Overall, Norton 360 is my favorite antivirus in 2022 because it has a robust anti-malware engine, a large range of internet security capabilities, an accessible web dashboard, and excellent customer service, all at a lower price than most competitors.
Machine learning, powerful heuristics, and a constantly updated malware directory are used by Norton’s anti-malware engine to identify malware ranging from viruses and trojans to advanced malware such as ransomware and cryptojackers. Norton’s thorough scan and real-time protection both detected every single malware file I tried to download during my testing, with minimum system slowness and no false positives.
Norton 360
Norton also includes:
- A firewall, to be precise.
- Anti-phishing security.
- Controls by the parents.
- VPN encryption (virtual private network).
- Backing up to the cloud.
- Privacy is safeguarded.
- Webcam security (Windows only).
- Protection against identity theft (US only).
While I do have some issues with Norton 360, I still believe it is a great bargain. The number of well-designed features included in each package astounds me. Although most competitors include some extra capabilities with their basic anti-malware scanner, practically all of Norton 360’s security tools are worth purchasing on their own. Norton also comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee, which gives you plenty of time to try it out and decide if it’s the appropriate antivirus for you.
Most competitor antiviruses do not have as many extra features as Norton 360.
Norton’s packages are all jam-packed with high-value features and internet security solutions that are simple to use and significantly improve your cybersecurity defenses.
Even on the smallest subscription, you receive a firewall, anti-phishing protection, webcam protection, a VPN (with unlimited surfing data), a password manager, and 10 GB of cloud storage in addition to a top-notch anti-malware engine.
Anti-Malware Engine is a program that detects and removes malware.
Norton detects malware using a large malware database, heuristic analysis, and machine learning, as well as heuristic analysis and machine learning. It provides a number of virus scanning options as well as real-time malware protection for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices.
I used a database of approximately 1,000 malware files to do my testing, which included viruses, exploits, worms, trojans, backdoors, keyloggers, rootkits, zero-day assaults, ransomware, spyware, cryptojackers, and PUPs (potentially unwanted programs).
With a comprehensive system scan, Norton detected 100 percent of the malicious files on my disk – just a few competitors can claim a similar malware detection rate (like Bitdefender and Avira).
I turned on real-time protection after testing Norton’s complete scan and attempted to download the same 997-file malware database in plain files, zipped files, and even encrypted files. Norton prevented all of the plain files before they could even begin to download, and it blocked all of my packed and encrypted malware files as soon as I tried to unzip and decrypt them.
On my PC, Norton’s complete disk scan took roughly 40 minutes, which is comparable to the speed of most other top competitors. Norton also has a number of other scan options, including:
Quick scan – Looks for malware in common places like temporary files, running processes, and system files.
Custom scan – Scans folders and disk locations that you specify.
Norton insight – Scan certain files quickly to see if they need to be scanned.
All of Norton’s virus scans can be scheduled easily – I had Norton run a full scan from 3-5 a.m. every morning, but you can also schedule weekly or monthly scans.
One of my favorite features of Norton is that it detects when your apps are in full screen mode and doesn’t send you any notifications or run any scans (even scheduled scans) when you’re playing games, viewing movies, or using any other full screen program. Norton automatically suspends notifications and scans in full screen mode, which gamers will appreciate (Norton ranks among the best antiviruses for gaming).
Overall, Norton’s malware scanner is excellent: the complete system scan found all of my test malware without slowing down my computer, and the real-time security stopped all of the malware samples I attempted to download. I particularly like that Norton has a variety of scanning choices, including a quick and bespoke scan, and that scheduling scans is simple.
Firewall with Intelligence
Norton includes a “Smart Firewall” that significantly outperforms the built-in firewalls in Windows and macOS. Norton detected every single network breach in my exploit tests, including a handful that my Windows firewall failed to block.
For expert users, Norton’s firewall offers a plethora of customizable possibilities. Norton’s firewall limits many of Windows’ services, such as Network Discovery, File and Printer Sharing, and Remote Desktop Connection, when you’re on a public Wi-Fi network. You can see a full list of Windows services in the Permissions window if you want to allow any of these options.
