Das Testportal-Ökosystem, gekennzeichnet
Bevor du einer „Beste VPN“-Liste vertraust: Prüfe, wer sie veröffentlicht. Wir kennzeichnen jedes große VPN-Testportal - im Besitz eines VPN-Konzerns, Affiliate-finanziert, Community - jeweils mit dem Beleg.
Im Besitz von VPN-Konzernen (6)
| Comparitech | Aura/Pango group: Comparitech Limited (UK 09962280) is 75%+ owned by Anchorfree Ltd (UK 07288764, the Hotspot Shield/Pango company) since 15 Oct 2021 · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrReviews Hotspot Shield and other Pango-competitor VPNs; the Pango ownership is discoverable only via the PSC register and a deep disclosure mention, per VPNCompare's own observation. |
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| Mashable | Ziff Davis (acquired 2017 for $50M; Ziff Davis owns IPVanish/StrongVPN) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Publishes VPN buying guides with affiliate links; same structural conflict as PCMag, lighter VPN coverage. |
| PCMag | Ziff Davis (owns VPNs IPVanish and StrongVPN via NetProtect/VIPRE) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrThe reviewer and the reviewed share a balance sheet: PCMag VPN rankings sit in the same company as two of the reviewed products. Ownership per Wikipedia, verified same-day as the review. |
| ProPrivacy | Pango/Aura group per self-disclosure: 'owned and operated by Comparitech Limited which in turn is part of the Pango group of companies' (ultimate parent WC SACD Holdings Inc.) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrIts about page still lists founder Pete Zaborszky as 'Owner & Chairman' (stale, fetched 2026-09-27); the legacy BestVPN.com domain now 301s to proprivacy.com. Discloses openly on its disclaimer page that it earns affiliate commissions ('almost every comparison and review site on the internet operates an affiliate model'). |
| WizCase | Kape Technologies plc (acquired Webselenese with vpnMentor, 2021) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Self-describes as 'established in 2018 as an independent site' in the same paragraph that names Kape as parent. |
| vpnMentor | Kape Technologies plc (acquired publisher Webselenese, June 2021) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Ranks and reviews VPNs owned by its own parent; the disclosure exists but lives in footer boilerplate, not in the rankings. |
Affiliate-finanziert (19)
| Android Authority | independently owned (AA Media; not re-verified) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: medium Real device testing culture, but VPN guides are affiliate content; not refetched this session. |
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| CNET | Red Ventures (bought CNET Media Group from ViacomCBS for $500M, Sept 2020) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrIts flagship VPN pages mirror the affiliate-core brands (NordVPN/Surfshark/ExpressVPN mention counts 60/51/65 on its 'best VPN' page, fetched 2026-09-27). |
| CNN Underscored | CNN (Warner Bros. Discovery) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrShopping-recommendations vertical covering VPNs; press reporting in 2023 documented affiliate-conflict problems inside Underscored (not re-verified this session). |
| Cloudwards | independently owned (self-claim; Oro Valley, AZ address on site) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Transparent about the commission model by its own description; VPN and storage reviews are its affiliate bread and butter. |
| CyberInsider | self-declared independent, no external investors (operator entity not published) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: medium mehrAbsorbed RestorePrivacy; does original reporting on VPN-industry conflicts (it broke the Kape story) while itself earning VPN affiliate commissions - conflict acknowledged, not absent. |
| Cybernews | not publicly documented · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrIts commission-based review model is standard knowledge. Community speculation about Lithuanian VPN-ecosystem ties is exactly that - suspicion, no public evidence; do not publish as fact. |
| Digital Trends | Digital Trends Media Group · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Standard affiliate-commerce tech publisher; not refetched this session. |
| Forbes Advisor | Forbes Media · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Commission-driven 'advice' vertical where editorial and commerce sit closest together; classification knowledge-based. |
| PCWorld | Foundry (formerly IDG) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: medium Legacy IT press with commerce-desk affiliate reviews; not refetched this session. |
| PrivacySavvy | PrivacySavvy Ltd (self-stated copyright, founded 2020) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Standard affiliate-review operation with the usual disclaimers; ownership limited company disclosed by name only. |
| SafetyDetectives | not publicly tied to any VPN operator (independent ownership per available evidence) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrA Kape-ownership rumor circulates in communities but no evidence was found this session; listing Kape brands as its own commission sources argues against it. Publishes genuine breach research alongside the affiliate funnel. |
| Security.org | not disclosed on-site (operator entity unknown) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrFrequently cited for 'consumer VPN surveys' that get quoted as independent research; the surveys are produced by an affiliate-compensated review site with no named owner. |
| TechRadar | Future plc · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrFuture plc is the largest affiliate-commerce publisher in the segment; its VPN 'reviews' are the canonical example of the same-5-brands list. |
