Corrections
Does KotoVPN correct its mistakes?
Every material error is logged here with the date, what was wrong, what the page says now, and whether the correction moved a score. Entries are never edited or removed, and a corrected fact is never quietly written into a page as though it had always said that.
When we get something wrong, it is logged here with a date. Entries are never removed, and a corrected fact is never edited into a page as though it had always said that.
| Date | Page | What was wrong | What it says now | Score effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 15, 2026 | /reviews/purevpn/ and every page citing its score | PureVPN’s platform list was corrected to include Apple TV on 14 August, but the written reason attached to its platform score was left reading "no Apple TV app". The data and the reason next to it disagreed for a day. It was found by an agent writing the TV and console guide, which flagged it in the article rather than picking whichever version suited the page. | Platform score 7 → 8, with the reason stating the native tvOS app shipped in 2023 and noting that split tunnelling is Windows and Android only. The guide that found it now records the resolution instead of the warning. | PureVPN 69.0 → 70.0. Still third of four; the spread is 35 points. |
| August 14, 2026 | Glossary — 15 corrections across 10 terms | A technical review found errors a knowledgeable reader would catch. Among them: that a VPN hides SNI "because the handshake happens at the tunnel exit" (TLS is negotiated end to end, so the exit’s upstream still sees it); that perfect forward secrecy means "a new session key for each connection" (RSA key transport did that and had none — the mechanism is ephemeral Diffie-Hellman with the private halves destroyed); that WebRTC leaks your real address despite a VPN (under a full tunnel the STUN request goes through the tunnel; it leaks only where split tunnelling or IPv6 already provides a path); that WireGuard "keeps the client IP while a session is active" (it is connectionless and has no sessions); and that Smart DNS reroutes nothing (it proxies the region-check traffic in the clear, which is the whole mechanism). | Each entry states the actual mechanism, with the common misstatement named and corrected. | None. Glossary entries are not rubric inputs. |
| August 14, 2026 | Guides — the OpenVPN-on-port-443 claim, in four places | Repeatedly stated that OpenVPN over TCP 443 "resembles ordinary HTTPS" and defeats networks that block by protocol signature. It does not. OpenVPN carries a fixed opcode at a known offset and a TLS fingerprint no browser produces, and is identified on port 443 routinely — which is why China and Iran block it there. The site’s own page on VPN blocking said the opposite correctly. | Port 443 defeats port-based filtering only. Deep packet inspection identifies OpenVPN regardless of port, and obfuscation is what answers it. | None directly, though it is the reasoning behind the protocols criterion. |
| August 14, 2026 | Guides and country briefs — obfuscation availability | Claimed in four places that Proton VPN is the only provider we cover shipping a dedicated obfuscation mode. NordVPN offers obfuscated servers and the NordWhisper protocol — and our own dataset already recorded this, since the 2025 Deloitte audit scope we publish covers "obfuscated servers". The country-brief filter also used open-source clients as a proxy for obfuscation, which is unrelated, so it admitted and excluded the wrong providers on the China and Iran pages. | Proton VPN (Stealth) and NordVPN (obfuscated servers, NordWhisper) both qualify; PureVPN and FastestVPN do not. The filter now matches named modes rather than an unrelated property. | None. It changed which providers appear on the China, Russia, Iran and Turkey briefs. |
| August 14, 2026 | /guides/bind-qbittorrent-to-a-vpn/ | Told readers to turn off UPnP/NAT-PMP when using a forwarded port. Proton VPN — the provider that same paragraph recommends — hands out its forwarded port over NAT-PMP on a short renewable lease, so following this advice breaks the exact feature the page is about. The guide also described qBittorrent as reverting to "Any interface" when the bound adapter disappears, a fail-open behaviour current builds do not have, and misplaced the setting at the top of the Advanced page. | NAT-PMP must stay on for Proton and off only where a provider gives a fixed port. Current qBittorrent fails closed on a missing interface; the genuinely fragile setting is a pinned bind-to-IP address. | None. |
| August 14, 2026 | /guides/iphone-and-mac-vpn-profiles/ and three other guides | Gave macOS paths that do not exist — "VPN & Device Management" is the iOS name, and Apple moved VPN out of the Network pane in Ventura. Also stated Chrome has nothing built in (it now ships IP Protection in Incognito), omitted Edge Secure Network from a guide about built-in VPNs on Windows, described Tailscale as having no shared exit (it sells a Mullvad exit-node add-on), misdescribed Steam’s region mechanism as payment-derived rather than a persistent account setting, and gave MTU advice with the wrong symptom and the wrong test value. | System Settings → VPN for configurations, General → Device Management for profiles. Each of the other claims is corrected against the current product. | None. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/protonvpn/ | Listed a dedicated IP as available (it is a business-plan product, not on consumer plans), stated 110 server countries (the provider states 148), summarised Proton as having "two published audits" when the dataset lists five, and cited a refund-policy URL that 404s. | Dedicated IP recorded as unavailable with the reason, 148 countries, five audits, working source. | None. Neither field is a rubric input. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/purevpn/ and /reviews/fastestvpn/ | PureVPN was recorded as having no Apple TV app; it has shipped a native tvOS app since 2023. A fourth KPMG audit was listed for 2024, but the page cited for it is dated August 2023 and describes the February–April 2023 engagement, so the claim was unsupported. Four source URLs across both providers were dead. FastestVPN’s pricing table carried a $0.33/month lifetime rate that we produced by dividing $40 over ten years — a number nobody published, which then fed the cheapest-VPN ranking. | Apple TV listed. PureVPN records three sourced audits rather than four. Dead URLs replaced. The invented lifetime rate is removed from the pricing table and the $40 one-off noted in the editorial text, where the caveat travels with it. | None to any total. PureVPN’s audit score of 7 already reflected the always-on arrangement rather than the count. |