Furthermore, Norton gives a list of 136 unusual protocols that malware can employ to communicate between devices on a network. Norton’s firewall monitors all of these protocols for suspicious activity and alerts users if any of them should be disabled owing to a network-based malware threat.
Overall, I appreciate Norton’s Smart Firewall since it detected all network incursions during my tests and offers sophisticated users an outstanding breadth of customizing choices.
Safe Search & Safe Web
Norton’s Safe Web browser plugin (for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge) protects against phishing sites and includes community evaluations for suspected web pages as well as a “Isolation Mode” for online banking. Norton’s Safe Search, on the other hand, is a search engine that determines whether a website is safe or not.
The Safe Web browser extension offers excellent anti-phishing security, detecting nearly all of the phishing sites in my tests, including those that Chrome and top competitors like McAfee missed.
“Isolation Mode” is another feature of Safe Web that protects users’ financial information. When you visit a financial website, Safe Web will offer you the choice to place your browser into Isolation Mode, which will block any browser-based incursions and render your browser window “read-only,” ensuring that no malicious web programs or viruses can change or steal information from your screen. Hackers can sometimes steal user information by remotely recording the financial information on your screen, therefore Safe Web’s Isolation Mode makes it impossible for hackers to capture any of the data on your screen.
I went to my PayPal account for testing, and Safe Web offered to put my browser in Isolation Mode. When I agreed to the request, my browser was blocked off from the rest of my system; I couldn’t copy text from it, screen capture it, or even paste anything into it.
Norton’s Safe Search feature is a secure search engine that color-codes search results: green means safe, orange means possibly harmful, and red means dangerous. Safe Search, unfortunately, isn’t very good. Several pirate websites were wrongly identified as secure throughout my tests, and it supplied grey “untested” notices for the majority of websites that are truly safe.
Overall, I wasn’t thrilled with Norton’s Safe Search because it’s inaccurate, identifying dangerous sites as safe and vice versa. Norton‘s Safe Web browser extension, on the other hand, offers strong anti-phishing protection as well as a safe sandboxed browser for banking transactions.
Monitoring of the Dark Web (Select Countries Only)
The dark web monitoring tool of Norton analyzes dark web forums, credit reports, and breach databases to alert users when their personal information has been compromised. Dark web surveillance is now only available to users in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. LifeLock’s robust identity protections are now available to US customers – but more on that later.
Norton’s dark web surveillance software looks for a wide range of personally identifiable information (PII), including:
- Bank account numbers.
- Credit cards.
- Addresses.
- Driver’s license information.
- Insurance numbers.
- And lots more…
Norton outperforms most data breach monitors by employing actual human agents who are paid to infiltrate dark web forums – Norton’s dark web assistants can locate data that most firms can’t, and they can also provide you with guidance and comments if your data is discovered on the dark web. This “actual person” technique is far more effective than competitor Kaspersky’s database-based breach monitoring.
Furthermore, once you submit your information, dark web monitoring is always active – if any of your data is found floating around the internet, Norton’s dark web monitoring team will notify you and provide advice on how to make the required changes to secure your identity and accounts.
The dark web surveillance provided by Norton is excellent, and it gets even better for customers in the United States who have access to Norton’s LifeLock identity protection services.
Protection Against Identity Theft (US Only)
LifeLock identity protections from Norton provide a slew of services, including credit report monitoring.
Assistance with regaining your identification in real time.
Assistance with legal matters.
Freezing of credit.
Home title, court records, 401(k), social security, and ID monitoring are all things to keep an eye on.
LifeLock’s identity theft protection services are among the best on the market, in my opinion. You’ll receive notifications about any loans, purchases, investments, rental applications, or credit card applications that include any of your personal identifying information if you use the live credit report monitoring service. This information is gathered by LifeLock from the major three credit reporting agencies in the United States: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. As a result, if someone tries to use your information, LifeLock will detect it and tell you.
In the event of serious identity theft, LifeLock offers up to $1 million in insurance reimbursements and legal aid. I don’t have a million dollars, so I was happy to sign up for Norton’s LifeLock Select plan, which only covers a $25,000 payout for identity theft-related damages, up to $1 million in legal aid for victims of identity theft, and access to Equifax’s credit monitoring network and LifeLock’s in-person identity recovery services.