| Tom's Guide | Future plc · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high 'Top 5' is effectively the affiliate tier-1 lineup; Future sibling of TechRadar. |
| Top10VPN | self-declared independent (founded by Antonio Argiolas, 2016) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: medium mehrSerious testing methodology and genuine research output; but it lives off vendor referral traffic like everyone else in the top-10 business, and its monetization structure is not fully published. |
| US News 360 Reviews | US News & World Report · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high 360 Reviews is a commission platform; timed out from this server this session, classification knowledge-based. |
| VPN Overview | not publicly documented · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high Long-established Dutch affiliate review site; classification is knowledge-based. |
| VPNCheck | unknown · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrNote the name collision hazard: 'VPNCheck' was the outlet VPNCompare credited in 2022 with revealing the Aura acquisition; whether it is the same entity is unverified. |
| VPNCompare | TwistedFingers Ltd (UK) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: high mehrIndependent UK operator with industry background; produced the reporting that exposed the Aura-Comparitech/ProPrivacy acquisitions (2022-05-17) - a review site policing its own industry. |
Gemischte Bilanz (1)
| Wired | Condé Nast · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: medium mehrStrong editorial standards and no VPN-operator ownership, but VPN guides carry standard commerce-team affiliate links; not owned by a VPN company. |
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Community / Non-Profit (4)
| Privacy Guides | Privacy Guides (US 501(c)(3) nonprofit; volunteer + staff, member-funded) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: none mehrNonprofit, donations-funded, no affiliate links, recommendations change-vetted by multiple maintainers; the reference model for an independent consumer resource. |
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| PrivacyTools.io | unclear since the 2024 community split (operator not published) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: none mehrHistoric community project; governance contested after the founder exodus to Privacy Guides; current operator is not clearly published - treat recommendations as community-vetted but provenance-unclear. |
| That One Privacy Guy | volunteer project (single author, no company) · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: none mehrThe most obsessively detailed VPN dataset ever built by one volunteer; no ads, no affiliates, painfully outdated - proof that the honest version of this product cannot pay its own hosting with integrity intact. |
| r/VPN (Reddit) | Reddit community · Affiliate-Abhängigkeit: none mehrNoisy and astroturf-prone, but zero commercial agenda at the top level; useful as a signal of real-world user experience, never as a verdict. |
Unverifiziert (10)
| AllAboutCookies | not publicly documented Privacy/VPN content in an affiliate-wrapped guide format. |
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| Allvpn | unknown Legacy VPN-rating site still serving; monetization and owner not documented. |
| Pixel Privacy | unknown Long-running privacy-guides site of the standard affiliate-review shape; monetization not verified this session. |
| Privacy Australia | located in Adelaide, South Australia (self-stated; operator unknown) Regional VPN review site; monetization not verified this session. |
| TechNadu | unknown Streaming/VPN review site; monetization not verified this session. |
| TheBestVPN | unknown Formerly an active affiliate 'review' site; current state unverifiable from here (403). |
| VPNAlert | unknown VPN comparison site; no public evidence gathered on monetization this session. |
| VPNPros | unknown Thin template site; cannot responsibly label its model. |
| VPNRanks | unknown Commercial review site with a proprietary scoring brand; commission model not verifiable from fetched pages. |
| vpnHunt | unknown Expert-review-branded comparison site; no evidence gathered on monetization. |
Eingegangen (5)
| 10bestvpn | domain for sale One of the original top-10-style affiliate lists; now an inventory asset. |
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| BestVPN.co | domain parked Formerly a busy affiliate 'review' site; now a parked page. Cautionary tale about the genre's half-life. |
| BestVPN.com (legacy) | absorbed into ProPrivacy/Pango mehrOne of the oldest VPN 'review' brands; the domain folds into ProPrivacy, itself Pango/Aura-owned - one former independent brand after another ends up inside a VPN operator. |
| RestorePrivacy | defunct as an independent brand - absorbed into CyberInsider mehrThe site that broke the Kape-vpnMentor ownership story no longer exists as its own brand; caution needed for anyone still citing 'RestorePrivacy' as an independent source. |
| VPNpro | unknown (Ukrainian research team) mehrProduced the landmark hidden-ownership research ('105 VPNs run by 24 companies', later expanded; also the source VPNCompare cited for the Aura reveal). 403 and no known new content for years - treated as dormant, not definitively dead. |
So nutzt du das: Bevor du einer „Beste VPN“-Empfehlung folgst, such auf dieser Seite nach dem Namen der Seite. Ist sie Affiliate-finanziert, behandle ihr Ranking als Werbung, bis das Gegenteil belegt ist - und beachte: Nicht ein einziges kommerzielles Testportal hat unser Label „unabhängig“ verdient.