Consumer Reports is actually pretty damn good for most things, especially in terms of reliability ratings. Good reviews is one of the things I'm happy to pay for, since the web doesn't seem to have spawned a good free alternative.

PSA: Some libraries have free access to Consumer Reports. Check with your local library to see if they have a membership.

For cooking stuff, Cook's Illustrated is the reference. Are there better recipes and cooking equipment reviews out there? Definitely. But it's generally of very high quality.

Ah, that convinced me to actually buy membership. Thanks for spreading the word.

Yeah, it's really a great publication. I really enjoy that they've taken an ideological stance to never take advertising so that they never have a conflict of interest, in stark contrast to almost every review site on the internet. When testing cars, they have plainclothes buyers to buy the cars, as well (partly so that they're not subject to keeping companies happy to keep the review samples flowing). They seem to also have pretty involved testing methodologies. All of this takes money, and I imagine that the rise of the internet hasn't been kind to their cashflow, so I'm happy to chip in to keep this sort of independent testing organization alive.

I trust some reviews of some products by some people. I differentiate. For example, for car reviews I read Edmunds reviews but don't trust all of their opinions. They don't try to do anything with car reliability which really sucks, but they can't. You don't know what's what until you've owned the car for 10 years, and they are reviewing new cars. I trust my mechanic friend much more here since he can actually look under the hood and tell me if the type of car has a transmission that's prone to go bad, or an engine that's going to burn oil. It's possible that he's pulling his opinions out of his own biases, but what he says usually makes internal sense so I feel better if he tells me something is good or bad.

I don't trust good restaurant reviews, and only trust bad ones if they cite specific issues, like using wrong ingredients, etc. I trust my friends and family when they say a place is good or bad much more because I know their tastes and I can ask followup questions.

For electronics, I pretty much don't trust anyone with anything unless something is backed by the manufacturer. I only trust Apple products because of Apple Care. Everyone has had a bad experience with a laptop, a phone, a tablet, a mouse, a USB cable, etc. It's not worth listening to most times since it's usually a horror story from 10 years ago about a company that who's had their entire manufacturing line re-tooled since.

On Amazon for a generic product, the biggest indication to me is if there are lots of reviews. That means lots of people own the product. If most of the reviews are one star, it's a crappy product. If not, it could be good or bad and I personally find very little correlation between the way I perceive a product and its Amazon reviews.

An impartial third party with a high level of experience and expertise in the area of review. Especially good if they can compare the product side-by-side to its competitors.

This can provide its own bias. For instance, your average film critic has seen so many versions of stupid action movie that they find those movies pretty tiresome.

My favorite reviews are currently from America's Test Kitchen. Their equipment reviews are especially insightful and well written to provide a thorough expert opinion on products. Wonderfully, they've found a business model that allows for their independence.