The sole disadvantage of LifeLock’s protections is that they are only available to customers in the United States. Competitors such as TotalAV and BullGuard offer credit monitoring for consumers in the United States, Canada, and Europe for less than LifeLock, but their protections aren’t as complete.
Norton’s LifeLock plans are the finest on the market for protecting your finances, identity, investments, and personally identifiable information (but again, only for US users).
VPN encryption (Virtual Private Network)
A VPN encrypts your web traffic and hides your IP address behind one of hundreds of servers around the world, helping to increase privacy and protect online activity. However, there are a few drawbacks to Norton’s VPN, and it’s nowhere near as good as the best VPNs of 2022.
You can connect to a wide number of servers all around the world with Norton’s Secure VPN. Norton offers servers in Australia, South Africa, Japan, Singapore, and even India and Ukraine, which aren’t typically seen in an antivirus’s VPN. Almost every other internet security package has a much smaller number of international servers (for example, McAfee Total Protection only connects to 23 countries).
Norton’s VPN has a lot of solid security features as well.
- Strong encryption (256-bit AES).
- No-logs policy.
- Kill switch.
- Ad tracker blocking.
- Unlimited browsing data (even on the cheapest plan).
While Norton’s VPN isn’t bad in terms of connection speeds, it isn’t the greatest. VPNs work by redirecting your internet connection to another server (often across the globe) and encrypting all of your data – regardless of the VPN you use, this procedure will slow you down. However, because each VPN does these responsibilities differently, each VPN’s speed varies. Norton’s VPN was not as fast as some antivirus competitors such as TotalAV or Bitdefender in my tests, but it wasn’t the slowest either.
However, Netflix viewers will be disappointed to learn that Norton’s VPN was unable to bypass Netflix’s anti-VPN sensors when I attempted to access content on Netflix US. This isn’t ideal, because most of today’s top VPNs (such as ExpressVPN and CyberGhost VPN) can easily access all of the major streaming providers (see the top VPNs for Netflix here).
And there’s more bad news: torrenting isn’t supported by Norton’s VPN. When I started a torrent client, the VPN was disconnected. Again, this isn’t ideal, as there are a plethora of capable torrenting VPNs available.
Norton’s Secure VPN is a little slower than competitors, doesn’t enable torrenting, and doesn’t operate with Netflix or other streaming services like standalone VPNs (such as ExpressVPN). Norton, on the other hand, remains one of the best antiviruses with a VPN because it offers encrypted web access across a variety of servers around the world that most competitors don’t — including Asian, Eastern European, and even Australian and South African servers — as well as a strict no-logs policy, an easy-to-navigate interface, a kill switch, and unlimited browsing data (included in even the cheapest Norton 360 package).
Backup to the cloud
Norton’s Cloud Backup is decent, but it’s only for PC users. Norton’s backup feature is nearly comparable to Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud, which are all well-known cloud storage services. It provides the following choices:
Make backups on a regular basis.
Specific files should be backed up.
Back up files on your local disk might be deleted or saved.
Back up your data to the cloud or a local hard drive.
Cloud Backup performs admirably, automatically selecting 50 GB of my critical data, the majority of which were media files such as.mov,.jpeg,.doc, and.wav. Advanced users may quickly access the backup settings’ “What” section and manually pick which folders to back up.
Norton’s backup won’t win any awards for creativity, but it’s a perfectly practical solution for preserving user data in the cloud if you’re not currently using a cloud storage software. Norton’s Cloud Backup option can provide you with anywhere from 10 to 500 GB of storage, depending on the Norton package you have.
Manager of Passwords
Norton’s built-in password manager is surprisingly good – many antiviruses have password managers that just store basic passwords for a single device and lack the extra capabilities that set Norton’s password manager apart.
It may not be as feature-rich as standalone programs like 1Password or Dashlane, but it’s easy to use, safe, and comes with a few handy extras.
The following are the features of Norton’s password manager:
- Secure 256-bit AES encryption.
- Unlimited password storage.
- Synchronization across PCs, Macs, Androids, and iOS devices.
- Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.
- Auto-save and auto-fill.
- Password generator.
- Password vault auditing.
Norton gave me the opportunity to import my password vaults from Chrome, Firefox, Dashlane, LastPass, or 1Password once I set up my master password.
