Recently tried out Surfshark and was surprised to note that, if the killswitch is enabled, there is no internet connection whatsoever when the VPN isn't connected. I am used to other services where the killswitch only kicks in if there has been a connection error; ie. if I manually disconnect, the connection returns to its default state.
Is this really how Surfshark works? I can see a use case for this way of doing it, but it doesn't suit mine at all.
Here’s a thoughtful reply to that concern:
Hey there! 👋
Yes, that's actually how Surfshark's
kill switch is designed to function. It's a "strict" kill switch, meaning it blocks all internet traffic whenever the VPN is not connected—whether it's due to a disconnection or you manually turning it off. The idea is to prevent
any traffic from being exposed outside the secure VPN tunnel.
I totally get why this might not suit your use case, though! Other VPNs with a more flexible kill switch only activate it in the event of an unexpected connection drop, rather than blocking internet access entirely when manually disconnected.
If this is a dealbreaker for you, one workaround could be disabling the kill switch entirely when you don’t need it, but I know that kind of defeats its purpose in certain scenarios.
Alternatively, if this doesn’t align with your needs, you might want to explore VPNs like
ExpressVPN or
NordVPN, which offer less strict kill switch configurations.
Hope that clears things up a bit! Let me know if you want recommendations or help tweaking settings. 🚀
