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← Editorial metascores

METHOD editorial-1

What the metascore
actually means.

A traceable summary of published editorial opinions. Read the source range and the privacy record beside it.

TechRadarTechRadar
Tom’s GuideTom’s Guide
RTINGS.comRTINGS.com
Top10VPNTop10VPN
PCWorldPCWorld

Publisher marks identify our sources, not endorsements. TechRadar and Tom’s Guide share a source family. Read the ownership and funding context.

THE IDEA, MAPPEDAn editorial score. Separate evidence lanes.
  1. 01

    Editorial

    Combine eligible opinions with one share per family.

  2. 02

    Performance

    Compare only within matching test cohorts.

  3. 03

    Privacy

    Keep policy, court records and unknowns visible.

Editorial-1 publishes a provider-level opinion summary. Performance and privacy evidence remain separate; neither is converted into safety points.

One service, several editorial perspectives.

We normalize eligible overall service ratings to 0–100. Within a known publisher family we average its publication ratings, then give each contributing family one equal share. TechRadar and Tom’s Guide share Future’s vote. At least two provisional families are required; fewer produce an insufficient-evidence label.

A worked calculation.

Future: TechRadar 4.5/5 (lower bound 0) → 90/100, Tom’s Guide 4.45/5 (lower bound 0) → 89/100. Family mean 89.5/100. Top10VPN: Top10VPN 9.2/10 (lower bound 0) → 92/100. Family mean 92/100. Equal-family mean: (89.5 + 92) ÷ 2 = 90.75, published as 91/100.

Choose the right interpretation.

The score summarizes overall service verdicts. The exact tested tier, OS or test window can be unknown, so it cannot establish how today’s cheapest plan will perform for you. Scale conversion does not harmonize publishers’ criteria. Family grouping is provisional and does not establish independent test data.

Keep the other evidence in view.

RTINGS’ Private Browsing category, customer ratings, explicitly mixed free/premium verdicts, invalid scales and review editions outside the declared window are excluded. Provisional speed cohorts stay separate. Policies, court records, commissioned assessments and country groups do not add or subtract points. Read the privacy evidence and published speed context.

Read the coverage and disagreement.

A two-family pool has limited coverage. The source range is the minimum and maximum included publisher ratings on the common scale; it is not a confidence interval. A one-point difference between providers should not decide your purchase. Read the expanded summaries and their caveats.

Read the complete versioned calculation policy

Download every calculation, original scale, family share and exclusion · Inspect the separate, stricter test-readiness checklist.