I went to my PayPal account after importing my passwords from LastPass, and Norton provided me a little icon in the login boxes, which automatically entered my email address and password with a single click.
Norton goes above and beyond the competition by integrating vault auditing tools in its password manager. Norton’s vault auditing is automatically updated, showing whether passwords are weak, too simple, repetitive, or too old in a handy chart. The vault auditing tool features a “Autochange” option that can generate new passwords for certain websites automatically. Norton’s Autochange, on the other hand, is only compatible with a small number of major websites. Dashlane’s auto-change feature is far superior to Norton’s, as it supports hundreds more websites.
A mobile login option is included in Norton’s password manager, allowing users to connect into their vault using their mobile device rather than their master password. This is a nice feature, but third-party password managers like RoboForm are also compatible with 2FA apps like Authy, mobile 2FA tokens like YubiKey, and a variety of biometric scanners — while Norton offers fingerprint login for Android users, biometric login isn’t available in the iPhone password manager app.
However, Norton’s password manager isn’t without flaws. The first issue I encountered was Norton’s lack of account recovery or emergency access – if you lose your master password, you’ll be unable to access your password vault. Norton only gives you the choice of deleting your vault and creating a new one. Although Norton allows customers to generate a password suggestion for their master password, it’s difficult to come up with a good hint for a string of random numbers, letters, and symbols, which should be included in any good master password.
Some users may enjoy the lack of account recovery choices because it makes it difficult for con artists to obtain access to your vault, but I believe that most users would prefer email account recovery or emergency contact alternatives as LastPass offers.
Norton’s password manager isn’t as feature-rich as some standalone competitors, but it does include multi-device sync, a secure password generator, auto-saving for new passwords, auto-filling for saved passwords, mobile login, and vault health auditing. In 2022, it was ranked as the best antivirus with a password manager.
Controls for Parents (Safe Family)
Norton’s parental controls on Windows, iOS, and Android (but not Mac) are among the best on the market; in 2022, Norton was named as the best antivirus with parental controls.
- Parents can use Norton’s parental settings to: Accurately filter harmful content
- Keep an eye on what’s going on on YouTube and Hulu.
- Mobile devices can be tracked.
- On Android devices, you can disable apps.
- Set timers and schedules for all of your devices.
- Make a list of emergency contacts.
I’ve tried a number of parental control software in the hopes of finding one that strikes a good mix between security and usability for my kid. Most antiviral parental controls boast a slew of capabilities but fall short of their claims. BullGuard, for example, has dozens of sliders for online content screening, yet even with BullGuard’s parental controls turned on, I was still able to view porn, violent films, military recruitment, and cult propaganda sites.
During my tests, Norton successfully blocked dozens of websites, with the ability to block 47 distinct categories, including “Cult,” “Hate Speech,” and even “Abortion.” It sets filters automatically based on your child’s age, but users may also toggle all of the parental settings independently.
Norton Safe Family also has a “School Time” mode, which restricts access to websites and apps that a parent deems necessary for their children’s education – this is a very useful feature for any children who attend virtual school.
On my PC, iPhone, and even my daughter’s Chromebook, Safe Family captured every search, website, YouTube video, and Hulu program I looked up!
Norton’s location tracking, app blocking, and use scheduling functions are all accessible and customizable via the online dashboard, and I was impressed that Norton could pinpoint my iPhone’s location to within 65 feet at any given time.
Unfortunately, Norton’s GPS tracker lacks geo-fencing warnings, which would alert parents when their children leave a restricted area. Competitors like Bitdefender include geo-fencing in their parental controls, and I’d love to see Norton do the same.
Norton Safe Family’s content filtering, app blocking, usage limitations, location tracking, and YouTube monitoring capabilities wowed me – it’s undoubtedly one of the most user-friendly and comprehensive parental control apps available.
Privacy Observer
Norton’s privacy monitor is a simple but effective function for preventing data brokers from accessing your personally identifiable information (PII).
Data brokers collect metadata from thousands of various websites to create an identity profile, which can include your previous addresses, family members’ names, preferred brands, birthday, and gender, and then sell that aggregated information to the highest bidder.
Fortunately, most countries’ privacy rules prohibit data brokers from collecting and selling your information unless you directly request that they do so. As a result, Norton looks for your information at roughly 25 different data brokers and requests them to cease.
