About privategrade

privategrade is an independent review project covering privacy and utility software. We score products on a fixed rubric, document our sources, disclose every affiliate relationship on the page where it applies, and update reviews when products change in ways that affect the score.

What we cover

We focus on three categories where the choice matters most for individuals and small teams: encrypted email, password management, and private cloud storage. These are the foundations of a workable privacy posture, and each market is crowded with products of widely varying quality. Our current coverage is Proton, 1Password, and pCloud. We add new products when we can evaluate them to the same standard as the three already on the site.

How we score

Every product is scored on five dimensions, each contributing to a final score out of ten:

• Encryption standard and key handling — what cryptographic primitives are in use, where keys are generated, and who holds them
• Jurisdiction and legal exposure — which legal system can compel disclosure of user data
• Business model and incentive alignment — whether the company's revenue depends on protecting users or on extracting value from them
• Published audit history — what has been independently verified, by whom, and how recently
• Real-world usability — whether the product survives daily use without forcing meaningful compromises

We weight encryption and incentive alignment most heavily. A perfect cryptographic protocol delivered by a company whose business model depends on monetising user data is a worse product than a slightly weaker protocol delivered by a company whose incentives are aligned with the user.

Sources

Reviews are based on documentation we can verify. For every product we cover, we read:

• The vendor's published security white paper or technical documentation
• Independent third-party audit reports — Securitum, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and similar
• Public penetration test results and responsible disclosure records
• Current vendor pricing pages, captured on the date of the review
• Aggregated independent expert reviews from established publications

Where we make claims that depend on external evidence, we link to that evidence. The dated Sources verified for this review section at the bottom of every review names every URL we relied on.

Editorial independence

We do not accept sponsored content. We do not accept payment in exchange for a review, a score, favourable placement, or coverage of a product. We do earn affiliate commissions when readers sign up for products via links on this site — those relationships are disclosed on every review, and the complete list is on our affiliate disclosure page. Commission rates do not influence scores. A product we earn nothing on can outrank a product that pays us well, and several already do.

Authorship

We are deliberately faceless. The work, the methodology, and the sources are what the reader is meant to evaluate — not the author. Editorial decisions are made independently of any commercial relationship.

Update cadence

Reviews are revisited when a product changes meaningfully. The triggers we track: a new audit or an audit lapse, an ownership change, a pricing change, a regulatory event affecting the company, and any disclosed security incident. Each review carries a last updated date and a sources-verified-as-of date so readers can judge how current the page is.

Corrections

If you find a factual error, write to info@privategrade.io. Corrections are logged at the bottom of the affected review with the date and what changed.

Who operates the site

privategrade is operated by Future Ready Consulting Kft., a Hungarian company. Registered office: 1117 Budapest, Váli utca 4. 4. em. 3. ajtó. Company number: 01-09-373306. EU VAT: HU28770060. The company is the controller of any personal data collected through the site under the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

Contact

For general questions, press, or corrections: info@privategrade.io. For the form, see our contact page.