I’m not trying to change the subject or anything, but since I have been testing SS vs Express it got me thinking more and more about the security of Wireguard vs Lightway protocols. We chatted a bit about Camouflage/Stealth mode too…but just how secure are these two protocols? Is either better than the other at keeping your ISP (i.e. Spectrum in my case) from knowing that you are using a VPN? Is that even truly necessary, as the point of a VPN is just to make sure they can’t know exactly what you are doing? For me to dump Express for SS, I need to feel good about these questions above. From my research, it seems as though lightway has more guards against this than Wireguard, but I’m hoping that I’m completely wrong as I really want to keep SS. The speeds have been terrific, and easy to use with tons of cool features.
This may help you understand more about protocols in SurfShark.
Your isp will always know if you have a vpn, they have expensive and well coded network tools on their end and can actually see your isp supplied modem and configurations. But, they cant see that encryptied data when vpn is on nor is it illgeal so they cant do a thing.
Thanks @Miki for the article. It does a great job of explaining that protocol. Thanks @TP-Dracoo as well. Based on what you are saying, I think maybe I’m just overthinking it. I’m guessing both of these VPNs, and both of their protocols are fantastic and secure. ISPs knows you are using a VPN when you use either, but nothing they can do because they can’t tell exactly what you are streaming. I trust all of you and Troy to give us safe streaming, and he wouldn’t rank this #1 if he felt it wasn’t secure. I have 3 months or so before my yearly renewal of Express and I want to feel good about switching all my main boxes to SS. The speeds have honestly been better than Express so far.
edit: I forgot to mention that I use my own modem, it isn’t ISP supplied. Is it safer that way?
Their site has the easiest bunch of articles to find and understand. These guys dumb down the techy stuff a bit for us tech challenged types. Simply go there and use their search and type in whatever you have questions about. Nice.
They cant decrypt the data to know what your viewing, streaming or accessing with vpn on. It will take way to much time to go threw that data, those ciphers need some serious decryption tools. You will be safe as the data is also scrambled.
And i cant say, your own suppiled modem is good for control but it depends on your isp, now a days you cant do that and need their locked down modems. But they can see that you are hooked up to an unsupported modem and without a vpn on they can see your data streams and traffic regardless. They just from my knowledge cant configure it remotely.
This news about SS hurts. My IPVanish needed renewal. So I did. Now I wish I would have gotten the info on Surfshark. I would have gone with that. Now I am locked in to IPVanish for 2 more years.
This is the negative of changing these rankings and I knew that we would have comments like this. Keep in mind that we have IPV ranked at 4.8 and Surfshark at 4.9. Both are very good VPNs.
Yes, but you are a smart man and all of here know that you dont bs us. So these changes come after serious testing and communication. Good work as always.
People will always have there opinions amd what works for them i suppose.
Super grateful for all of your hard work. I was pretty steadfast after my initial tests on ExpressVPN that I was going to keep it around permanently. Surfshark has been impressive, I’m glad you twisted my arm to test it out. 
You and your team are the best!
I have been following your advice for I don’t know how long. So, you are incredible, your advice is spot on. You just made my concern go away. Thank you again.
Watched your video regarding FIRETV issues with Surfshark. Recently switched to Surfshark, I must admit largely due to your recommendation. Another issue I’m having with it is I can’t get YouTube Next to work while Surfshark is running. Not sure if it’s due to my use of YouTube Next Beta version. Has there been others noting the same experience? Can you recommend a solution?
I have until Oct 10th before my IPV runs out too.
I am retired and want to save all I can since the cost of most everything else has gone almost out of sight.
I really like IPV and have had no problems at all with it but I do like the features on SS too. Esp the kill switch
I am thinking about going to SS this time unless I could get a good deal on IPV.
Which I guess won’t happen.
I will probably end IPV on Oct 10. I guess I need to stop the renewal a couple weeks before it runs out.
I do have question about SS if you know,
Is there no need of running the safety dot while running it ? It has kicked off with IPV a few times and after I updated IPV a while ago it said you will see a key on the screen letting you know it is connected which I never saw.
I have the current vpn on 2 computers ,a firestick 4K max and a onn device and a android phone.I’ve yet to see the key I read about.
THanks
I had some trouble with ss so I cancelled the renew and will go back to ipv. Funnny that after I got a text from ss and they wanted me to renew and after I advised of the trouble it all went away. 
In theory with SS and kill switch enabled, you shouldn’t need safety dot. But it seems like most of us are addicted to the green dot lol and keep it rolling either way. The safest thing you can do with or without the safety dot is to manually check that SS is running and connected each time you boot up your box. Green dot’s latest update is causing issues turning itself off anyway, so whether you keep it or not, I still feel better checking on my Surfshark connection manually each box/stick session. If that connection is then interrupted and you have kill switch enabled, you can’t get yourself into any trouble by streaming with no vpn, because SS has already killed the internet and will keep you from accessing anything.
The key shows on my Samsung s21+ on the top bar, just to the left of my signal strength icon. Lets me know my VPN is active. The feature is in my settings.
Getting back to the original topic. I personally think that SS is a great VPN with amazing customer service. The kill switch alone is a huge selling point, but more than that are the diverse options and configuration settings available for the beginner to the more tech savvy. They are constantly improving.
Have a great day and STREAM ON 
.
Ill see how it performs this week, might renew.
Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate them. I doing a lot of reading here too.
I’ve had this issue with the Green Dot turning off every other day since the latest update. I figured that I had done something wrong. And had looked for a post on this topic but found nothing. Anyhow I figured that it was just as easy to turn it back on. Easy enough to do.