operation. Commentators hold up one VPN review
site as an example of rectitude; others say the same
site is secretly run by a VPN vendor with an
agenda. When there is this much disinformation
and counter-disinformation (which may also be
disinformation), it’s impossible to tell who is telling
the truth.
Neil Rubenking has been working for PCMag for as
long as I’ve been alive, and I asked him if he’d seen
anything similar covering antivirus products. He
hasn’t. Those companies occasionally snipe at each
other and sometimes are accused of cheating, but
the major players are smart enough to realize that
the stability of their market as a whole depends
upon their perception as trustworthy players.
Moreover, an entire industry is holding antivirus
vendors accountable. The AMTSO (Anti-Malware
Testing Standards Organization), of which
Rubenking is an Advisory Board member, has set
guidelines and released tools so anyone can verify
that their antivirus software does something.
There’s also an industry of antivirus testers, such
as AV-Test and AV Comparatives, that not only
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provide live feeds of malware that Rubenking can
use to verify on his own that antivirus software
does what it promises.
That kind of community doesn’t yet exist for VPNs.
Nor is it particularly easy to verify whether VPNs
are doing anything. How can we tell that a VPN is
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we verify that every single one of the company’s
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