Why You Can Trust SafeScan Now's Reviews
We don't sell antivirus. We don't take paid rankings. We don't operate any cybersecurity brand on the side. Here is the full picture of how this publication is funded, edited, and held accountable.
Direct answer
SafeScan Now is funded by reader-clicked affiliate commissions, paid into a shared editorial pool. No editor is compensated per click or per conversion. Scoring decisions are locked before any affiliate negotiation. We do not accept sponsored content, sponsored rankings, or vendor-supplied review copy, and we publicly map the ownership of competitors who do.
Our Funding
SafeScan Now earns a commission when a reader clicks an affiliate link in a review and chooses to purchase. The commission rate is the same for every brand we cover — we negotiate one rate, not per-product rates.
Affiliate revenue is paid into a shared editorial pool. Editors are salaried; no editor is paid per conversion or per click. This is the single most important guardrail against the slow drift toward whichever vendor pays best — and it is the practice every honest review publication should adopt.
We do not accept: sponsored rankings, sponsored placements, paid news inclusion, vendor-supplied review copy, or 'review trade' arrangements where a vendor offers free product in exchange for coverage.
Our Methodology
Six pillars: Detection 30%, Performance 20%, Pricing 15%, Privacy History 15%, Ease of Use 10%, Support 10%. Every pillar's inputs are listed on /methodology/, including which lab data we trust and which SafeScan Now in-house tests run on every brand.
Scores are decided before affiliate links are placed. The same scoring formula runs every month. Methodology changes are dated and signed on the page itself. We have never deleted a published score or a published correction.
Our Editors
Four full-time security researchers — Liang Chen (CISSP), Sarah Lin (GCTI), Kenji Watanabe (GCED), Maria Volkov (OSCP, CIPP/E) — write and review every page on this site. Each editor signs the work they verified.
No editor holds equity in any antivirus, VPN, or password-manager company. No editor consults for, or moonlights at, a vendor we cover. Conflicts of interest are disclosed inline on the page.
Our Affiliate Disclosure
In compliance with FTC 16 CFR Part 255, every page that contains an affiliate link displays a disclosure at the top of the page, in the body of the article, and at the point of click. The full legal text lives at /affiliate-disclosure/.
If an affiliate link is the reason a product is in the article, we say so. If a product is in the article despite no affiliate link, we say that too.
What We Don't Do
We do not sell antivirus, VPN, or any other cybersecurity product.
We do not own, operate, or hold equity in any cybersecurity vendor.
We do not accept paid rankings, sponsored placements, or paid news inclusion.
We do not republish vendor-supplied review copy as our own.
We do not delete failed test runs or revise scores on commercial grounds.
We do not run editorial decisions through the commercial team.
Anything missing?
If a disclosure on this page is incomplete, write to corrections@safescannow.com. Every correction is logged inline with the date and editor responsible.