Surfshark Has Lots Of Great Features, But Here’s Why Nexus Is One Of My Favorites

Nexus is the engine that powers the rest Surfshark’s the most exciting aspects of privacy and communication. Basically, Surfshark’s server infrastructure makes the VPN it functions as one integrated network rather than a collection of individual servers.

That architectural decision makes it possible for Surfshark to provide more privacy for constantly rotating IPs without needing to reconnect in the middle of a session. As a result, you get enhanced privacy that doesn’t interfere with your browsing while fiddling with VPN settings.

The great thing about Nexus is that it all works seamlessly with the existing Surfshark client, so you may not even know what other features are running in the background.

I’ll explain why I use Nexus and how you can benefit from it, but to really appreciate how Nexus enhances Surfshark’s services, let’s quickly review how most VPNs work.

What makes Nexus different from the way other VPN providers operate?

When you connect to the Internet through a VPN, your traffic is routed through encrypted connection that makes it difficult for your internet provider to see what you are doing online. Also, the websites and services you access only see the IP address of your VPN server, not your home IP.

That prevents advertisers from knowing where you are connected. But once you’re connected to a VPN server, most VPN providers keep you connected to the same server the entire time. Every site you visit will see the same IP address, creating a traceable chain of your internet activity — at least until the next time you reconnect to a different VPN server.

In a traditional VPN setup, each server is configured independently and is treated as a separate resource. The VPN server handles all the network logic behind your connection, so you can’t use another server to route your traffic without disconnecting from your current server or starting a new VPN-to-VPN tunnel.

Nexus removes that limitation by letting Surfshark route your traffic dynamically across its network without giving up your time. Nexus separates the control layer of the network and its logical rules away from the data layer, which actually handles the routing of your traffic to all of its servers.

When you connect to Surfshark, it doesn’t matter if you connect to a server in New York or the Netherlands. All you do is connect to an access point on the Nexus network, and it routes your traffic inside its own area. That could be another server in the multi-hop chain you requested, another IP in Surfshark’s Multi IP pools or just your chosen exit point.

That makes it easy for Surfshark to offer VPN features that other providers would struggle to do, such as redirecting traffic from one VPN endpoint to another without breaking the VPN connection, assigning a new IP to every site you visit or connecting any two servers together, all without sacrificing airtight privacy.

All of Surfshark’s 4,500-plus servers in 100 countries use Nexus, so you can request a new server anywhere in the world every time you open a new web page using Multi IP. However, switching servers may affect the speed of your VPN connection, especially if you move from a VPN server near your location to one on the other side of the planet. In my experience, Surfshark usually assigns servers in a way that won’t necessarily hold your speed, but your mileage may vary.

New features Nexus is powerful

Here’s a quick rundown of how these Nexus-enabled features work and where you can use each one.

Roaming IP

Rotating IP changes your IP address on a timer, which triggers approximately every 5 minutes. This happens seamlessly in the background without the need to test the app. You won’t notice switching between servers because your session stays live all the time, even if your IP is changed. When you are given a new IP, websites see a new connection which means if nothing else points to you, you are essentially a “new user.”

However, Rotating IP is only one piece of the privacy puzzle. Your browser may have cached cookies that will identify you even after your IP changes, so it’s best to use Rotating IP alongside an ad blocker and deny unnecessary cookies, especially if they come from third-party sites. Roaming IP is available for Windows and macOS, with more customization on Mac.

Multiple IP

Multi IP gives you a different IP address for each site or service you access instead of rotating it every 5 minutes. I use Multi IP alongside a browser-based ad blocker and Surfshark’s Clean Web for additional DNS-level protection from advertisers and malware. Using these features in combination with private browsing tabs and the ad blocker plugin in my browser makes it difficult for advertisers to correlate browsing activity across different websites.

Although I’ve seen warnings that Multi IP and Rotating IP can trigger IP-based blocking on some sites, I’ve found that Multi IP rarely interferes with my browsing sessions. However, when choosing from a global server pool, I had to skip additional verification steps when entering a new country. Also, if you use a banking app, Multi IP may trip your bank’s anti-fraud detection. Currently, only Mac users can access Multi IP, but I hope Surfshark brings this feature to Windows and other platforms in the future.

Dynamic MultiHop

Dynamic MultiHop is Surfshark’s version of what other VPNs call it “double VPN” or just multi-hops. Traditional multi-hop allows you to connect two or more VPN servers in a series of encrypted tunnels to add additional levels of privacy to your Internet connection (usually at the expense of a slower connection). It’s often used in situations where you need more protection from surveillance or don’t really trust the power in the area you’re connected to.

However, many VPN providers only offer a limited number of multi-hop connections because of how their network infrastructure is configured. Surfshark instead gives you a whole list of server connections to choose from, which Nexus helps make possible. That way, you can connect to a low-latency server near you or to a destination with the data rules of your choice before connecting to an endpoint anywhere in the world.

Everlink

Everlink keeps your VPN connection active even if the VPN server you are currently using is taken offline. You won’t even notice it’s working, as it runs entirely on Surfshark’s backend. It is not a place for a kill switchwhich protects your work by disconnecting your internet connection if your VPN goes down, but improves the reliability of your VPN connection.

Often, when a VPN server goes down for maintenance or is overloaded, there can be a temporary outage in your internet traffic while your VPN client reconnects. In the worst case, you may need to manually reconnect. Everlink acts as a self-healing backup layer that easily changes the VPN server you’re connected to, redirecting your traffic in real time to a nearby server in the same location without dropping your connection.

Everlink is enabled by default as long as you use the WireGuard protocol and works with all VPN plans offered by Surfshark.

FastTrack

Surfshark constantly optimizes the route your traffic takes through its network using FastTrack to make sure your internet connection is as fast as possible. Essentially, Nexus SDN allows Surfshark to periodically check multiple routes and choose the best route through its distributed server network.

Since FastTrack is baked into Surfshark’s server infrastructure, you won’t need to enable it in your client settings — it happens automatically whenever you connect to a server with the FastTrack icon. Currently, FastTrack is only available on macOS servers in Sydney, Seattle and Vancouver, but we expect Surfshark to roll out FastTrack to more servers in the future.

Dausos

Dausos is a VPN protocol for Surfshark powered by Nexus. Surfshark claims that Dausos offers speeds up to 30% faster compared to other industry standard protocols.

Dausos uses the Nexus network to provide a unique VPN tunnel for every user instead of sharing a tunnel between multiple clients, which means there is no traffic pollution between different Surfshark users. It also has adaptive performance, so if you jump between Wi-Fi and a mobile hotspot, Dausos will automatically adjust itself for optimal performance based on your current network quality.

It’s perfect too quantum resistance thanks to the AEGIS-256X2 encryption protocol, which Surfshark says no other VPN provider currently offers. Unfortunately, Dausos is only available on the macOS version of Surfshark, which is available on the Apple App Store.

The conclusion

The great part about Nexus is that it works in the background, enabling new features not available in other VPNs. You also benefit from it even if you don’t use it to rotate your IP, as it may also be one of the reasons why Surfshark’s speed has improved (and been consistent) over the past few years.

Even if you use Surfshark to stream external libraries, Nexus optimizes the traffic sent within the Surfshark server network to ensure you get the best connection speeds.