Why this site exists
Most VPN reviews assume you already know what a VPN is and why you might want one. They compare protocol implementations and server counts, which tells an ordinary reader nothing about whether the thing will be usable on a Tuesday morning.
They also share a stranger problem: almost every one of them says the product is excellent. When forty sites rank the same five VPNs in roughly the same order, and every one of those sites earns a commission on the click, the rankings stop carrying information.
This site answers the questions people actually ask. Does it work with Netflix? Is it safe to use for banking? Can I set it up myself? What happens if I want my money back?
How we assess VPNs
We do not buy every subscription and we do not run our own speed tests. A number produced on one home connection, in one city, on one afternoon would tell you very little about what happens on yours, and publishing it as though it did would be dressing up an anecdote as evidence.
Independent audits
Who has verified the provider's privacy claims, under which standard, in what year, and what the auditors actually had access to. An unaudited no-logs claim is a marketing sentence.
Laboratory results
Published testing from bodies such as AV-Comparatives, with the sample size and the date attached, so you can weigh the result instead of taking the headline number.
The fine print
Refund terms, renewal behavior, which features are missing from which plan, and which platforms a feature does not run on. This is where the unpleasant surprises live.
Reported problems
Recurring complaints across support forums and user communities, framed as what users report rather than as our own findings.
When a claim comes from the company, we say so. When it comes from an outside body, we name that body and the date it published. Anything we cannot source, we leave out.
What we don't do
- We don't accept payment for placement or for a higher position in a ranking.
- We don't claim to have personally tested products we have not bought, and we don't publish speed figures we did not measure.
- We don't present manufacturer images as our own photographs.
- We don't claim credentials we don't have. This site is written by a researcher, not a security engineer.
- We don't publish a review with no downsides in it. If we could not find a real limitation, we did not look hard enough.
We earn a commission when you buy through links on this site, which pays for hosting and for the time this takes. It does not change the ratings or the wording. Full affiliate disclosure.
Corrections
Pricing changes, features move between plans, and streaming access breaks without warning. If you find something on this site that is out of date or simply wrong, tell us and we will fix it and note the change. Use the contact form.