Why You Can Trust CNET Norton Secure VPN vs. Surfshark: Speed, security and price compared
The newcomer VPN takes a bite out of an industry giant.
Relative newcomer VPN Surfshark is moving in fast on its virtual private network competitors, giving the more established Norton Secure VPN a reason to be worried. When it comes to speed, security and price, here's how the up-and-comer VPN stacks up against one of the industry's best-known brands.
Read more: The best VPN service of 2022
Editors' note, Feb. 9, 2022: The VPN industry has undergone significant change in the past few months, with all three of our top VPN choices announcing major changes in corporate ownership. In December, ExpressVPN announced that it had officially joined Kape Technologies, a company that already owns several other VPNs and has raised privacy concerns in the past. In February, NordVPN and Surfshark announced the two companies were merging, though they'll continue to operate autonomously. We're in the process of reevaluating all of our top picks in light of these changes. We will update our reviews and, if necessary, our rankings to account for this new competitive landscape.
It won't be long until big-name VPNs realize what kind of threat Surfshark really is: It's faster than a VPN of its size should be, has stronger security than you'd expect, offers a suite of impressive features and has cutthroat prices to go with its unlimited simultaneous connection allowance. During our 2020 testing, Surfshark has given even our most highly recommended VPNs a run for their money on speed, security and cost.
You want to watch Netflix from any country? Surfshark's watertight DNS features make that possible. You want to torrent quickly and privately? Surfshark routes you to its own P2P-configured servers out of the US. You want to block fingerprinting trackers, use a private search engine, and camouflage your traffic so it looks completely normal with the assurance of a kill switch? Surfshark's CleanWeb ad-blocker, Blindsearch search engine and on-board obfuscation covers you.
With more than 3,200 servers in 65 countries, we lost less than 17% of average internet speeds during our most recent speed tests. That's faster than the 27% speed loss we saw in previous tests, and pushes it ahead of both NordVPN and ExpressVPN to be the current front-runner in our speed comparisons.
Surfshark is currently living up to its name with an aggressive pricing scheme. Right now, it's offering an 83% discount, bringing costs down to $2 a month for a two-year plan ($48 in total). That offer stands up easily to Norton's $60 annual plan, and offers unlimited simultaneous connections compared to Norton's 10-device limit. Surfshark is also available for Linux, Windows, Android, MacOS, iOS, Android TV and Amazon Fire TV. Norton, on the other hand, works with only Windows, Android, MacOS and iOS.
Read more: Surfshark VPN review: A feature-rich service with blazing speeds and a security focus
There are few more familiar names in information security than Norton and LifeLock. But with limited server options and a few dealbreaker security issues, it's clear that the Norton Secure VPN from NortonLifeLock still has some work to do before it can meet the high standards set by its sibling security products.
In terms of speed, Norton's are on par with other midtier VPNs: During my testing, it achieved only about 43% of the average 187 megabit-per-second speed achieved on a 1 gigabit-per-second-capable fiber connection during testing, while still maintaining an average of around 81Mbps globally. But unlike many other VPNs, Norton doesn't allow you to choose the city you connect to -- only the country. Norton's Hong Kong servers dragged down overall speed scores, averaging just 6Mbps. So if you're looking for a VPN to use while traveling in China, you may want to consider a different option.
Norton offers what it calls bank-grade encryption -- standard AES-256 -- but offers no kill switch, which would prevent network data from leaking outside of its secure VPN tunnel in the event the VPN connection fails. I'd generally consider a lack of kill switch a deal breaker. Norton also didn't mask my IPv6 address, and I experienced DNS leaks during testing -- major security red flags from a product that is supposed to mask your browsing activity.
This also led to difficulties accessing Netflix. So if you're looking for a VPN that will allow you to access your normal media subscriptions while traveling, we recommend seeking a different VPN for now. We likewise recommend looking elsewhere if you want a VPN that allows torrenting, can be used on a wide variety of devices, or can be paid for in bitcoin.
Norton Secure VPN is only available on the four main platforms -- Windows, Android, Mac and iOS. Depending on your subscription, you can opt for one, five or 10 simultaneous connections. The least expensive plan is the $5 monthly plan, which allows only one device at a time. The most expensive is the 10-device annual plan for $60. That's more than you should be paying for something that doesn't disguise your location, doesn't support Netflix, and drags on speed.
On the plus side, the application comes with a built-in ad-tracking blocker.
Read more: Norton Secure VPN review: More work is needed for this privacy product to shine
