Surfshark is a VPN service company based in the Netherlands. Surfshark offers products such as a virtual private network (VPN) service, a data leak detection system, and a private search tool.
Surfshark was launched in 2018 by introducing its first VPN application for iOS devices. In 2018, Surfshark underwent an external audit by a German cybersecurity firm Cure53, but just for their browser extensions. Surfshark has 3200+ servers in 65 countries.
In September 2019, Surfshark launched an Android app called Trust DNS.
The app works as a DNS resolver that can provide access to websites in highly restrictive countries. In October 2019, Surfshark became one of the first ten VPN packages to receive an official seal of approval granted by an independent IT-Security Institute AV-TEST. In 2020, Surfshark was named the best VPN of 2020 by CNN.
In its applications, Surfshark uses IKEv2, OpenVPN, Shadowsocks, and WireGuard tunneling protocols. All data transferred via Surfshark servers is encrypted using an AES-256-GCM encryption standard.
In July 2020, Surfshark announced its entire server network is running on RAM-only servers. Surfshark VPN service comes with a Kill Switch, a Double VPN feature called MultiHop, and a split-tunneling feature (Whitelister). It also offers an ad and malware prevention feature CleanWeb that blocks ads on the DNS level.
In December 2019, Surfshark implemented GPS-Spoofing for Android, allowing users to hide their device’s physical geo-location by changing it to one of the server’s locations.
