VPN payment method , services like Surfshark usually use protocols like OpenVPN or IPsec, however they have now launched the ability to connect to VPN servers via the new WireGuard protocol, a very fast and reliable VPN protocol that includes the highest possible security by default so our messages are encrypted and authenticated. In this article, we already have a complete guide on how to set up a WireGuard VPN free account server in Linux or Windows , Surfshark now has the ability to connect us using this protocol, and besides, it does it by default.
surfshark wireguard vs openvpn
surfshark wireguard config file
surfshark wireguard configuration
surfshark wireguard configuration files
surfshark wireguard github
surfshark wireguard vs ikev2
surfshark wireguard openwrt
surfshark wireguard manual setup
WireGuard features when used with Surfshark
WireGuard is a relatively new open source VPN protocol that is already integrated into the Linux kernel for maximum performance. The vast majority of operating systems are compatible with it, such as Windows, Linux, Android , macOS, as well as Ios . This new protocol is very lightweight, has better security by default and above all is really fast compared to other VPN protocols like OpenVPN or IPsec.
Compared to OpenVPN, while WireGuard has only 4,000 lines of code, OpenVPN is much more complex at 400,000 lines. Since the WireGuard code is very small, its security can be easily verified. In addition, it uses very modern security protocols, in particular the following:
- ChaCha20 for symmetric encryption and Poly1305 for authenticated data - AEAD.
- Curve25519 for ECDH.
- BLAKE2s for hashing.
- SipHash24 for key hash table
- HKDF to get the key
One of the strengths of WireGuard is that it takes less than a second to connect to the server, it is really fast, much more than establishing an OpenVPN connection. Another feature is that its keys change every few minutes to ensure PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy), in addition, WireGuard performs this task so quickly that no packets are lost during the handshake, in order to always have the best possible performance.
Surfshark already has this VPN protocol by default in its app for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, that is, we will use WireGuard by default and we will see how the connection is established much faster than before, and not only, but we will achieve greater productivity. We tested the latest version of Surfshark 2.7.4 software for Windows, we connected via "automatic" protocol to the fastest and closest VPN server located in Madrid:
We can also choose the protocol in a special way, that is, always use WireGuard, even if we need to connect to another more remote VPN server if the nearest one is not available.
If we are connected to the VPN server using WireGuard and want to switch to OpenVPN with UDP, the VPN connection must be restarted as usual. We can see that it takes much longer to establish a connection, with WireGuard it is almost instantaneous.
Regarding the performance difference between WireGuard and OpenVPN, in this article we ran several tests and got the following speeds:
- WireGuard: 460 Mbps upload and 390 Mbps upload.
- OpenVPN with UDP: Download 90 Mbps and Upload 90 Mbps.
As you can see, the differences are dire and we will also notice much better performance on mobile, as WireGuard is particularly effective and works very well on smartphones and tablets.
We recommend that you access the official Surfshark website where you can test their VPN service for free for the first month, in this article we did a full analysis of Surfshark VPN where we explain all its features, price and more.
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