Reference
Three pages. The first is the one that matters, because a ranked table is worthless if you cannot see how the order was decided.
If you read one
The method page. Every ranking on this site is a judgement, and the only thing that makes a judgement useful rather than decorative is showing the reasoning so somebody can disagree with a specific step rather than with the conclusion.
What each page is for
| Page | Use it when |
|---|---|
| How the ranking is made | You want to know whether to believe any of this |
| Questions | You have one specific thing to settle |
| Glossary | A term here is being used in a sense you do not recognise |
What this site will not tell you
- Whether a market is up. Nothing here measures anything, and a number nobody can back is worse than no number.
- Whether a vendor is reliable. No ratings, no reviews, no customers to quote.
- Anything about products. A deliberate boundary that holds across all six languages.
- Which market to use. There is no comparison here and nothing is being recommended.
On the six languages
Each language version is written for how people ask about this in that language rather than translated from the English. The rankings and the reasoning are the same because they are the same argument, but the questions answered, the examples and the emphasis differ, because the mistakes people make differ with what they were told before they arrived.
How the site is put together
Every page carries the same three addresses at the top, because that is what most readers arrived for and burying it behind an argument would be dishonest about the transaction. Underneath that is one section of the table, and nothing else. There is no search box, no account, no newsletter and no comment section, all of which would collect something from you in exchange for very little.
The modification date in the markup follows real edits to the text rather than the day you happen to read it. A date that advances every morning while nothing changes is a claim of freshness that is not true, and it is the single most common dishonest signal on sites covering this subject.
Corrections
| Kind of correction | What happens |
|---|---|
| A factual error | The page changes, and so does the modification date |
| A mechanism that has changed | The entry is rewritten rather than patched at the edges |
| A ranking somebody disputes | Moves if the disputed step is named, stays if the objection is that it feels wrong |
| A request to add a link | Declined. Nothing here is placed in exchange for anything. |
That last row is worth stating because the usual business model for a site covering this ground is to be paid by the things it covers, and a reader has no way to tell from the outside which kind of site they are reading.