The Norton Privacy Monitor can be found in the online dashboard at my.norton.com. Privacy Monitor generates a list of data brokers who have your PII for sale once you enter your name and date of birth. You can then use the Privacy Monitor to manually request that your information be removed from each site, or you can purchase a separate membership to Norton’s Privacy Monitor Assistant service to have a Norton employee deal with the data brokers on your behalf.
With only a few clicks, Norton’s Privacy Monitor allows you to remove personal information from over 25 data broker databases.
Optimization of the Device
Although Norton’s system tune-up tools aren’t groundbreaking, they are a solid addition to the company’s 360 plans. Here’s what Norton has to offer in terms of device optimization:
Defragment your hard drive with Optimize Disk.
- File cleanup – Disposes of temporary files created by Windows and web browsers.
- Startup manager – Shows a brief list of apps that start when the computer starts up.
- Graphs – Displays a timeline of essential device activity.
Norton’s tune-up tools impressed me with their speed, efficiency, and comprehensiveness. However, unlike Avira and TotalAV, the file cleanup does not erase browser cookies, duplicate files, or unused software files.
Norton’s Graphs feature is one of my favorites, as it allows me to see all of Norton’s software installs, downloads, virus scans, performance notifications, malware alerts, and system tuneups. Because so much of Norton’s work is done in the background, the Graphs tool was a great method for me to keep track of the changes and help I was getting.
The device optimization tools in Norton’s antivirus package are a valuable and rather extensive addition to an already excellent antivirus suite. Although I’d like to see a few additional junk file cleanup choices, Norton’s system tune-up tools are capable of resolving many of the most frequent system slowdown issues that today’s PC and macOS users experience.
Features Not Included
There are so many features in Norton 360 that I simply don’t have enough room to discuss them all. Here are a few more noteworthy features:
- PC SafeCam (Windows only) – Webcam protection that prevents a third-party from remotely controlling your PC’s webcam.
- Norton for gamers (Windows only) – A package of antivirus capabilities designed specifically for PC gamers (more info here).
- Virus Protection Guarantee – If Norton is unable to eliminate a virus, you will receive a full refund.
Monthly Price List
Norton 360 with LifeLock Select
9.99/month All-in-one protection for your devices, online privacy, and identity
Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus
Annual Price List
Norton 360 Standard
34.99/year Multiple layers of protection for your devices and online privacy
Norton 360 Deluxe
39.99/year Multiple layers of protection for devices and online privacy for the whole family
Norton 360 with LifeLock Select
99.99/year All-in-one protection for your devices, online privacy, and identity
Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus
Some More Stuff From Norton
Norton Computer Tune Up
$49.99 per service Make your old computer run like new again.
Norton Family
Norton Ultimate Help Desk – Three Devices
19.99 per month Fix tech issues fast. Get on-demand IT for less than $1 a day (billed monthly).
Norton Utilities Premium
$39.99/year Get the tools you need to get your PC running like new
Norton Small Business
Ease of Use and Setup for Norton 360
Even its most basic bundle offers a number of capabilities not found in other top internet security suites. There is a learning curve when it comes to using Norton, just as there is with any large software – the business made some good design choices to make the program easy to figure out, but there are also a few poor ones that make some features more complex than they need to be.
It’s easy to download and install Norton. Simply select your operating system from the my.norton website, download and run the installation file, and Norton 360 will begin to operate on your PC or Mac (mobile safeguards are a little different, but I’ll cover them in the following part).
After you’ve installed Norton, you’ll have two options for the user interface: My Norton and Classic. My Norton is the default interface, and it’s quite nice, though I’m not sure why an anonymous mountain climber occupies half of the display.
When you select Device Security from the “My Norton” window, you’ll be sent to Norton’s Classic view, where you can run virus scans, check for web safeguards, back up data, and use Norton’s speed optimization features.
You can return to the home screen by clicking the “My Norton” emblem, from where you can access Norton’s VPN, dark web monitoring/LifeLock protections, password manager, and parental controls. Unfortunately, getting Norton’s desktop client to perform anything other than conduct antivirus scans was shockingly difficult. I tried repeatedly to activate the Parental Controls or LifeLock protections, but nothing happened.
