How We Test & Score
Every number on this site traces to the same discipline: buy anonymously, benchmark identically, publish criterion scores, re-test quarterly.
The rules we never break
- Anonymous purchases. Unaffiliated accounts, retail price, no advance notice to vendors.
- Identical harnesses. Same speed tests, uptime monitors, and support tickets per category, in the same windows.
- Commissions never touch scores. Affiliate deals affect buttons, never numbers. Some top picks pay us nothing.
- Quarterly re-tests. Every pick carries a last-tested date; products that slip get re-ranked publicly.
- Named ownership. Shared corporate parents (Kape, Nord Security, Newfold) are disclosed in reviews.
How we score VPN
Average download retention across 20 global locations, tested three times daily.
Encryption, protocol quality, independent audits, jurisdiction, and logging history.
Netflix, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, and live sports across 12 regional libraries.
Design, platform coverage, and setup friction on desktop, mobile, and TV.
Intro and renewal pricing, simultaneous connections, and money-back terms.
How we score web hosting
90-day monitored uptime, TTFB, and full-page load times on identical WordPress builds.
Storage, bandwidth, email, SSL, backups, staging, and one-click installs.
Control panel quality, onboarding flow, and time-to-first-published-page.
Response time and answer quality across live chat, tickets, and phone, tested anonymously.
Intro pricing, renewal rates, free extras (domain, SSL, email), and refund terms.
How we score online learning
Production values, instructor expertise, curriculum design, and depth of the median course.
Subject coverage, course counts, and how well the library serves both beginners and specialists.
Whether completion earns something recognized, accredited certificates, degrees, or industry credentials.
Apps, offline access, quizzes, projects, community, and how well the platform keeps you finishing.
Cost per course or month, free options, refund terms, and real cost to complete a skill path.
Who does the testing
Maya Chen: Maya has reviewed consumer software and web services for nine years, previously leading testing at a major tech publication. She personally runs every speed benchmark and signs up for every service we review with unaffiliated accounts.
Daniel Okafor: Daniel builds and maintains ShieldDigest's benchmarking harness, uptime monitors, speed-test automation, and support-response timers. Every factual claim on a review passes his verification before publish.