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Affiliate Disclosure

Affiliate Disclosure

TheCyberPicks believes in full transparency. This page explains how we earn revenue, how affiliate relationships work, and why our commercial model does not compromise the integrity of our reviews.

How We Earn Money

TheCyberPicks is a free resource. We make money through affiliate commissions.

When you click a link on our site that takes you to a product’s website (such as NordVPN, ExpressVPN, or Bitdefender) and you make a purchase, we may earn a commission from that company. This happens at no extra cost to you — the price you pay is the same whether you click our link or go directly to the product’s website.

These affiliate links are identifiable on our site:

  • They use paths like /go/ or /recommends/ (for example, thecyberpicks.com/go/nordvpn).
  • They are marked with rel="nofollow sponsored" in the HTML, which tells search engines that these are commercial links.
  • Every page containing affiliate links displays a visible affiliate disclosure banner near the top of the content.

Commissions Do Not Influence Our Reviews

This is the most important thing on this page: affiliate commissions play zero role in how we rate or rank products.

Here’s how we keep our editorial process independent:

  • Testing comes first. We test every product ourselves before writing about it. Ratings are determined by our testing results, not by commercial relationships. Read How We Test for our full methodology.
  • Rankings are performance-based. Our “best of” lists rank products by how they performed in our testing. If a product with a lower commission outperforms one with a higher commission, it ranks higher.
  • We include products we don’t earn from. If a free tool or a product without an affiliate program deserves a recommendation, we include it. Proton VPN’s free tier and open-source tools like Bitwarden are examples.
  • We publish negative findings. If a VPN has logging concerns or an antivirus slows your system down, we say so — even if we earn a commission from that product.
  • The review team has no access to commission data. Ratings and recommendations are finalized before considering any commercial factors.

Which Companies We Work With

We maintain affiliate relationships with several VPN, antivirus, and cybersecurity companies, including but not limited to:

  • NordVPN
  • ExpressVPN
  • Surfshark
  • Proton VPN
  • CyberGhost
  • Bitdefender
  • Norton
  • Malwarebytes

This list is not exhaustive and may change over time as we add or remove partnerships.

Our Testing Methodology

We don’t rely on press releases, spec sheets, or other review sites. Every review on TheCyberPicks is based on hands-on testing. We evaluate products across specific, measurable criteria including speed performance, privacy policies, feature sets, pricing, and user experience.

For the full details of how we test and score products, visit our How We Test page.

FTC Compliance

This disclosure is provided in compliance with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines on endorsements and testimonials (16 CFR Part 255). We are committed to honest, transparent communication about our commercial relationships.

Questions?

If you have any questions about our affiliate relationships or how we handle commercial interests, please get in touch. We’re happy to explain anything in more detail.

Last updated: [SET ON PUBLISH]