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Surfshark is a fast, trustworthy virtual private network with thousands of servers worldwide, making it one of the best VPN subscriptions available. If you pay a bit more for Surfshark One, you also get Surfshark Antivirus.
If you’re like me, you could be skeptical that a VPN service can compete with the best antivirus software. I went hands-on with Surfshark One and checked lab results to test how well it prevents online threats and protects against malicious downloads.
Surfshark has three price tiers, and you can save more with a longer subscription. The least expensive option includes Surfshark’s well-rated VPN service but no malware protection. Surfshark Starter costs $15 monthly, $48 for the first year, or $56 if you pay for two years in advance. The long-term plans renew at $60 annually.
To add real-time antivirus prevention and scans, you need a Surfshark One subscription. The price climbs to $18 monthly for this extra protection, $3 more than you’d pay for just the VPN. If you subscribe for a year, it’s $54, or $70 for two years. Thereafter, renewal is $79 annually.
Avira is the only other antivirus service I’ve tested that offers a monthly subscription. For $10 per month, Avira Prime protects five devices and includes a VPN. However, its long-term plans are expensive.
An upgrade to include Surfshark’s antivirus protection is quite affordable, and new subscribers get four months free with any one- or two-year plan. While that’s a common incentive among VPNs, even the best antivirus deals lack bonus months.
The most expensive option, Surfshark One+, includes all the features above and adds Incogni, a personal data removal service that provides ongoing requests to data brokers to remove your data from advertising and profiling lists. It costs $21 monthly, $96 for the first year, or $112 for the first two years. Renewal is $99 annually.
Surfshark doesn’t offer a free malware tool but there is good free antivirus software available if you don’t want to pay for a premium solution.
In my 2024 review of Surfshark, I found it to be one of the best and fastest VPNs I’ve ever tested. I mentioned the malware protection features but didn’t delve into detail on that aspect of the service.
Setup is simple and the installer shared information about the app along the way. Since it’s a VPN first, there’s a second step to get the malware protection. I selected the antivirus tab from the left sidebar and installed that feature.
Surfshark Antivirus prompted me to run my first quick scan to check for viruses. In seconds, a pop-up window reported my computer was clean, and the app showed me various antivirus settings.
By default, Surfshark Antivirus offers real-time and browser protection. The app scheduled daily quick scans and weekly full scans at the current time. I prefer scans to run when I’m away from my computer, so I changed the time to early morning.
I skipped the optional webcam protection feature since I can tilt down to block the camera of my Obsbot Tiny 2 Lite. It’s a smaller, more affordable model of the Obsbot Tiny 4K webcam I reviewed in 2022.
I switched on Quarantine auto-delete to completely remove infected files after 60 days in quarantine.
My previous experience left me skeptical that a VPN could compete with dedicated antivirus software. When I reviewed Surfshark in 2024, it failed all of Wicar’s malware tests. I checked again and was pleased that Surfshark Antivirus detected and blocked 12 of 13 downloads and exploits. Ideally, it should have caught all, but the vulnerability it missed only affects systems running Windows 8.1 or older.
Still, I wanted more assurance of the antivirus strength. AV-Test is an independent security lab that evaluates the effectiveness of antivirus software. Software developers must pay for testing, and Surfshark Antivirus has only two entries: December 2022 and June 2024.
In AV-Test’s most recent evaluation, Surfshark Antivirus earned a perfect protection score, detecting 225 zero-day attacks and 14,498 malware samples.
However, Surfshark Antivirus detected just 95% of active zero-day threats in the 2022 tests. Cybersecurity has a low tolerance for failure, so the score for that period was 4.5 out of a possible six.
Proven antivirus software like Norton can boast perfect protection scores for over a decade. It’s hard for newcomers to compete with established solutions, even at lower prices.
Surfshark offers support via live chat and agents are available 24/7 to provide help with account issues. I was pleased with the responsiveness in my review of its VPN services, but I checked again to find out if agents were prepared to answer antivirus questions.
After providing my name and email address, I was quickly connected to live support. The responses were friendly, informative, and quick. I asked about iOS support for Surfshark Antivirus. The agent said it wasn’t available yet, and there wasn’t any information about when Surfshark would offer malware protection for my iPhone.
Surfshark only collects the data required to provide the service you’re paying for. As a VPN company, privacy is essential, and it has regular privacy and security audits from independent researchers for verification.
I couldn’t find any history of security breaches and Surfshark’s privacy policy makes it clear that it doesn’t sell or share your email to third-party advertisers.
Surfshark launched its antivirus feature in August 2021, so it’s relatively new and unproven. The best antivirus software undergoes frequent testing to ensure reliability and to earn bragging rights when the scores are high.
In June 2024, Surfshark Antivirus earned a perfect protection score from AV-Test, but it hasn’t been evaluated thereafter. The 2022 test revealed early weaknesses. You’ll get better antivirus results from leading solutions like Bitdefender. On the other hand, Surfshark has a stronger VPN and lower subscription prices.
Surfshark offers complete cross-platform support for its VPN service, but the antivirus isn’t available on iOS. iPhone security is very good, but isn’t immune to viruses. If you feel like you need malware protection for your iPhone, you might want a different antivirus solution.
Surfshark offers an excellent VPN service with a low-cost option to add real-time antivirus protection and malware scanning Windows, macOS, and Android to fortify the built-in security of your devices. I trust Surfshark One as a secondary antivirus for my Windows PC when combined with a more established solution like Windows Defender.
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