AVG vs. Surfshark – Comparing Two VPNs With an Antivirus Option

If you’re only starting to build out your cybersecurity arsenal, it makes a lot of sense to choose a brand that offers both a VPN and antivirus software. That way, you only have to deal with one company and don’t have multiple bills to pay. AVG and Surfshark both fit the bill, but which option is better for you?

We know that both offer great antivirus software, as evidenced by the fact that they made our 2024 list of the best antivirus software. Let’s explore each brand’s VPN service. We tested each VPN for two weeks on a Windows laptop and a MacBook Pro. Here are our findings.

AVG vs. Surfshark: Server Network

Side by side, it’s clear that Surfshark has the advantage of having a larger network. We weren’t surprised to see that; After all, Surfshark first started as a VPN brand before it introduced its antivirus software. AVG, on the other hand, began as an antivirus company in the early 1990s. Only after it was acquired by Avast in 2016 did it start offering a VPN.

Here’s a quick comparison of AVG and Surfshark’s networks.

A quick look at each VPN’s respective servers already helped us set our expectations. First of all, more servers often means better overall performance, since users have more options to connect to. Traffic is less likely to bottleneck. Also, having more server locations means users around the world can always find a nearby server. That’s largely why we chose Surfshark as one of the top VPNs for traveling and best streaming VPNs (for unlocking other countries’ streaming libraries).

AVG vs. Surfshark: Speed

Of course, expectations and reality don’t always match up, so we still tested AVG and Surfshark’s performance.

To make sure we were being fair to each VPN, we didn’t just rely on raw internet speed readings. We performed three speed tests with each VPN using an Acer Aspire 5 laptop and averaged the results. After that, we performed three more speed tests without connecting to a VPN, which became the baseline reading we used to compare the VPNs’ speeds.

Our average baseline speed was 243 Mbps for downloads and 229 Mbps for uploads.

We also performed the same test using a MacBook Pro running macOS 14 and got largely similar results. Our baseline speed on the MacBook was 247 Mbps for downloads and 239 Mbps for uploads.

Some VPNs perform differently depending on the device and operating system you’re using. For example, as we can see from the results above, AVG performed better on Windows than on macOS. Meanwhile, Surfshark’s download speed was a lot better on macOS.

AVG vs. Surfshark: Privacy

Another important aspect to look into when comparing VPNs is how they deal with your privacy. Sure, VPNs keep your online activity private from your internet provider, hackers, websites, and the government, but what do they do with the data that passes through their networks?

Well, all the highest-rated VPNs we’ve tested have a no-logs clause in their privacy policy. That’s also true for AVG and Surfshark. But this is where things get a little bit tricky. Let’s quickly discuss each VPN’s privacy policy.

AVG Privacy Policy

AVG has a clear-cut privacy policy. It says that the company doesn’t store information like:

• Originating IP addresses
• DNS queries
• Browsing history
• Transferred data such as emails, pictures, files, etc.

However, AVG has never undergone a third-party independent audit of its privacy policy, so we have to take their word as truth.

To be fair, there haven’t been any issues with how AVG handles data, unlike some other VPNs out there (like IPVanish) that have been entangled in controversy. Despite having a no-logs policy, court records from 2016 seemed to show that IPVanish released information to law enforcement — information the company wasn’t supposed to be logging in the first place.1

As long as AVG can keep its name clear, we have more reason to trust its privacy policy than Surfshark. Here’s why.

Surfshark Privacy Policy

Surfshark also has a no-logs policy, but it logs more than we think it should. More specifically, it keeps a record of users’ originating IP addresses. Here’s the full statement from Surfshark’s privacy policy:2

“Our servers do store information about your connection to a particular VPN server (user ID and/or IP address and connection time stamps), BUT this information is automatically deleted within 15 minutes after termination of your session. And be assured that no information is stored about the websites you visit.”

