Frequently asked questions

No. None at all — not first-party, not third-party, and not so-called strictly necessary ones. The site also writes nothing to localStorage, sessionStorage or IndexedDB, runs no analytics, and loads nothing from any third-party server. That is why you are not being asked to accept anything.

You can confirm it in about a minute with your browser's developer tools; the cookie policy gives the exact steps.

Because consent under Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive is required for storing information on your device or reading information already stored there. We do neither, so there is nothing to consent to. A banner asking permission for something that is not happening would be misleading, so we removed the tracking instead of adding a banner.

Affiliate commission, and nothing else. Some outbound links are partner links; if you buy after following one, the seller pays us a percentage out of its own margin. You pay the standard price, with no surcharge. There is no display advertising, no sponsored content and no paid placement.

The mechanism is described step by step in the advertising disclosure.

It is not supposed to, and we test that in public. Our main guide reports the 2024 United States Federal Trade Commission settlement against the brand it links to, and it identifies the readers for whom the free Microsoft Defender is probably enough. No partner sees an article before publication or has any approval right over it. The rules are written down in the editorial policy.

James Gray, director of publication and responsible editor for CLEAN KLASS s.r.o., the Czech company that publishes zlatavor.online. Articles carry a named byline and a date. We publish nothing anonymously and we invent no authors or credentials. Full statutory identification is in the legal notice.

No, and we say so rather than implying otherwise. Testing malware protection properly requires a laboratory, live samples and a published methodology. We point readers to AV-TEST in Magdeburg, AV-Comparatives in Innsbruck and SE Labs in the United Kingdom, all of whom publish both their results and their methods.

This is also why you will find no star ratings or scores out of ten anywhere on this site.

Because a laboratory score without its test date and methodology is close to meaningless, and published results change with every round. A figure copied from a two-year-old report is worse than no figure at all. We describe what the laboratories measure and send you to the current report instead.

For many people with a single, up-to-date Windows machine, Microsoft Defender plus prompt updates, a password manager and two-factor authentication is a reasonable posture. A paid suite adds value mainly through breadth — several devices and operating systems on one subscription, a bundled VPN, identity monitoring, easier ransomware controls and a support channel.

Our main guide works through the trade-off, and our security basics page lists the free measures worth doing first.

No. A VPN encrypts the network path between your device and the VPN operator's server. It does not inspect the files you download, it does not recognise a fake login page, and it does not make you anonymous to a service you are signed in to. It is a privacy tool for the network path, and it does not replace an antivirus in either direction.

No. zlatavor.online and CLEAN KLASS s.r.o. are independent and are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Avast, Gen Digital Inc., Microsoft or any other company mentioned. Brand names are used for identification and description only. We have an affiliate arrangement with a seller, which is a commission relationship, not a partnership or an endorsement — and we disclose it on every page that carries such a link.

No, and we want to be clear about it. We are a publication, not a vendor or a reseller. We cannot install or activate software, issue or reset a licence key, cancel a subscription, stop an automatic renewal, or process a refund, and we have no access to any seller's customer records. Contact the company you bought from, using the details on your order confirmation.

Treat it as suspicious until proven otherwise. Security vendors are among the most impersonated brands in renewal scams, precisely because the message is plausible. Never renew by clicking a link in an email — open the application on your machine, or type the vendor's address into your browser yourself.

Figure 5 of our main guide breaks down a fake renewal notice marker by marker.

No, and that is deliberate. Every illustration is an original SVG file drawn for the article it appears in. There are no vendor screenshots, no product photography, no third-party logos and no stock images. The mock email in the phishing diagram is an invented example, and every address shown in it is fictional.

A form would collect and transmit your personal data, which would contradict the promise that this site collects nothing. Email and post are the two routes, both listed on the contact page. We do not operate a telephone line; correspondence in writing gives both sides a record.

Email info@zlatavor.online with the page address and the passage you think is wrong. We acknowledge within five working days, check it against the primary source, and if we got it wrong we correct the page, update its date and note what changed. We do not delete errors silently. The full procedure is in the editorial policy.

Nothing, unless you have emailed us — in which case we hold that email and any address in it, for as long as it takes to deal with the matter. Our hosting provider keeps standard technical server logs for security and fault diagnosis. That is the complete list; the privacy policy sets out the legal bases and your GDPR rights.