You have to really hunt to find accurate information on the Web; this isn't really any different than TV, Newspapers or the Magazine Rack.
Good reviews are hard to find and generally hard to read (full of information that you have to think about).
One fairly common example would be two popular new-car magazines, namely Motor Trend and Car & Driver. If you are unfamiliar with them, go down to your public library some day and read each magazine's review of the same vehicle, side by side.
MT is an industry shill while C&D makes attempts to be a little more objective. If you like, compare both to Consumer Reports (which I find to be least objective, despite it's fine reputation. They definitely have an agenda to push, but if you can recognise it they provide good information the others don't). Still, C&D isn't exactly immune to pushing it's own agenda either. True, critical automotive journalism is nearly impossible to find, so your next best solution is to get to know the reviewers themselves (means reading a lot) and understand their preferences and how it may affect what they choose to print. Since it's so rare (to the point of extinction) to find neutral reviewers, you always have to read between the lines and try to figure out where the guy is coming from before you can actually use any information he provides. You can apply this to a review of most anything you are curious about or are considering.
One of the most notorious magazines in the HiFi industry was Stereo Review, where each review would end with something like "this product would work very well in any system and you should consider it the next time you shop". SR would also kill reviews of any product that tested poor, would allow hand-selected items to be reviewed, would give manufacturers a second chance, and would only occasionally review a product whose manufacturer didn't advertise (basically, to "prove" that ads didn't matter). Still, SR quotes were prominent in product advertising and before it went broke due to mismanagement, was the largest circulation HiFi magazine on the market.
Another good way to vet your reviewers is to re-read a review of a product (say a SW app) that you use and know well. See if the review matches your own experience.
This article we've been talking about comes from what I would consider to be the least reliable, considering it was set up to promote PC network-over-phone line products that began to show up a few years ago. I can practically guarantee this site never, ever, mentioned that the $60-100 or so PC package (2 PCI cards and lines) could be duplicated with a $20 kit (Farralon PhoneNet) on any 2 Macs made since 1984*. (If you are willing to give up your modem, you can do it on a new G4, but you will have to shell out a few bucks for the Serial Port adapter).
* If you're interested, for about a dollar and an unused Mac Serial cable, you can make your own PhoneNet system. Both the PC and Mac solutions relied on transmitting data over the 2 unused wires in a typical 4-wire home telephone system. It's not that fast, which is why both versions are essentially dead (the PC kind showed up too late, while the Mac one has been replaced by Ethernet) and this site is now a general PC site.
This guy probably started hating Macs right about the time someone first eMailed him pointing this stuff out.
