Compatible with iOS, macOS, Windows, Android, and Linux: In the same vein, both VPNs worked with all of the major operating systems that we’ve come to expect.

Sure, nearly 64 percent of internet users worldwide use Chrome, but we don’t want to forget about the four percent on Firefox, either. We’re Chrome-users, so we tested out both VPNs’ Chrome extensions, although they have extensions for Firefox, as well.

Browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox: If you only want your browser encrypted and not any web apps, then you may prefer to use a browser extension versus a mobile application.

Unlimited devices and simultaneous connections: This isn’t always the case for VPNs many limit us to five or even one devices, so we were really happy to use Windscribe and Surfshark on all of the devices we own (and at this point, we’ve lost count).

No DNS or WebRTC leaks: On a more upbeat note, we didn’t see our IP addresses or the domain names of the websites we’d visited show up in any leak tests, so both VPNs performed their main functions without error.

We prefer dynamic versus static IP addresses, so this was a drawback of both.

Static IP addresses: Now, one thing we weren’t thrilled about was the fact that whenever we connected to the same server, whether it was one of Surshark’s or one of Windscribe’s, the VPN changed our IP address to the same one every time.And when it comes to encryption, the more, the merrier. Multi-hop: On top of the AES-256, both Surfshark and Windscribe encrypted our data a few different times through multiple servers.Currently, AES-256 is the highest standard for encryption. AES-256: Both VPNs used AES-256 to encrypt our devices’ IP addresses and our online browsing activity.

Split tunneling: With both VPNs, we could route some of our web traffic directly to the public Wi-Fi network to save on bandwidth.

Torrenting: Both Surfshark and Windscribe are great VPNs for torrenting, so if you want to download non-copyrighted material, you can hide it all with either VPN.

Kill switches: Have you ever had a VPN disconnect just as you were starting to browse on some sensitive websites? With both Surfshark and Windscribe, if they disconnect suddenly, they’ll also shut down your web browsers and apps with it, a failsafe option to maintain your privacy.

With either VPN, you can expect the following features.

Windscribe torrenting