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Amelia Ame

Founder & lead tester, TopRatedVPN

I founded TopRatedVPN because VPN reviews are mostly rewritten press releases. Everything on this site starts with a measurement I took myself, on the same hardware, in the same month — and when a number is not mine, the page says whose it is.

  • 42 VPNs tested
  • 4 regions, every month
  • Every subscription bought and refunded
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What I test on
Line
940 Mbps fibre
Devices
Windows 11 desktop, MacBook Air M3, iPhone 16, Pixel 9, Fire TV Stick 4K
Regions
US East, UK, Singapore, Australia
Method
3 runs per server, median reported

Last full round September 4, 2026 · next October 2, 2026

What I actually do

  • Speed and latency testing on a fixed rig, four regions, three runs a server
  • Leak testing — DNS, IPv6 and WebRTC — on every platform a VPN ships an app for
  • Reading privacy policies and audit reports properly, including the parts that contradict the marketing
  • Streaming checks across 14 services, repeated monthly rather than claimed once
  • Buying, using and then refunding every subscription, and timing how long the refund takes

The full procedure, the weights and what each score means are on the methodology page.

What I will and won't do

I buy every subscription with my own card. Providers see a review when you do — no previews, no right of reply before publication, no changing a score because someone asked. If a provider offers a better commission for a better placement, the answer is no, and the rank order stays the score order.

Negative findings stay in and stay dated: a logging incident, a failed streaming test, an app that crashes. When a provider fixes something I go back and re-test rather than quietly editing the sentence. When I get something wrong, the correction goes in the changelog with the date, not into a silent edit.

I also mark the limits of what I know. A review written from other people's tests says so at the top, names every source, and stays out of the ranking until I have run it myself. That is the deal: you can check where any number on this site came from.

The site earns affiliate commissions — that is on the disclosure page in detail, including which links pay and which do not. It funds the subscriptions and the rig. It has never decided a rank.

Written by me

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