Sunday, October 6th
2024 VPN Service Provider Reviews
Surfshark
- Change your IP address
- Unlimited devices
- No logs kept on your use
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Security against viruses and malware
- Ad blocker and cloaking against search engine trackers
- Data breach detection, alerts, and security
Surfshark provides VPN service on an unlimited number of devices. They have a policy of not logging any of your browsing, strong encryption protection of your connection, Wi-Fi connection privacy, IP masking, and private DNS. With "No Borders” mode, you can get content in a region your IP address would normally be blocked from accessing.
Two Free Months with a Two-Year Plan
Surfshark costs $12.95 per month billed monthly, $3.99 per month billed yearly, or $2.30 per month billed every 2 years. With the 2-year plan, you also get 2 free months. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you don't find the service to your liking.
Support for Several Operating Systems and Devices
To use Surfshark, you aren't limited to just a few types of devices. Surfshark is supported on Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android. You can also set it up on LG TV, Apple TV, Smart TV, Android TV, Nvidia Shield, and your network router. Even though it's not advertised prominently on their website, Surfshark has browser extensions for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.
More Servers and Countries
Since our last review, Surfshark has increased its server count to over 3,200 servers in 95 countries for faster connection speeds and more availability. In almost all of those countries, they offer private DNS to bypass your local DNS and any blocks, camouflage mode to hide the fact that you're using a VPN, support for OpenVPN, WireGuard/IPSec/IKEv2 protocols, and browser extension support.
Lack of Better Business Bureau Representation
Since Surfshark doesn't have a listing with the Better Business Bureau, we were unable to evaluate them on that set of more independent standards. This is something of a concern for any company wishing to manage its reputation in the US and Canada.
Problematic Reviews
People who use Surfshark are generally happy, citing patient and professional support representatives, fast connections, and useful features. But there are complaints to make note of. Some customers were unhappy with the refund process not being in their favor when the software was not working properly for them, not being able to connect in India, being overcharged for the service compared to an advertised special, slow or non-existent support responses, and lack of privacy protection.
Problems with ending the subscription
Another common complaint was from people not being able to find or access a way to end their subscription's auto-renewal at the end of a 7-day trial or when trying to end their subscription after having trouble with the service. Support answered one customer by saying that how a subscription can be ended depends on the payment method, but that seemed like a non-starter given the many companies that offer subscription services that don't have such problems.
Good But Not Great
You might still want to try Surfshark and your experience may be a good one. But with the customer support issues noted above, we recommend you look for alternatives to Surfshark first.
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Who Has the Best VPN Service?
A VPN is a virtual private network that allows you to browse the Internet securely. It makes a private network for you that is encrypted (scrambled) so that all the data coming to or leaving your computer is unreadable to anyone trying to peek at your browsing habits. But if you have nothing to hide, why would you want to use a VPN?
The reality is that there are plenty of people in the world who would love to access your private information such as passwords and bank account numbers. For example, a hacker might want to steal your password as you submit it from your computer to your email provider to log in. There are also people who want to know what you're looking for on the Internet. Marketers want to see your exposed data about what you like to shop for. Governments desire to know at every moment what their citizens are discussing, searching, and browsing.
VPN Service Provider FAQ
Continued from above...
Your credit card information is particularly important to protect. Most websites these days have end-to-end encryption to protect sensitive purchase information. But for the ones that don't, or for when that technology fails, a VPN adds a layer of protection to keep hackers from "sniffing” out your credit card information.
Another bonus? If you want access to streaming media that is only available in certain countries, a VPN can make it look to the streaming services in those countries as if you're a resident, and therefore you'll have no restrictions on accessing your favorite TV shows and movies.
Do you browse the Internet from public Wi-Fi connections in places such as airports, coffee shops, or shopping malls? If you do this without a VPN, your data is openly exposed to hackers who make a habit of monitoring unsecured Wi-Fi signals for data to steal.
You can't even trust your own internet service provider (ISP) with sensitive information about your browsing habits. They are often looking for additional revenue streams, including selling information about which websites your IP address has been accessing. A VPN hides that information from your ISP.
For people living in countries where the government has little or no respect for the right to privacy, a VPN is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, government bureaus, agencies, and leaders could have full access to everything you say or do online, including planning protests, criticizing laws and policies, or donating money to political organizations.
Therefore, it's critically important that you research the features, reputation, security, performance, customer service, and cost of various VPN services before you decide which one to subscribe to. Here are some factors to consider.
- Features: What does the VPN offer that makes it better than any other VPN service? What is the purpose of those features?
- Cost: How much does the VPN subscription cost? Is there a free trial? What about a money-back guarantee? Does the VPN service offer a lower cost per month if you pay annually?
- Reputation: Does the VPN company enjoy a good reputation among its customers? If not, why not, and can you live with that? If others had a bad experience, how long had they been customers, and what was done, if anything, to resolve their concerns?
- Security: What features does the VPN system include to keep you protected at all times from people snooping into your data stream? Do they log your activities? Do they have enough IP addresses for you to connect through so that it's harder for government officials, marketers, and hackers to deduce a pattern around your browsing? What's in place in terms of automatic cutoff in case the VPN service fails without your knowledge?
- Performance: How fast is the VPN connection while you browse? Does it connect and disconnect quickly?
- Customer Service: What are the options for contacting support if needed? Do they have live chat, email, and telephone support? Are they courteous and quick when answering questions?
TopConsumerReviews.com has compiled a report of the best VPN services available and ranked them in the order of quality and reliability. We hope these reviews will help you find the right VPN service to make browsing the Web 100% secure!
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