A VPN can help you to reclaim your online privacy, access blocked websites in heavily censored countries, and enjoy your home streaming platforms when abroad. But with so many providers to choose from, you may have narrowed your search to Surfshark and Avast – if that’s the case, we’re ready to make your search a little easier.

We’ve rigorously tested every aspect of Surfshark and Avast to bring you this guide that breaks everything down from pricing to customer service quality. Ready to find out which VPN came out on top? Let’s get started.

Highlights

Surfshark vs Avast pricing

The available price ranges and plan lengths are kicking off this Surfshark vs. Avast head to head. Avast takes an interesting stance on terms, offering a one, two, and three-year plan, but it’s uncommon to see that it doesn’t have a monthly or six-monthly option. That’s not to say users can’t try Avast before committing to a long-term, but it does mean having to pay a year in full, then requesting a refund after 30 days if you don’t intend on staying with the provider.

Surfshark

  • Super affordable pricing
  • Unlimited device connections
  • Bypasses major geo-restrictions
  • Wide range of server locations

Avast

  • Name recognition
  • Robust encryption
  • Has several added privacy features
  • Excellent customer support options

Surfshark, on the other hand, has monthly, six-monthly, and one or two-yearly plans available to give users a little more variety. It also has a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you could test out the service with a one-month plan before requesting a full refund in the first 30 days.

Both providers are almost identical in their one-year pricing tiers coming in at around $60, but Surfshark takes the win for the cheapest plans and the most significant savings, beating Avast’s 50% discount with a massive 83% off its two-year plans, scooping the top spot for pricing.

BEST DEAL FOR SURFSHARK:save 83% when you choose Surfshark’s 2-year deal.

BEST DEAL FOR AVAST VPN:50% discount on three-year plans.

Surfshark vs Avast features

Avast offers ten simultaneous device connections, which allow you to install its VPN on devices like your desktop, laptop, smartphone, and tablets (you get the idea) around your home. It means that you could torrent on one device with the peace of mind of a VPN while streaming US Netflix while you’re on the go.

While that all sounds fantastic, Surfshark tops Avast’s device limit by offering unlimited simultaneous device connections, so you can cover every device in your household with a VPN as well as every friend and family member’s device if you want to. Some users even share Surfshark accounts and split the existing low-price subscription fees.

Both providers match in terms of supported platforms, offering compatibility on devices like Windows, macOS, and iOS, so you’ll have no problem finding a native app for your device. Again, both providers also support the option for set-top box installation and setting the VPN up on a router. The router setup option is helpful as it allows every device that connects to your router’s wifi to enjoy the privacy of a VPN.

Unlike Surfshark, Avast doesn’t offer an option to use split tunneling. Split tunneling is useful when you want to get selective about what traffic runs via your VPN. Using Surfshark’s split tunneling feature lets you choose the apps you want the VPN to anonymize and separate the apps you want to use your direct internet connection.

Browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox come standard with both providers, allowing you to privatize your browsing sessions with a VPN if you don’t need the rest of your device protected. Anti-tracking, malware scanning, and ad blocking are included as standard with Surfshark. The same can’t be said for Avast, lacking most of the features that are included with Surfshark.

Streaming and unblocking

For some users, a VPN is used to hide your browsing activities from prying eyes like your ISP or to protect your connection when you hook up to unsecured wifi hotspots. For everyone else, a VPN is a legit way of streaming the best movies and TV shows from across the globe while traveling.

Surfshark works great with Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and others, while Avast wasn’t as consistent. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it failed, and so Surfshark definitely came out on top in the streaming tests.

Which of these VPNs work in China?

Have you ever heard of the Great Firewall? It the name given to the Chinese internet censorship, beating the censorship in countries like the UAE and Russia. If you attempt to access apps like WhatsApp or Facebook, websites like Netflix, or even news websites from China, the Great Firewall detects it and blocks the connection immediately. That is unless you use a VPN.

So long as you install Surfshark before you arrive in China, you’ll have no problems using most of the blocked apps from the moment you hit connect to a server other than China. Unfortunately, Avast’s Great Firewall-beating abilities aren’t quite as advanced. Avast’s VPN currently doesn’t work at all in China, although this might change in the future as it expands its network coverage and obfuscation features.

Setup and interface

There’s not a huge difference between Avast and Surfshark in terms of their setup and configuration options. Both are easy to install and use, but Surfshark pulls ahead slightly with support for Linux users, which isn’t available for Avast subscribers.

Both apps have different settings you can tweak, and they each offer a list-based server selection for you to select your preferred country. Apps on both platforms scale well for mobile, and they look great on a larger screen too.

Surfshark adds a little more than Avast in terms of customizations, with the option to change the look and feel of the app with flexible app skins. Both VPNs let you run the app at startup and minimize to the system tray to run in the background on Windows.

