How we evaluate VPNs

Every rating on this site comes from a fixed, published rubric applied to verified data — never from impressions, and never from what a provider pays.

Where our data comes from

We build a fact sheet for each provider from primary sources only: the provider's own pricing and feature pages, its terms of service, and independent audit reports named by auditor and year. Aggregators and other review sites are never sources. Every article lists the sources it used, with the date we accessed them.

The scoring rubric

• Privacy and trust — 30%. Jurisdiction, most recent independent no-logs audit and who conducted it, RAM-only infrastructure, ownership.
• Features — 25%. Protocols, simultaneous devices, kill switch, platform coverage.
• Price honesty — 20%. What the plan really costs after the intro term, refund window, how clearly renewal pricing is disclosed.
• Streaming and use-case fit — 15%. What the provider itself commits to supporting.
• Transparency — 10%. Public audits, open-source clients, quality of documentation.

Scores are calculated from the fact sheet, shown out of 10, and every review explains its two weakest dimensions in plain language.

What we don't do yet

We don't currently run our own speed benchmarks, so you will never see "our tests measured" on this site. Where speed matters we report what audits and provider documentation support, and we say so. When we add our own measurements, this page will publish the full method first.

Re-reviews

Prices and audits change. Every page carries a "last reviewed" date, money pages are re-verified on a fixed schedule, and corrections from readers are verified and fixed with priority — see contact.