- Surfshark is retiring its private Search tool, blaming a lack of usage
- Already begun on mobile, the full shutdown is expected by the end of 2026
- The company says the move frees up resources for its Antiscam Hub
Surfshark is preparing to shut down Search, its built-in private search engine, for the simple reason that not enough people were using it.
In a note to TechRadar, the company confirmed that the tool, which is bundled with its One and One+ plans, will be wound down over the coming months.
Surfshark framed the decision as a way to free up resources for the areas its customers care more about, chiefly its Antiscam Hub.
The move is a notable trim for one of the best VPN providers around, a company that has spent recent years bolting extra privacy tools onto its app. Search was one of them, offering ad-free, tracker-free results with the option to switch regions.
Why Surfshark is retiring Search
The problem, by Surfshark's own admission, is that hardly anyone used it. The company told TechRadar that adoption stayed limited to a very small slice of its user base, and that retiring the tool lets it pour resources into higher-demand areas instead. Chief among those is the Antiscam Hub.
It's a pragmatic call. Standalone private search engines face stiff competition from established names like DuckDuckGo, Startpage, and Brave Search, and a search tool tucked inside a VPN app was always going to be a hard sell against them.
The wind-down is staggered rather than immediate. Search has already been pulled from iOS, and it will disappear from Android with the next app release in early August. For now, it survives on Surfshark's web app, so anyone who relies on it there has some time to choose their new alternative.
Surfshark says it will retire Search everywhere else by the end of the year, and tidy up any lingering mentions of it across its website.
Where the resources are going: the Antiscam Hub
In May, the company launched its Antiscam Hub for iOS, a dedicated section of the app that pulls five existing tools into a single interface: Personal Email Masking, Alternative Number, Dark Web Monitoring, Unsafe Site Blocking, and Identity Theft Coverage.
At launch, the hub didn't so much add new features as reorganize existing ones, and Surfshark billed it as the starting point for a roadmap of increasingly sophisticated security features.
That roadmap is now taking shape: the company told TechRadar it will soon reveal a completely new addition to the Antiscam Hub for both iOS and Android users.
It won't reach everyone, though. The new feature "will be part of the Surfshark One and One+ bundles," Gabriele Sinkeviciute, Head of Product at Surfshark, told TechRadar, adding that the company will assess future releases individually.
"The VPN is our foundation, but our focus is on building an all-in-one security product," Sinkeviciute said.
That tracks. Rivals including NordVPN have been consolidating their security tools into unified suites, as VPN providers push beyond simple traffic encryption. It also reflects a grim reality: US consumers reported losing about $15.9 billion to fraud in 2025, the highest on record and up roughly 27% from $12.5 billion in 2024, according to the FTC.
For now, the takeaway is straightforward — Search is on its way out, scam protection is the priority, and Surfshark says there's more to come.
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