Almost a year ago, Surfshark announced a major new feature: Nexus. This was a radical departure from how most VPNs work in that, instead of the usual setup of passing your internet connection through a single server (or perhaps two) Nexus meant that “your traffic gets routed through a whole network of servers rather than a single VPN tunnel.”
Surfshark says that this approach obscures and hides your traffic, stabilizes performance, and enhances your VPN connection speed.
One of Nexus’ benefits was the ability to choose your ‘entry’ and ‘exit’ servers on the network and, finally, this is being rolled out.
Surfshark calls it Dynamic MultiHop and it’s available right now in the iOS app. It should arrive in the Android, Windows and macOS over the next few weeks. Currently a pop-up says “This is a new feature we’re trying out” suggesting it isn’t fully finished.
“To put it simply, MultiHop is a double VPN service, allowing users to connect via two different VPN servers at the same time. This function makes tracking or hacking users’ connections twice as hard as their information is routed via multiple countries. Previously, users could only use preselected server pairs, but after the update, they can choose both locations manually. It helps not only to get additional security, privacy, and customization but, in some cases, it could also improve speeds”, says Justas Pukys, VPN Product Owner at Surfshark.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
The real benefit here is the extra layer of privacy you get by using two servers and you shouldn’t expect it to make your connection faster: it’s only in very rare cases that this happens. In fact, you’re more likely to see a drop in connection speed since the connection has to travel between two different servers which will be in different locations.
It’s worth pointing out that they don’t have to be in different countries. Where Surfshark has servers in multiple locations within the same country, such as London and Glasgow in the UK, you can pick those for your custom connection and, so long as you’re actually in that country or close by, you shouldn’t see too much of a drop, although we haven’t yet had time to test this theory.
When you’ve got the updated version of the Surfshark app, tap on Locations, then on MultiHop. Along with options to select the fastest, nearest, or the preset list of country combinations, you’ll also see a Create Connection button.
Tap that and you can pick entry and exit servers in over 100 countries. And you’ll see previous server pairs you’ve used in the MultiHop list and can mark your favourites as well as delete any you don’t – or won’t – use.
Surfshark isn’t the first VPN to offer its users a customisable double VPN. Hide.me added the same feature to its apps back in March 2021.
Dynamic MultiHop isn’t the first feature to use Surfshark’s Nexus software-defined network though. That was IP Rotator which changes your IP address every 10-15 minutes