The good news is that there is an alternative to Norton’s desktop client – I found myself going to Norton’s web dashboard repeatedly during my time with Norton 360.
The my.norton web dashboard is well-designed, responsive, and incorporates all of Norton’s functions; it’s a far superior user experience to Norton’s desktop application. With a few clicks, I was able to set up parental controls, access my password vault, view my cloud storage, and check out my identity theft settings.
Overall, Norton is simple and uncomplicated to use, and it has more features than virtually any competition. Although it may take some time for people to become acclimated to Norton, I’m confident that even non-technical users will be able to grasp and use all of its capabilities rather fast.
Norton 360 App for Android and iOS
Although Norton’s mobile defenses for Android and iOS are excellent, I wish the business would combine all of its security tools into a single app.
Note: On my daughter’s Chromebook, I was able to successfully run all of Norton’s Android security apps from the Google Play Store. Although Norton no longer “officially supports” Chromebooks, it remains the top Chromebook antivirus in 2022.
- For mobile users, Norton provides the following protections:
- Scanner for malware (Android only).
- Advisor for the app (Android only).
- Web security.
- Wi-Fi network monitoring software.
- VPN.
- Safe Search & Safe Web.
- Recovery from ransomware.
- Device safety.
- Manager of passwords (separate app).
- Controls imposed by parents (separate app).
- Identity theft protection from LifeLock (separate app).
Norton’s App Advisor is one of my favorites because it examines both apps that are about to be downloaded and apps that are already installed. Existing app users can use the App Advisor to see which of their apps pose no privacy issues, which apps were installed in the previous 30 days, and which apps use more battery than usual.
I also enjoy Norton’s mobile web security features, such as the VPN with ad tracking blocker and the Safe Search browser, which filters out potentially hazardous websites from search engine results.
The remainder of Norton’s mobile security solutions are excellent; my only gripe is the large number of apps that I had to download. The password manager, LifeLock, and Safe Family apps should all be combined into a single Norton program.
I like Norton’s mobile apps because they offer malware protection and app security for Android and Chromebooks, as well as web and Wi-Fi protection for all mobile users (including iOS), and all of Norton’s separate apps for password management, parental controls, and identity theft protection, all of which are well-integrated with Norton’s desktop app and online dashboard.
Norton offers some of the top mobile antivirus apps on the market in terms of total device security.
Customer Service for Norton 360
Norton provides phone and live chat customer service. Norton’s customer service is provided in a variety of languages, including English, German, Dutch, Turkish, Mandarin, and Arabic. Some of these languages are only available for phone chat during regional business hours, but I was able to live chat with a remarkable number of agents from various nations at all hours of the day and night. Competitors like BullGuard and Malwarebytes, on the other hand, only offer assistance in a few languages.
My Norton customer service experience was both positive and negative. When I experienced a glitch on the Norton website, I connected with a support rep in Bogota, Colombia, who was able to access my Norton subscription and add LifeLock to my account. This was one of the more favorable phone support experiences I’ve ever had with an antivirus supplier because the rep was patient, knowledgable, and helpful.
A few days later, however, I had one of my most vexing customer service encounters. I was waiting for a live chat operator to assist me with my mobile security, and Norton’s chat window beeped every 20-40 seconds, notifying me that my support person’s ETA was shifting up or down by a few minutes. Norton ended the discussion after over 20 minutes of this irritating “ping”-ing.
This was out of the norm for my overall Norton experience, and I was messaging them at a particularly busy period of the year. I was connected with a phone or live chat agent in most cases within a few minutes, and the majority of the folks I interacted with were really knowledgable and friendly.
Norton’s customer service team speaks more languages than any other product I’ve used, and its personnel are generally friendly and knowledgable. If you try to contact Norton during a busy period, however, you may receive substantially poorer service. Even so, in my experience with Norton, this is a rare occurrence.
Is Norton 360 2022’s Best Internet Security Suite?
In 2022, I’m confident in naming Norton the finest antivirus software available. In terms of malware detection, internet security tools, mobile protections, usability, and value, Norton outperforms the competition.