| August 14, 2026 | Site-wide metadata | Titles were clamped to 60 characters before a 10-character site-name suffix was appended, producing 73-character titles with our own ellipsis stranded mid-word. Descriptions were cut at a fixed 158 characters, leaving 98 of 136 pages ending mid-sentence on a dangling article. | The title budget accounts for the suffix. Descriptions are trimmed back to the last complete sentence, falling back to a word boundary only when a single sentence exceeds the budget. | None. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/fastestvpn/ and every page citing its score | Stated that FastestVPN had never published an independent audit, and scored it zero on that criterion. It has one: a Privacy No Log Audit by Altius IT, an ISACA-certified California firm, with fieldwork from 15 December 2022 to 29 January 2023 and the full report published as a PDF. This was the most consequential error on the site, because the claim was used on four other pages as evidence that commission does not buy scores. | One published audit, by Altius IT, January 2023, never repeated. The scoring reason states that its scope explicitly excluded security safeguards and third-party controls, and the full audit history is now shown on every review. | Audit 0 → 3. Total 49.0 → 55.0. FastestVPN still ranks last of four. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/nordvpn/, /reviews/protonvpn/, /reviews/purevpn/ | Audit records were years out of date. NordVPN was listed with a 2023 Deloitte audit when the sixth assurance engagement concluded in December 2025; Proton VPN with two 2024 Securitum audits when it has five consecutive annual audits through May 2026; PureVPN with one 2023 KPMG audit when it has four since 2019. | Full audit histories with the firm, year, fieldwork window, findings and whether the full report was published. NordVPN 6 engagements, Proton VPN 5, PureVPN 4, FastestVPN 1. | No change to totals — the audit scores were already set at the right level for the underlying track records, and the reasons now state them correctly. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/purevpn/ | Omitted that the 2023 KPMG assessment raised two logging observations, reporting the audit as unqualified. | The audit entry states that origin IP addresses appeared in error logs of failed connections for users connecting by manual configuration, and that some logs recorded first- and last-connection times with a connection count. PureVPN states both were remediated and verified. | None. The audit score of 7 already reflected the always-on arrangement. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/fastestvpn/ | Stated a 15-day refund window. FastestVPN publishes a 31-day money-back guarantee on both its pricing page and its homepage. | Refund window of 31 days, matching the longest of the four providers we cover. | Value 8 → 9, contributing to the total change logged above. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/fastestvpn/ and /best/many-devices/ | Stated 15 simultaneous connections, and the device shortlist ranked FastestVPN first on that basis. FastestVPN includes 10. | 10 simultaneous connections. All four providers allow 10, so the shortlist no longer presents a difference that does not exist. | No change to the platform score, which was set on app coverage rather than the device count. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/fastestvpn/ and /best/torrenting/ | Recorded FastestVPN as not offering port forwarding, which excluded it from the torrenting shortlist. | Port forwarding is offered as a paid add-on at $1.20/month. It now appears on the torrenting page with the cost stated, as does PureVPN, whose port forwarding is also an add-on. | None. Port forwarding is not a rubric criterion. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/fastestvpn/ | Quoted $1.11/month on a five-year plan. FastestVPN does not sell a five-year term. | $5.00 monthly, $0.83/month on the two-year plan ($19.95 billed once), and a $40 lifetime option. | Included in the value change above. |
| August 14, 2026 | /reviews/purevpn/ | Quoted $2.11/month on the two-year plan. The current published rate is $2.15. | $2.15/month on the two-year Standard plan, with the 1-year rate at $2.55 added. | None. Value score 9 unchanged. |
Reporting an error
Email editor@kotovpn.online with the page URL, the claim you think is wrong, and a source. A source is what makes a report actionable — without one we can only re-check what we already checked.
Providers use the same route. We do not offer a separate channel for commercial contacts, and a correction request from a provider is treated exactly like one from a reader: show the source, and the fact changes.
What counts as a correction
- A factual claim that was wrong when published
- A score that does not follow from its own inputs
- A source link that never supported the claim attached to it
A price that has since changed is not a correction — it is a routine re-check, handled by the review cycle in the editorial policy. Every price on the site carries the date it was read for exactly that reason.