really depends on what content you are trying to access. First, it didn't work when I opened CNN. I was seeing the international page. But after tweaking the VPN, CNN was working. But for reason, no matter what I tried, NFL is still able to detect my real location. So I'm not able to access NFL content restricted in the US. So if you are needing a VPN for NFL, this app will not work for you. I also had a live chat with a rep who confirmed this.
I also discovered that the Home tab in the app has some accessibility issues. It doesn't seem to scroll. Probably not a big issue, once the app is setup, you will not need to open it much. But it would be nice to be able to access the Home tab & the info on the screen without difficulty. So the app needs improvement in accessibility.
Lastly, it seems that when VPN is running, my phone's battery drains a little faster. I have tested other VPN apps that did not drain my phone's battery anymore than usual. This is definitely an area Surfshark can improve on.

Developer Response ,

Greetings! Thank you for your review hope your day is going well. Regarding battery drain, we'd highly recommend you to try out the IKEv2 connection protocol which you can change them in the Surfshark App - Settings - VPN Settings. As for your Home Tab issues, an app reinstall might just fix it as it does sound like a bug. If there are any other issues with the service, do not hesitate to reach out to our customer support services once again!

Average

• Good
• Affordable
• Good Customer Service (responds to email quickly)
• Reliability...? and here’s why. Reasons why we use VPN is to hide our IP for security reasons. In addition, we use VPN to be able to access apps that is only available in other countries. Connecting to other states is no issue. Connecting to other countries is unstable. I tried to connect to an Asian Country coz the app is only available to this specific country only. At first it worked and I was so happy that I finally have found a VPN that’s affordable and had this specific country available. The next time I tried connecting again to this Asian country and it did connected then opened the app that allows only that specific country tells me that “this app is not available in other countries “. ??? I toggled back to the VPN and it says I am still connected to that specific asian country. I verified the location that I’m connected with on IPlocation site and it’s telling me that the IP address that I’m connected to is in Europe when actually the VPN says I’m connected to an Asian country. So yes, the VPN is kinda unstable. From time to time the app recognizes that I’m connected to an asian IP address when at times I’m in Europe. I hope they fix this problem.

Developer Response ,

Hello there! Thank you for taking the time and writing this review. Regarding the App Store - since upon registering you need to actually enter your location along with ZIP Code and your credit card, simple VPN IP change will not make you appear elsewhere. With VPN you need to create a different App Store profile in the desired location. As for the IP location checker - not all of them provide most up-to-date information. Some have old databases which could not be trusted, moreover, if the servers you connect to are newly obtained by us. I would recommend you to contact me at Miles@surfshark.com so we could talk this over and solve these issues. Miles.

Works, but eh..

So yea it definitely works well, let’s me surf the web on my computer without any worries of someone tracking what I’m up to. It Let’s me access other regional content that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to watch, like advertised. That aspect of the app works great and I’m really happy with it. However the reason I only gave it 3 * was because of the way that it works on my iPhone. When I first turn the app on it works fine, if not a little slower then normal. When I put my phone away for a while and come back to it is usually when I start to have problems. Starts with the phone just being pretty slow, longer download speeds and webpage loading time. Then eventually after a handful of hours pages just will stop loading. I play Pokémon go and that app in particular seems to really hate when a VPN is running in the background. I think having so many issues with that specific app may have kinda soured me but I’m trying to be reasonable. It works for just regular browsing on your laptop without issues for sure and even to an extent on your phone. If you play Pokémon go however, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Developer Response ,

Hi there! Thanks for your feedback! As of now, we don't support playing Pokemon Go with Surfshark, and this app can be pretty strict with its rules against VPN usage. As for the other troubles you seem to be having with the VPN on - could you double-check to make sure that battery saver is not enabled when the issues appear? If not, please come to chat with our 24/7 customer support team, or drop them an email at support@surfshark.com - they will be more than happy to investigate the issue you're having.

I’d give it 1 star, but I feel like my case may be the exception given the other ratings/reviews.

Since I installed this VPN around 48 hours ago it has completely turned my iPhone upside down. All of the sudden basically all of my contacts are blocked? I get this error message saying “Unable to Send Message, Message Blocking Active”…except I didn’t block any of these people, nor did they block me. Plus, it’s all of my contacts save a few from what I can tell. I’ve tried power cycling my phone, a hard reset, I’ve tried it away from home (outside of Wi-Fi), it’s all the same and makes zero sense. Then it’s effecting my apps, the McDonald’s app wouldn’t load at all, it was a complete lost cause. Then my email clients were both faulty, it’s like it just dropped a nuke inside my device. Idk, I’m about to just delete the whole thing and hope to god it helps and undoes the damage. I’m afraid that I’ll get rid of it and it will stay the same, then I’ll be left with the mess. I’d write it off to something else but there hasn’t been any other substantial changes made to my device or day-to-day operations. Would appreciate if someone would reach out to me and help resolve this issue.

Developer Response ,

Hello! Thank you so much for your input. Our customer support team will gladly help you out if you contact them at support@surfshark.com.

Does not work for all websites or apps

Whenever it works it’s fine, but just know that many many apps and websites will not work on. Example: anytime I click on cnn website the VPN automatically disconnects and you have to go back to the app and reconnect and sometimes do this about 5 times in a row, then the website will be visible but only that as anything I click on it will again automatically disconnect and I have to repeat the process. This happens between 1,200 and 2000 times a month, so I always spend the same amount time trying to reconnect the VPN as I actually do web surfing so if I want to block my isp from harvesting my info I have to frustratingly go through this over and over, or I can just disconnect and every app and website works perfectly and displays super fast. A trade off: spend half of your time surfing anonymously and the other reconnecting your VPN over and over or just surf the web and not care about your data but what is even more frustrating is that the whole point was for me to be protected on my works open wireless so I can do online banking but 90% of the time I can’t open the bank app with the VPN active.