In my tests, Norton found every single malware file, including emerging malware threats such as ransomware, cryptojackers, rootkits, and adware. Its anti-malware engine combines the greatest features of classic and modern antivirus detection with a large malware database, powerful heuristics, and machine learning. Other applications, such as McAfee and Bitdefender, have near-perfect detection rates, but Norton’s multilayer approach to malware protection remains the best.
Norton’s web security is also excellent. The Safe Web extension includes anti-phishing protection that is more effective than Chrome or Firefox at detecting phishing sites, as well as a “Isolation Mode” that adds an extra degree of security during financial transactions.
Norton also features extensive parental controls, a strong password manager, and outstanding dark web tracking capabilities (which uses real people to discover data breaches). For users in the United States, Norton’s LifeLock protections include a vast network of PII (personally identifying information) monitoring capabilities, as well as up to $1 million in identity theft restitution.
Norton’s VPN isn’t my favorite because it doesn’t function with Netflix, doesn’t support torrenting, and is slower than I’d like. The VPN, on the other hand, is suitable for safe browsing, has an easy-to-use dashboard, and costs less per year than most standalone VPNs.
Overall, Norton is the best all-around internet security suite available – it offers unrivaled virus protection, packages nearly all of the internet security solutions available on the market into a single program, and is a great bargain for practically all types of customers. Norton comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can test it out risk-free.
Frequently Asked Questions about Norton 360
Is Norton a free program?
Norton isn’t free – there are some good free antivirus programs out there, but none of them come close to the amount of malware protection and internet security offered by Norton’s 360 packages.
The Norton 360 Standard package provides great antivirus protection for a single device for users on a budget. Norton has a fantastic first-year discount and a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can explore all of its features risk-free.
What is the process of using Norton’s virus scanner?
Norton uses a multi-layered technique for real-time security and virus scanning, which includes: Malware directory.
Heuristic evaluation.
Machine learning is a term that refers to the study of
The code of each scanned file is compared to hundreds of thousands of known malware files in most antivirus software’s malware directory. Norton’s malware database (which is kept under wraps) is frequently rated as one of the best on the market.
Heuristics and machine learning are also used by Norton to detect zero-day attacks. Heuristics compare fresh file code to known malware, detecting potentially dangerous files with similar code.
Machine learning examines files based on their behavior, seeking for behaviors and source code that are similar to malware files passed through Norton’s machine-learning interface. Even if a zero-day threat that isn’t housed in any malware directory tries to embed itself in your root files, encrypt your system files, connect to your Wi-Fi network, or do any other malware-like function, Norton can block and report that malware file.
Which Norton plan is the best?
For the majority of customers, Norton 360 Deluxe is the best option. It comes with a plethora of functionality for up to five devices running Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. If you simply need to safeguard one device, Norton 360 Standard has practically all of the same capabilities.
In the United States, Norton offers three packages that include LifeLock’s identity theft protection. Norton 360 with LifeLock Ultimate Plus is recommended for users who want the most comprehensive protection, including the highest identity theft insurance and coverage for an unlimited number of devices. Most US consumers, on the other hand, will be perfectly content with Norton 360 with LifeLock Select, which offers a more basic but still acceptable antivirus and identity theft protection package.
Is Norton compatible with iPhones, Android phones, and Chromebooks?
Yes. Norton offers mobile apps for iPhones, Android phones, and even Chromebooks.
For iPhone and iPad users. Norton 360 is more of a “security app” than an antivirus, because viruses can’t infect iOS devices. However, I still recommend Norton for iOS because it includes Wi-Fi security, a secure VPN, a password manager, LifeLock identity theft protections, and Norton’s outstanding Safe Family parental control app.
This is for Android users. Norton 360 has all of the same security features as Norton’s iOS apps, but it also contains a malware scanner that examines every app and file you download for dangerous code.
Chromebook users will appreciate this. We’ve received some conflicting letters about Norton’s Chromebook coverage, and contacting Norton will tell you that “Norton isn’t built for Chromebooks.” Although this is true, Chromebooks are built to run Android apps and have access to the Google Play Store. Although Norton 360 on Chromebook appears odd, taking up only a third of the screen in the shape of a smartphone, the app scanner, Wi-Fi scanner, VPN, password manager, and Norton Safe Family parental controls all worked flawlessly when I tested Norton on my Chromebook.
