How we make money

A link to a partner goes through an address on this site that starts with /go/, which forwards you to the company. The company or its affiliate network may then set a cookie so it can tell that you came from us. If you buy within the period that company allows, it pays us a commission. You pay the same price you would pay without our link.

On a guide that contains affiliate links, a disclosure at the top, above the first link, names the companies. Boxed recommendations carry an “Affiliate link” label, and every affiliate link is marked rel="sponsored" in the page code, so search engines are told the same thing you are. Our own /go/ redirect records nothing about you.

These are the affiliate relationships active today:

• NordVPN: A paid VPN service with apps for every major platform and independently audited no-logs claims.
• Proton: Swiss privacy suite: Proton VPN, Proton Pass, Proton Mail and Proton Drive, each with a free tier.
• Bitdefender: Antivirus and internet security suites for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.
• Optery: Data broker removal service, with a free scan that shows which people-search sites list you.
• Fastmail: Paid, ad-free email with custom domains and masked email addresses.
• CrowdStrike: Endpoint protection for businesses, including Falcon Go for small teams. Linked only from our small-business guides.
• Anytime Mailbox: Virtual mailbox addresses that scan your mail, so you can give out an address that is not your home.
• Bizee: Business formation and registered agent service that can keep a home address off public state filings. Linked only from our small-business guides.

We also mention many companies that do not pay us, including 1Password, Bitwarden, Mullvad, DeleteMe, Malwarebytes, Aura, Tuta and Microsoft. When one of them is the better fit for a reader, we say so.

• A recommendation. Commission rates do not decide which product a guide suggests, and a company cannot pay to be included, ranked higher or described more kindly.
• Review before publication. No partner sees a guide before it goes live or can ask for a change other than a factual correction.
• Your data. We do not sell or share anything about readers. There are no advertising pixels and no analytics on this site; see the privacy policy.

Prices change often, so we only print a price when we have read it on the company’s own pricing page, and we date it (currently October 2026) and link to that page so you can check the current figure. Feature claims come from the company’s published documentation, independent audits or independent lab results, and we say which. We do not run our own lab tests.

Ask us anything about this through the contact form.