r/surfshark

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has just released EN 304 620, the world's first official cybersecurity standard for VPNs. It sits under the EU's Cyber Resilience Act, which will be enforced from December 11, 2027, and it defines the minimum security requirements every VPN sold in Europe will eventually have to meet.

"Until now, there were no official rules for how safe a VPN had to be. Any provider could call its app 'secure' without having to prove it. That is now changing. The shift is comparable to the arrival of safety rules for cars. Before crash tests and seatbelt laws, drivers simply had to hope their car was safe. Once official safety standards existed, every car had to meet them," says Miguel Fornés, Surfshark’s Information Security Manager.

Surfshark participated as an official ETSI Member Delegate alongside ZTE Corporation, BSI, Palo Alto Networks, Google, and Nord Security. Miguel authored and refined a lot of the rules that VPN products are now expected to follow.

A few examples of what we pushed into the standard:

• Strict no-logs deployments on RAM-only servers;
• Personal data stays on the device, telemetry is optional, and permanent storage of user data on servers is blocked;
• Passwords stripped from diagnostic logs, plus a warning before users export settings that contain credentials;
• Safe memory handling and strong encryption of stored data, protecting it even if a device is lost or stolen;
• Automated and manual testing for known exploits before updates reach users;
• Critical security patches installed the very first time the VPN is switched on;
• Clear labeling of the security and privacy level for different use cases (journalists vs. households, for example);
• Protection extended to modern, decentralized infrastructure like mesh networks.

TL;DR: for years, "secure VPN" was a marketing phrase anyone could use. Now it's a technical standard with defined requirements, and providers actually have to prove it. That's a much better world for users, whichever VPN they end up choosing.

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

The TV app has some changes coming. One of them might sound familiar if you've spent any time in the comments. Any guesses?

Why are speeds on mobile still so bad with Surfshark VPN on? I tried all the protocols, various locations, rebooting device, everything.

First image is the generic speed test because speed test.net won’t even run the test with the VPN active.

Second image is just my base network speed

This one's been requested a lot, so glad to finally share it.

Scam text protection is now available on Surfshark. It scans incoming texts for known scam patterns and acts before you interact with them.

How it works depends on your platform:

iOS: suspicious text messages are automatically detected and moved to a separate spam folder in your Messages app. You don't get a notification for them. They're just moved out of the way. You can always review and recover.

Android: you get a notification from Surfshark the moment a scam is detected. Tapping it opens the message in a safe view inside the Surfshark app, where you can see the message content and the specific signs that flagged it as a scam. No accidental link taps, no risk from viewing. There's also a dashboard that tracks estimated money saved over time (available in the US only).

A few things worth noting:

• The feature does not retain your texts, monitor your phone generally, or use private data to train AI models;
• Works on iPhones and Android phones. Does not work on iPads;
• It's designed to reduce the pressure of constant vigilance. You don't have to be the one spotting the scam every time.

We’re excited to hear how the new feature is working for you.

Have verizon Fios 1G service. On wifi 6 speed without VPN 550Mb down with VPN 55Mb down. Using WireGuard. Using an ONN 4k streaming box using fastest server in USA 🇺🇸. Is this a normal speed drop? 10X is a lot...

Why am I getting ads as a paid customer?!

Hey everyone!

Not that long ago our research team looked into every major AI-related fine and settlement since 2022 to see which companies were penalized, how much they paid, and what they were penalized for.

The total: over $3.5 billion across 10 cases involving 7 companies. The pattern is pretty clear. 9 out of 10 cases came down to the same issue: using people's data to train AI without proper consent.

Here's what stood out:

• Meta paid $1.4 billion for collecting biometric data to train facial recognition without consent.
• Clearview AI has been fined $105 million by four separate European regulators for scraping billions of facial images. It hasn't paid any of them, arguing it has no physical presence in Europe.
• Google was fined $291 million for training AI on copyrighted and personal data without authorization.
• OpenAI was fined $17 million by Italy's data protection authority, but an Italian court later annulled it, showing how uncertain AI regulation still is.

Full study with methodology: https://surfshark.com/research/chart/ai-related-fines

With AI training becoming so widespread, do you feel like you still have a say in where your data ends up, or does it feel like privacy is becoming impossible to manage?

Hey guys, so I’ve noticed a few inquiries about what No Borders actually does, so let me break it down real quick.

No Borders is a feature that lets you use Surfshark when you're on a network that tries to block or restrict VPN connections. It detects the restriction and activates automatically.

Most people assume it's only for countries with heavy internet censorship. And yes, it works there. But that's not the only scenario.

A lot of restrictive networks exist in places you wouldn't expect, like:

• School and university Wi-Fi;
• Hospital networks;
• Hotel Wi-Fi;
• Cruise ships (these are notorious for it);
• Corporate guest networks;
• Airport lounges.

Basically, any network that's been configured to limit what you can access or block VPN traffic. In these cases, No Borders can help to connect.

You don't need to do much to use it. Here's the how-to if you want the step-by-step: https://support.surfshark.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010423359-How-to-use-Surfshark-NoBorders

If you've ever been on Wi-Fi where Surfshark just wouldn't connect and you didn't know why, there's a good chance the network was blocking it. That's exactly where No Borders can be useful.

We'll be happy to answer questions if it’s still a little bit unclear!