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At a Look
Knowledgeable’s Score
Execs
- Quick speeds
- Works with U.S. Netflix
Cons
- No straightforward strategy to pay anonymously
- The privateness coverage might give some customers pause
- Poor desktop app
- Non-promotional pricing shouldn’t be aggressive
Our Verdict
SurfEasy is a really primary VPN with quick speeds that may get previous Netflix’s VPN restrictions. The corporate’s Home windows app is in unhealthy want of an improve, it’s overpriced after the primary 12 months, and there’s no straightforward strategy to pay anonymously for many who want it.
Greatest Costs In the present day
SurfEasy in short:
- P2P allowed: Sure
- Enterprise location: Tempe, AZ
- Variety of servers: 2,000+
- Variety of nation areas: 31
- Price: $29.88 for the primary 12 months, $47.88 or $77.88 after that
What an odd few years it’s been for SurfEasy. Most individuals had by no means heard of the service till it was snapped up in early 2015 by browser maker Opera, and for a time it powered Opera’s free VPN. Then in 2017 NortonLifeLock, when it was nonetheless referred to as Symantec, snapped it up from Opera.
In all that point and with totally different house owners, SurfEasy has barely modified. That’s not essentially an excellent factor because the interface is sort of antiquated now, and at occasions the app could be a little infuriating with dropped connections. Nonetheless, it’s speedy sufficient to stay one of many 10 quickest VPNs in our exams.
Be aware: This evaluate is a part of our best VPNs roundup. Go there for particulars about competing merchandise and the way we examined them.
When disconnected, SurfEasy reveals your location based mostly in your IP handle; when related it reveals your obvious location based mostly in your VPN IP.
To alter your VPN location click on the flag icon within the upper-right nook. This reveals an inventory of all the varied nation areas you’ll be able to select from.
There isn’t loads when it comes to further options. No double-hop VPNs or cut up tunneling. SurfEasy does, nonetheless, work with U.S. Netflix. That was a giant deal 4 years in the past, however now it’s turning into a extra widespread characteristic on VPN providers.
SurfEasy additionally blocks advertisements, and it provides a characteristic to robotically hook up with the VPN when on Wi-Fi.
SurfEasy permits torrenting however this characteristic is simply out there on the SurfEasy VPN plan (previously the Extremely VPN plan). To hook up with a type of servers, you click on the nation listing after which choose the “Torrent Optimized” choice. The one different important setting that SurfEasy’s app provides is whether or not to activate the VPN app on startup.
SurfEasy lets you use as much as 5 gadgets concurrently, and there are apps for Home windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. The web site nonetheless claims it helps proxy extensions for Chrome and Opera, however if you happen to dig slightly deeper you shortly discover out that these extensions are not supported.
SurfEasy prices $29.88 for the primary 12 months, masking as much as 5 simultaneous connections, and there’s a 14-day money-back assure. After that first 12 months there are two choices for renewal pricing on Windows. You may pay $77.88 for the SurfEasy VPN plan that features 5 simultaneous connections and no area limits. Alternatively, there’s the Complete VPN plan, which prices $47.88, covers the identical variety of gadgets, however has a extra restricted area choice. There are additionally month-to-month plans if you happen to solely want a VPN for a short while.
Efficiency
SurfEasy at one time was one of many quickest VPNs we examined. It nonetheless stays in our prime 10 (albeit the decrease half), however its speeds aren’t as spectacular as they as soon as have been. In our exams, SurfEasy retained 38.1 p.c of the bottom velocity in comparison with 55.28 p.c 4 years in the past.
Your expertise with SurfEasy—or some other VPN—might differ relying in your ISP, router, gadget, and connection kind.
As we noticed 4 years in the past, SurfEasy has connection points. Final time we reported how the connection would stall for a number of seconds after preliminary connection. That is nonetheless occurring, and actually there’s no excuse for these persevering with points.
One other essential factor to notice is that each SurfEasy server we used was working in Amazon’s cloud.
Privateness, anonymity, and belief
To enroll in SurfEasy the corporate requires an e mail handle, and those that want to may use a pseudonymous e mail handle. That received’t get you very far when it comes to anonymity, nonetheless, as SurfEasy doesn’t provide any vital strategy to pay anonymously or semi-anonymously. All funds are dealt with through a bank card or PayPal. There aren’t any choices for paying in money or with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
SurfEasy is a part of NortonLifeLock, the latter is predicated in Tempe Arizona and the CEO is Vincent Pilette.
As for SurfEasy’s privacy policy, it’s okay however not nice. The coverage says the service doesn’t log your shopping and web exercise, but it surely does log your IP handle “for the needs of delivering the content material in accordance along with your gadget(s) and figuring out the suitable language settings for speaking with you.” NortonLifeLock says it additionally logs your gadget identify and sort, OS model (cellular gadgets solely), and mixture bandwidth utilization. It additionally collects some diagnostic information that you may examine within the privateness coverage.
Conclusion
To sum up, SurfEasy has not modified in any substantial approach in 4 years. A charitable clarification can be to say it’s in upkeep mode, but it surely certain feels extra like benign neglect. In the event you want an affordable VPN for a single 12 months, and also you don’t thoughts the privateness coverage, it’s fairly an excellent deal. For almost $50 or $80 after that, although? No approach. This VPN is solely not aggressive at these costs in comparison with what you may get elsewhere. It has no vital options to talk of, continues to have connection points, the web site has some inaccurate info, and the app shouldn’t be nice. The VPN efficiency continues to be fantastic, although inferior to it as soon as was.
If all you’re on the lookout for is an effective connection to observe Netflix, otherwise you want one thing low-cost for that first 12 months then SurfEasy may be just right for you. After that, we can not suggest it on the costs the corporate is charging.
Editor’s word: As a result of on-line providers are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this evaluate is topic to alter so as to precisely mirror the present state of the service. Any adjustments to textual content or our ultimate evaluate verdict might be famous on the prime of this text.
Ian is an unbiased author based mostly in Israel who has by no means met a tech topic he did not like. He primarily covers Home windows, PC and gaming {hardware}, video and music streaming providers, social networks, and browsers. When he is not masking the information he is engaged on how-to suggestions for PC customers, or tuning his eGPU setup.
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