I decided to go with surf shark after a lot of research. I first heard about VPNs many years ago but didn’t really pay attention to them until I started watching true crime YouTubers. I like Surfshark because it allowed me to connect unlimited devices and had a nice amount of countries to choose from and I got a good deal. I paid for a 2 year service. My mom likes it because she can watch her shows in other countries now. So I really don’t like having issues with it but I do. One issue seems to be that I get alot of errors losing webpages or security errors and also chrome makes me do dozens of captchas which is annoying. That issue seems to have gotten a little better. But the main issue is that my kids and I have iPhones and it causes alot of data issues. If we have to update or restore our phones then we have to delete the Surfshark app and download it again or else no other app will work at all. Sometimes that happens for no reason. Like I went to bed last night with no issue. I get up this morning and no apps or webpages will download. I tried through two work networks and my data. Then I tried to turn the VPN off but it won’t let me. So I deleted it and then immediately my chrome page opened right up so I know it’s the VPN. I had to backup and restore my oldest daughters phone and the VPN caused all kinds of issues and I needed up in two apple tech chats and then an escalated phone call before I remembered the VPN issue. I deleted the app and no more issues. I had to do the same thing to all five of our iPhones when I switched carriers. It’s very annoying and I am the type of person who does almost all of their work on my mobile devices. So this is an issue that needs to be resolved. I have paid for two years of service and if I have to delete and reinstall the app every week it’s going to be a very frustrating two years.

****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!

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.

Auto connect doesn’t always work. I usually have to manually connect/disconnect the VPN whether I am on a trusted network or not. I think it may help to always have the app open, but even that doesn’t always work. I also have my auto connect set to certain connections, but it doesn’t always default to the one I’ve set. Sometimes the VPN will disconnect and my connection to a wifi will stay as well. This is a security risk and inconvenience as I’m expecting the connection to stay unless I switch networks or disconnect the VPN. Once in a while there will be interruptions to my connection as well, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the provider or the VPN is just working poorly at certain times. Occasionally it won’t work either on my devices, so I have to disconnect it entirely. Lastly, I will say the VPN works fine 99% of the time. The connection stays, is fast, and I’m sure it keeps you protected. However, that 1% is extremely important. I would rather experience a connection interruption than a security risk. I’m not sure how the other VPNs are, but this one is okay. It doesn’t deserve 4 stars though.Update March 2026: dropping my review down to 1 star due to a recent change that ruined the mobile VPN. The autoconnect/trusted network feature is completely broken and has likely exposed me to much more risk than it should have. If there are any decent VPN providers that are privacy first, I will switch in a heartbeat. This one has failed to maintain consistent protection. It went from working 99% of the time to 1%.