Surfshark Antivirus Review

Last Updated on June 8, 2023 by Daniel Wright

Surfhshark Antivirus is a new security product from a popular VPN brand Surfshark which joined forces with NordVPN team at the beginning of this year on the way to become one of the most recognised VPN brands in the industry.

Although many users now choose VPN to protect their digital lives, antivirus is still a must for a complete protection against malware and other online threats. So where’s the Surfshark antivirus different from its competition?

Don’t want to read the full review? Here’s what’s important:

👍 What we like: Simple & clean design, Extra features such as unlimited VPN and ad-free search, License for up to 5 devices

☝ What could be better: It’s not the cheapest solution though very comparable with other AVs (it’s cheaper if you consider also the price of VPN)

User interface

If you’ve ever used Surfshark VPN, you will have same expectation for it’s antivirus solution regarding how simple and clean the user interface is. And you won’t be disappointed.

Surfshark Antivirus, much like it’s VPN, comes with a very simple & clean user interface which is great for users who don’t want to spend hours tweaking the settings and prefer to “install and forget” solution to protect their devices.

This applies also for users who are less tech-savvy and need a really simple solution to protect their device.

Features of Surfshark Antivirus

Along the basic features such as antivirus scans and real-time protection Surfshark Antivirus includes unlimited VPN, Personal data leak protection, and private search engine which is also ad free.

  • Surfshark Antivirus: File scanning and active protection from viruses and malwares
  • Surfshark VPN: Privacy-focused tool that hides your location and secures sensitive data
  • Surshark Alert: Tool for detection and alerts on data breaches related to your accounts in real-time
  • Surfshark Search: Anonymous search engine which is completely ad-free (this is available on https://search.surfshark.com/)

Pricing & Money-back guarantee

How much does Surfshark Antivirus cost? As mentioned previously, it’s not the cheapest option you can find though it’s very competitive against other alternatives. What’s important here that for the price of an AV you are getting a bundle along with a VPN which often costs more than AV alone.

You can choose from a three different tiers offering 1-month, 1-year, and 2 years subscription. (🤫 Pssst: don’t forget to use our link to get to the offer below and save 83% on 1-year plan)

The price of the cheapest plan is $2.49/ month (or $29.88 for full year) which is great if you consider that VPN alone often costs more than $2 with the biggest discounts.

Surfshark offers 30 days money-back guarantee so all the plans are fully refundable which means you don’t have to worry about commitment.

For the price of $29.88 you can use Surfshark Antivirus on up to 5 devices and it supports all the major platforms such as macOS, Windows, Linux, Android or iOS. If you’ve already purchased Surfshark license, you can download installation file from the official links below:

Installation process

  1. When you’ve copied and executed the installation file, you will be prompted to agree with Privacy policy. There are three important parts here:
    • You need to use your email address to log in which is used as a main identification of the purchase
    • Surfshark is collecting anonymous application usage data with some basic information about your device (such as operating system and device version) – this is for troubleshooting if something with app is going wrong
    • The most important part – privacy policy claims that Surfshark antivirus doesn’t monitor, record or log any log activities

2) Once you have agreed to the privacy policy you will be asked to login with your email address you’ve used during purchase. If you are using Surfshark on any other device you can opt in to log in with code instead of the email address.

3) After the sign-on, you will get to the main dashboard where you can choose between different product if you’ve opted for a Surfshark One subscription which consists of these products (from the top):

  • Surfshark VPN (popular VPN and the leading product of Surfshark)
  • Surfshark Alert (security feature which guards your accounts from data breaches)
  • Surfshark Antivirus
  • Surfshark Search (anonymous search engine with purely organic results)
  • Settings

Scanning with Surfshark Antivirus

When you first get to the Antivirus tab you have only the option to launch the Quick scan.

Scanning with Surfshark antivirus
Scanning with Surfshark antivirus

Before you are able to continue to the scan, you will have to allow Surfshark antivirus to run in your system preferences (this is relevant only to the MacOS users). Once this is solved you will finally able to launch the app and use it.

The main antivirus dashboard contains information about the last scan, last time of virus database update and a very few settings related to scheduling of scans and notifications.

Quick scan is indeed very quick and will not take much of your time. For in-depth scanning we are always recommending to launch a full-scan once a week.

Additional settings of Surfshark antivirus

Surfshark keeps a very simple user interface so there’s not plenty of things you will be able to configure which is great for less tech-savvy users. You can choose whether you want to see the application in dark or light mode and the app language.

Surfshark reviews & ratings

We’ve also checked the Surfshark reviews and ratings on Google Play store, Trustpilot and iOS store. On all three portals Surfshark is receiving great user feedback and lots of positive reviews.

Trustpilot:

Trustpilot rating of Surfshark
Rating & reviews of Surfshark in Google Play
Surfshark rating Apple App store

My experience with Surfshark antivirus after 1 month

So I’ve been using Surfshark Antivirus for over a month now on my main computer with MacOS and I can still recommend it. There are two things which I enjoyed the most.

The Surfshark antivirus is so lightweight I don’t even know about it. It does the job on the background without bothering me.

The second good thing is it’s integrated (..and unlimited) VPN. I’ve tested the Surfshark VPN in the past and liked how simple it is. It just worked whenever I needed it. Considering that you will pay $2.21/month for VPN alone, getting extra antivirus and identity monitoring for $3.98/month in total isn’t a big deal.

Obviously, you can will have to make your own decision but for me, spending little under 4 bucks a month for complete protection online was definitely worth it.

Daniel Wright
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