VPN providers
Surfshark privacy rating
Commercial VPN service from Surfshark B.V. in the Netherlands. Apps support WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2.
Summary
Surfshark scores 48 out of 100 (grade D) on the VPN providers criteria. It meets 5 of 12 criteria: no ads or data sales, independent audit, transparency report, TLS configuration and modern protocols. It partly meets audited no-logs policy and anonymous payment. It does not meet open source, no trackers or telemetry, tells users about requests, security headers and open-source apps. It is based in the Netherlands: Nine Eyes member; EU member (GDPR). Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade C-.
Score 48 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
- No
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No
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
The privacy policy lists Firebase Analytics and AppsFlyer for app analytics and marketing attribution.
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Yes
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Funded by paid subscriptions. The policy states personal data is not sold, rented or traded.
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Yes
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
Full SecuRing penetration test report on the server infrastructure is public.
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Yes
Transparency report Weight 2 of 3
Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?
Quarterly counts of user data requests by type are published.
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No
Tells users about requests Weight 1 of 3
Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?
No published policy on notifying users about data requests.
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Partial
Audited no-logs policy Weight 3 of 3
Has an independent audit confirmed that activity and connection logs are not kept?
Deloitte assessed the no-logs policy, but the full report is only available to logged-in users, not publicly.
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Partial
Anonymous payment Weight 2 of 3
Can an account be created and paid for without an email address, name or card?
Cryptocurrency is accepted, but an email address is needed for the account.
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No
Open-source apps Weight 2 of 3
Are the apps for every platform open source?
The apps are closed source.
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Yes
Modern protocols Weight 1 of 3
Is WireGuard (or another modern audited protocol) supported?
WireGuard is supported alongside OpenVPN and IKEv2.
Automated tests
-
Yes
TLS configuration Weight 2 of 3
Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?
Grade A
-
No
Security headers Weight 1 of 3
Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?
Grade C- (45/100+)
-
Not tested yet
Modern web standards Weight 1 of 3
Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?
Not tested yet.