Surfshark VPN for Android

Surfshark is a new VPN provider that has already made an impact in the market with its free and unlimited service. The company offers servers located around the world, as well as strong encryption protocols to ensure your privacy is protected at all times.

Overall, there are plenty of reasons why you should consider using this VPN service on your Android device. Surfshark is an affordable, fast and reliable choice if you want to improve your security online or access geo-restricted content.

The company does a very good job telling you how it handles your data. A large portion of the website’s home page shows an image of its ‘no logging’ policy, which states: “No activity logs are stored whatsoever.”. It goes on to explain that it collects only email addresses for account sign-ups, so there are no IP address records or any other identifying pieces of information about Surfshark users collected and stored anywhere.

Security

If you’re concerned about encryption, the company says it uses AES-256 (with RSA 4096) for client connections, SHA512 for hashing passwords and SHA256 fingerprint generation during registration as well as PBKDF2 with at least 1 billion rounds for securing user passwords – all using TLSv1/TLSv1.1 protocol by default (SSLv3 supported too). So far we’ve found no mention of Perfect Forward Secrecy on their site or in their FAQs.

There is a kill switch available in the settings and it protects your traffic from leaking out of the VPN connection if your Internet goes down unexpectedly. The company has also added DNS leak protection to its Windows client, which you’ll need to enable manually as it’s disabled by default.

Privacy

Surfshark’s privacy policy states that they don’t log data that could be used for user fingerprinting: “We do not store any information on users’ online activities including but not limited to visited websites or searched keywords.”. Other than email addresses mentioned above, all personal details collected are by choice – such as first name and last name for an account sign-up form – with absolutely no other identifying information required when signing up.

The privacy policy covers everything from traffic monitoring (no), logging (no) and encryption (yes). More importantly, there’s a myriad of information explaining what Surfshark doesn’t keep track of compared to its competition. For example: IP addresses, traffic logs or browsing history.

Support

Surfshark offers support via their website and live chat, which is available 24/7. Even so, they recommend to contact them during business hours from Monday through Friday. We sent an email inquiring about the service but never received a reply. The company has also launched a subreddit community for users to ask questions and share feedback with each other. Surfshark’s staff does not monitor that community, so do not expect any response from them. If you’re looking for detailed setup tutorials, we suggest you try the site’s search engine first before reaching out to customer support: “tutorial” was one of most searched terms on Surfshark late last year, according to Google Trends. They have plenty of useful articles listed in their knowledge base that are worth reading if you want more information.

With so much attention paid towards privacy policies and how they affect user data collection practices, it seems bizarre that there’s no easy way to get in touch with Surfshark’s support team. We hope that Surfshark will improve their support soon. Maybe we just happened to have caught them on a bad day…

Features

Public Wi-Fi Security – You can use the app to secure your mobile Internet when you are connected to public networks. This feature encrypts all of your information, keeping it safe from malicious third parties that could be monitoring the network.

Surf Anonymously – The VPN service offers a very high level of anonymity by hiding your real IP address and location.

Unblock Geo-Restricted Content – The app is able to unblock geo-restricted content that is not available in some regions of the world.

Torrenting/P2P File Sharing Support – If you want, you can use Surfshark Android VPN for torrents and P2P file sharing files on public Wi-Fi networks. Make sure you are using a secure protocol like OpenVPN (recommended) when doing this.

Unblock Video Streaming Services – The Surfshark app unblocks video streaming services that may not be available in your region due to copyright laws or other reasons.

Block Advertisements – Tired of seeing advertisements on the websites you visit? then you can use the VPN service for Android devices as an ad blocker and enjoy browsing without any disruptions at all.

Interface

Surfshark’s Android app interface is great. It’s a very clean, simple app with dash of style. Even the settings are easy to use and understand.

When you log on to Surfshark, your VPN connection will be activated right away. You can start surfing the internet with a single click of a button. It’s that easy.

A big bonus of using Surfshark is how it manages blocked sites and content for you. If there are some websites that you are getting blocked on, just add them to the list and SurfShark will unblock those sites for you! This is an excellent feature if you need it.

Surfshark’s mobile app also lets users turn their PC into a Wi-Fi hotspot so other devices can connect via WiFi. Again, this comes in handy when traveling abroad or at home if there aren’t any available wireless networks nearby. Overall, we think it’s one of the best Android VPN apps currently available on Google Play Store.

Pros

• Easy to use
• One-click activation
• Double VPN security
• Mobile secured hotspot feature

Cons

• Not many servers at the moment

Bottom Line

Surfshark is a top-notch VPN service with speedy servers, military-grade encryption and solid Android app performance. Especially when it comes to unblocking streaming sites like Netflix US (which isn’t always easy). It’s definitely worth a try, and taking advantage of its seven-day free trial offer.

Surfshark’s homepage tells you exactly what the service is about: “Private Internet Access for the masses”. And it delivers on its promise. The company has focused heavily on privacy policies, encryption and security features. It also makes sure to provide everything users need from a VPN service including multiple connection protocols, competitive speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s along with torrenting capabilities. We’ve encountered some issues during testing such as no live chat or email support. We are hoping that Surfshark will resolve these issues. If so, then SurfShark could easily become one of our top picks for 2021.

About Surfshark

Founded in 2018 as a VPN, Surfshark has quickly managed to grow into an online security toolkit and become one of the leading brands in the VPN industry. Today, Surfshark’s software solutions secure over 2.4 million active users’ digital lives in 100+ countries.