Servers and performance

If you’re considering a VPN to use the best streaming platforms or to watch TV channels from abroad, an extensive network is paramount. Surfshark wins the server coverage crown hands down, both in terms of the number of servers and the countries that its servers are available in.

Speed

We ramped our testing to see how Surfshark and Avast would perform when we maxed out our speed tests. Our connection was based on a 5GBps connection speed, and when connecting to Surfshark, it produced rapid speeds of 323.6 MBps, while Avast didn’t come anywhere near with a 32.6 MBps download speed. Although Avast’s speed is sufficient for most online activities like 4k streaming and gaming, Surfshark offers ten times the speeds to make it the better choice.

For our tests, we connected to the closest server in the US for both Avast and Surfshark to get the best download speeds and make it a fair contest. We then connected to a server further away to see how the speed loss averaged out, with Surfshark producing the least loss overall.

Security

Each provider boasts a good variety of VPN protocols, both offering OpenVPN, but Avast limits this protocol to Windows devices which could be an issue for some. Avast’s protocols end at IKEv2 for Mac and iOS, and Surfshark pulls ahead with its super fast Shadowsocks and Wireguard protocols, explaining the speed differences mentioned earlier. Although we feel Wireguard is the best protocol for impressive speeds, we’d recommend trying the different protocols out to see which suits your requirements best.

Both Surfshark and Avast encrypt internet traffic using AES 256-bit, which is the same standard used by the military and is virtually uncrackable. Surfshark uses RSA-2048 channel encryption, which is the standard for most VPNs today, but interestingly, Avast uses RSA-4096 DH key channel encryption which isn’t seen as often but is undoubtedly a more secure encryption channel used by the likes of NordVPN.

Avast doesn’t offer any type of obfuscation feature, unlike Surfshark’s NoBorders Mode and Camouflage Mode, which is useful for accessing websites in heavily censored countries. This is likely among the reasons Avast doesn’t work in China and could also contribute to the inconsistency in streaming Netflix from abroad or BBC iPlayer. Obfuscation technologies are applied to VPN servers to make VPN traffic less detectable.

When you attempt to visit sites that scan for VPN usage, packet inspection is carried out by a middleman on the user’s network (like your ISP). Surfshark’s obfuscation disguises the data packets as regular internet traffic when the middleman inspects them, allowing them to bypass detection.

Additionally, server IP blacklisting occurs when IP address ranges are blocked by website owners who’ve detected IPs belonging to VPN servers. As a result, any user who uses a blacklisted VPN IP address will not be able able to access certain websites.

A kill switch is also included with both VPNs to avoid data leaks when using apps like Kodi or torrenting. The kill switch monitors your connection, and in case the VPN fails, your internet connection is cut until the VPN is back up and running.

Configuration

Avast and Surfshark issue users with shared IP addresses when they connect to a VPN server, meaning multiple users share the same IP address and a VPN server. It’s common for VPNs to allocate shared IP addresses to their users unless you opt for a dedicated IP address as an extra (neither provider here offers a dedicated IP address). Online activity tracking is impossible when VPNs allocate shared IP addresses.

Privacy

Avast is based in Prague, which is outside any internet surveillance, whereas Surfshark is based in Amsterdam, which falls into the scope of the Nine Eyes Alliance. As a result, Surfshark may be obliged to hand over connection logs to local authorities upon request. Fortunately, though, Surfshark’s logs are quite minimal, and IP addresses aren’t recorded, so it would unlikely be sufficient enough to identify a user.

Avast’s logging policy is a little worrying as it records part of your IP address alongside connection timestamps and other data, which could be used as a way to identify you.

Customer service

It’s a little tricky to say which provider is the better choice when it comes down to customer service, as it’ll come down to user preference. Surfshark offers a 24/7 Zendesk live chat support option which is great for handling urgent requests, but Avast, on the other hand, offers support by phone. It really depends on whether you’d prefer to raise an issue by phone and speak to a human or type away and get a response in text form.

The winner: Surfshark

Apps Available:

  • PC
  • Mac
  • IOS
  • Android
  • Linux

Website: www.Surfshark.com

Money-back guarantee: 30 DAYS

Surfshark sprints ahead of Avast with its download speeds which are ten times higher than those we experienced with Avast. Surfshark offers the app on the same platforms as Avast, but its unlimited device limit makes it a worthwhile upgrade for use on multiple devices. It heavily discounts its pricing for sign-ups of two years and offers monthly plans (unlike Avast) for those who don’t want to commit long term. Surfshark smashes Avast’s ability to stream some of the most extensive media catalogs from around the world, and it’s pretty consistent too.

Surfshark may not have phone support like Avast does, but its live chat responses are very detailed, and someone is available morning and night to answer any queries you might have. Surfshark is also the better choice for those who need a VPN for China, unlike Avast, which simply doesn’t work in the region as it lacks the cloaking technologies offered by Surfshark. Lastly, Surfshark bundles a plethora of extras like malware scanning and anti-tracking tools, taking your privacy to another level.