The originating IP address — the IP address of the device used to connect to Surfshark — is sensitive personally identifiable information. If leaked, it could reveal who used Surfshark and when they used it. It doesn’t reveal browsing history, but there’s still a lot someone can do just by knowing your IP address. Fortunately, Surfshark deletes that information 15 minutes after you end your VPN session.

>> Learn More: Securing Confidential Personal Data Both Online and Offline

But how can we be sure? Well, Surfshark has been audited numerous times by firms like Deloitte and Cure53 — two of the biggest consulting firms in the world. The latest audit report released in January 2024 shows that Surfshark is in full compliance with its no-logs policy.

Despite that, we still firmly believe that VPNs shouldn’t log originating IP addresses.

AVG vs. Surfshark: Features

Let’s shift our focus back to the VPNs themselves. While testing both VPNs, we saw an immense gap in the features they offer. We mentioned in our Surfshark review that it’s one of the most feature-rich VPNs we tested. It’s right up there with NordVPN, our overall favorite VPN. On the other hand, AVG’s VPN is one of the most straightforward we’ve seen. It encrypts your traffic when you connect to the VPN, but it doesn’t do much else.

Here’s a quick comparison of what they offer, and after that, we’ll talk about each of those features.

VPN Protocols and Encryption

The VPN protocol dictates how traffic is networked from your device, to the VPN server, and back. It plays a huge role in a VPN’s performance and security. Besides a few VPNs that have created their own VPN protocols (see our ExpressVPN review, for example), most VPNs use open-source protocols like OpenVPN and WireGuard. Those two are precisely the options Surfshark offers. Meanwhile, AVG offers only OpenVPN.

• WireGuard: In our experience, WireGuard performs better. It was Surfshark’s default protocol, which is probably the reason it was faster than AVG. However, WireGuard doesn’t support our recommended 256-bit AES encryption and instead uses ChaCha20. That VPN encryption standard is more lightweight, but still about as secure as 256-bit AES.
• OpenVPN: OpenVPN has been around for almost two decades and is the most trusted option in terms of security. It supports 256-bit AES and is more thorough because it has over 10 times more lines of code than WireGuard. That said, our experience with OpenVPN has shown performance issues over long-distance traffic routing.

Since Surfshark let us choose between two VPN protocols, we picked it over AVG in this round.

Kill Switch

Out of all VPN features, the kill switch is the most important one in our opinion. It’s pretty straightforward; If your VPN suddenly disconnects, the kill switch stops all traffic. That keeps you from accidentally sending or receiving data over an unsecured connection. No VPN is 100-percent reliable, so the kill switch is a must-have fail-safe feature.

>> Learn About: How to Test Your VPN

Fortunately, both Surfshark and AVG have a kill switch. The main difference was that AVG’s kill switch was on by default, whereas we had to manually turn on Surfshark’s kill switch. It took less than five seconds to turn on the feature and once it was active, it stayed that way for the rest of our two-week testing phase. That said, for folks who don’t know much about this feature, it’s a bad move on Surfshark’s part to leave the kill switch off by default. AVG wins this round.

Multihop

Multihop isn’t as necessary as a kill switch, but it’s a nice feature to have in your arsenal. Between AVG and Surfshark, only Surfshark offers this feature. In fact, very few VPNs offer multihop, so we can’t blame AVG for not having it.

What is multihop, though? Think of it as a daisy chain for your VPN connection. From your device, traffic goes to a VPN server, and then to another VPN server in a different location. It has two purposes, both of which increase your online security and privacy:

• Double encryption: Data is encrypted every time it passes through a server, making it nearly impossible to crack if it’s intercepted.
• Concealing your real IP address: Even a normal VPN connection can hide your real IP address by using the VPN server’s IP address as your proxy to the internet. With multihop, two VPN servers will work together to hide your identity even better.

