Surfshark’s Dedicated IP Is Now on Linux

Say you’ve done the smart thing and have got yourself a virtual private network (VPN) to help anonymize your online activity and keep your browsing private, but you’re sick of the websites that detect you’re using a VPN and block you. There’s a fix for that.

Surfshark now offers its Dedicated IP service for Linux, joining the macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS users who’d already had it.

For an extra $3.75 on top of your existing Surfshark VPN subscription, you get a private IP address for your use only, which eliminates the annoying CAPTCHA and significantly lessens the chance that a website will mark your IP address as being a VPN and block it.

What causes vpn blocks?

VPN servers’ IP addresses are shared among users. Websites pick up on the inconsistencies and anomalies caused by lots and lots of people using the same IP addresses, which can lead to VPN users receiving constant, annoying two-factor authentication requests, such as CAPTCHA, or websites that outright won’t work when connected to via a VPN server.

A dedicated IP prevents this detection because you’re the only one allowed to use it. Websites won’t notice any funny business, such as large numbers of people from the same IP accessing the site simultaneously or in different languages. It’ll just look like a normal person accessing the websites from a normal IP address.

The downside to using a dedicated IP is that you lose some of the protection that comes from sharing VPN servers (and their IP addresses) among many people. It’s better than not using a VPN at all, but it’s a trade-off.

You could reserve a dedicated IP and use it for your frequently accessed sites that block VPNs, then switch to a shared VPN server for sensitive use, if you’re concerned about maximizing anonymity more for some sites than others.