Last updated: 22 September 2026.

What we do not claim to measure

We do not run a malware laboratory. Producing a defensible detection rate requires a large, current and independently sourced sample set, a controlled environment, repeated runs, and a published methodology. Organisations such as AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives exist to do exactly that, and they publish both their method and their raw results.

So when you want to know which engine catches more, the honest answer from us is: read the laboratories, not us. We link to them, we tell you how to read their tables, and we do not manufacture a competing number. A percentage invented by a website with a commission link underneath it is worth nothing.

The same applies to performance impact. A benchmark figure means nothing without stating the hardware, the operating system build, the test workload and the number of runs. We give you the shape of the trade-off instead, and point at the people who measure it properly.

What we can assess, and do

• What is actually in a plan. Reading the vendor's current documentation carefully and reporting it accurately is unglamorous and is where most buying guides fail — usually by repeating a feature list that was true three years ago.
• Whether a claim survives checking. Marketing language routinely implies more than it states. Separating the two is editorial work and we do it.
• The corporate and regulatory record. Who owns the company, what they have done with user data, what regulators have found. This is public, checkable, and frequently omitted from reviews because it is commercially awkward.
• Fit. The most useful question is rarely “which is best” but “is this the right thing for this reader's situation, or is the answer something free and already installed?” We answer that, including when the answer costs us the sale.
• Explaining the mechanism. A reader who understands how the scanning pipeline works, or what a VPN tunnel actually covers, can evaluate any product — including ones we have never written about.

Why there are no star ratings

A single score compresses incompatible dimensions — protection, privacy record, price, usability, platform coverage — into one number, and the weights that produce that number are never shown. On commission-funded sites those weights tend, remarkably often, to correlate with commission rates.

We would rather write three sentences that tell you which readers a product suits and which it does not. It is harder to skim and considerably more useful. Where a comparison genuinely helps, we publish a table of situations and reasonable choices, clearly labelled as a decision aid rather than a scoreboard.

How our articles are built

1. Scope. Decide the questions a reader actually arrives with, rather than the ones that are easiest to answer.
2. Primary sources. Vendor documentation for product facts; company announcements for corporate facts; regulators' own publications for regulatory facts.
3. Challenge the received wisdom. Specifications repeated across dozens of articles are frequently copied from one another and frequently stale. Anything we cannot trace to a primary source is cut, not hedged into vagueness.
4. Write the disadvantages first. If we cannot articulate who should not buy something, we do not understand it well enough to recommend it to anyone.
5. Diagram the mechanism. If a concept is hard to explain in words, we draw it. All diagrams are original vector drawings made for this site.
6. List sources so you can check us.
7. Date it and sign it. A named byline and a date, so you know how old the information is and who is accountable for it.

How to read us critically

You should read any commission-funded site sceptically, this one included. Some useful tests:

• Does the page name anything the product does badly, or anyone who should not buy it? If not, it is an advertisement.
• Are the numbers sourced? Can you click through to where they came from?
• Does it mention a free alternative that would serve some readers?
• Is the commercial relationship disclosed before the first sales pitch, or buried at the bottom?
• Are there testimonials? Can you verify that any of those people exist?

Our answers, in order, are on the front-page guide: yes, yes, yes, before, and none. If that ever stops being true, tell us.

Conflicts of interest

This site earns commission on purchases made through its partner links, including links to the product discussed in the article on the front page. That is disclosed at the top of every page carrying such a link. We hold no shareholding in any vendor named on this site, receive no payment for coverage, and accept no vendor review of text before publication. See the editorial policy.