Surfshark wins this round not only because it has multihop, but because it has one of the best multihop setups of all the VPNs we tested. Multihopping can seriously slow down your internet. For best speeds, the first server must be close to your physical location and the second server needs to be in the location where you want your VPN IP address. For example, if you live in the U.S. and you want to appear to be in Japan, you should configure your multihop setup to connect to a U.S. server first, and then to a Japan server second.

That was possible when we tested Surfshark’s Dynamic MultiHop. It let us customize and pick our server pairings from almost all of Surfshark’s 100 server locations. Most multihop VPNs don’t give you that freedom. For example, we saw only nine preset multihop server pairs when we tested NordVPN. And since you can’t change the pairings, you ma be stuck with a slow connection if the first server isn’t close to where you are.

Split Tunneling

Split tunneling lets you configure your VPN so that it only encrypts traffic from sites and apps you select. For example, you can stream Netflix in your home country while the rest of your device connects to a VPN server in Australia. As you can imagine, it can come in handy for multitasking.

AVG doesn’t offer split tunneling. Surfshark offers it under the name Bypasser. Here’s how we set it up:

1. We looked for the Bypasser feature in the settings. (Settings > VPN Settings > Bypasser)
2. Under App, we toggled the switch next to Bypass VPN.
3. We then selected the installed apps we wanted to bypass the VPN connection from the drop-down list. (Hint: You can use the “Add apps” button to search for specific apps.)
4. We scrolled down to the Websites/IP Address section and also turned on Bypass VPN.
5. We manually entered the URL and/or IP addresses of websites and network devices we wanted to exclude from VPN connections (e.g. IP address of our office server).

AVG vs Surfshark: Pricing

We got to see how AVG and Surfshark perform and what they have to offer. Now let’s talk about pricing. While both companies offer multiple cybersecurity tools, you don’t have to go all in. You can just buy the VPN. That’s what we did.

AVG Subscription

AVG had us buy a subscription for a minimum of one year for $53.88. That’s $4.49 per month on average. Fortunately, there was a 60-day free trial, so we ended up canceling our VPN subscription after we tested it for two weeks so it doesn’t automatically renew. If it did renew though, AVG has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Here’s a breakdown of AVG’s pricing. And keep in mind, one subscription protects up to 10 devices.

We noticed that, unlike other VPNs’ pricing, where the average monthly cost goes down the longer your subscription is, AVG remained over $4 per month no matter the subscription length. That’s expensive compared to the most affordable VPNs. For example, Private Internet Access costs as low as $2.19 per month with a three-year plan.

>> Read More: Private Internet Access VPN Review

Surfshark Subscription

Surfshark follows a more traditional pricing structure. There’s a one-month plan for those who just want a short-term VPN, a one-year plan for those who want to enjoy a substantial discount, and a two-year plan for those who are ready to commit. There’s no free trial, but we enjoyed a 30-day money-back guarantee plus three months free access with the one-year and two-year plans. Best of all, every Surfshark subscription can protect an unlimited number of devices.

VPN + Antivirus Bundles

AVG and Surfshark both offer VPN with antivirus bundles as well. Let’s look at their one-year bundles.

For both options, the one-year subscription auto-renews the next year with a higher renewal price. In fact, the renewal prices are double that of the first-year prices. But still, Surfshark is more affordable than AVG.

AVG vs. Surfshark: Our Final Thoughts

Ultimately, we’re calling Surfshark the overall winner. It was better than AVG in terms of speed, features, and its server network. It was also more affordable, which was the icing on the cake. Whether you’re looking for a stand-alone VPN or a VPN you can bundle with antivirus software, Surfshark will likely be the better choice for you.

That said, AVG isn’t a bad VPN. It has good speeds and a decent server network, a clear-cut no-logs policy, and — while we didn’t cover it above — an easy-to-use app. That last one comes from the fact that AVG doesn’t offer a lot of features. But at least it has a kill switch!

We liked both VPNs, but we liked Surfshark more.