Harvey / 12 September 2025 / Categories: Internet, Web Companies, Useful Guides

Surfshark VPN Review - why I cancelled subscription after one year paying only £44.99

Budget friendly, easy to use and super secure VPN

There are so many threats out there on the web subscribing to a VPN, a virtual protection network is becoming more and more popular and when I decided to spend almost £50, £44.99 to be precise with Surfshark I did love the idea of blocking crawlers and pop up ads, basically disguising who I was and where I was browsing from, making myself effectively invisible to threats and people trying to get you or your data online.

Surfshark VPN effectively employs the best encrytion and connection protocols to hide your internet activity from online predators masking your IP address and location which is great, exactly the kind of protection I was looking for.

Surfshark is based in the Netherlands which is extremely privacy friendly but are subject to international data sharing agreements which is always a factor to consider depending where in the world you are located. I did quite a did of research before electing them as my VPN provider. And Surfshark undergos regular audits from high prfile well respected accountancy firms like Deloittes to verify it's "no logs" claims to users which does provide transparency and has built trust with users.

For anyone unfamilar with what a VPN is or does it's simply a way to keep your internet connection safe and private by scambling your online traffic and keeping your IP address, where you are browsing from hidden.

I wanted to keep my device secure and block all the harmful stuff, creepy software that tracks you and follows your around and block annoying pop ups which is does really well.

The reasons I selected Surfshark it is exceptionally user friendly, easy to install and use. No problems for a complete VPN novice and although sometimes speed has been an issue, both connection and when browsing, Surfshark is very easy to pause for a period of time if the speed gets too painfully slow.

In the beginning I found the benefits outweighed the speed issues. It was great to be able to browse the web from different parts of the world, extremely useful for anyone selling online or wanting to check performance of specific web pages from different parts of the world.

The biggest downside is more and more websites just won't open when they encounter VPN users, they are worried themselves about threats from disguised visitors and almost a year in, I have actually cancelled my subscription because I have found speed and connection time so bad I spend more time with Surfshark paused switched off completely than on.

I wouldn't say don't have a go with Surfshark yourself if you are looking for a VPN provider. Like I said when I started using it I loved it, easy to use and speeds no issue.