Norton 360 Antivirus Review (2022): Is It Actually Worth It?

Overall Nortonremains my favorite antivirus program in 2022. It has a powerful antimalware engine as well as a range of internet security tools. The online dashboard is intuitive and it offers good customer support. All this for a cheaper price than most other antivirus products.

Norton’s anti-malware engine employs machine learning, advanced algorithms, and a continually updated malware directory. The engine can detect all types of malware, from viruses and trojans to ransomware, cryptojackers, and more. Norton’s full scanner and real-time security were both able to detect all malware files that I tried to download during my testing. There was minimal system slowdown.

Norton also offers

• Firewall.
• Anti-phishing protection.
• Parental control.
• SecureVPN (virtual private networks)
• Cloud backup.
• Privacy protection.
• Webcam Protection (Windows only).
• Identity protection (US only)

Norton works well, but is not perfect. To get complete security on your mobile device, you will need to download 4 additional apps. Norton’s VPN is able to secure web access from many servers worldwide. However, it won’t work with streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. The VPN is slower than most competitors and does not allow torrenting.

While there are some things I don’t like about Norton 360, I think it is a great deal. I was impressed at how many features each package included. Many competitors offer more features than their basic antimalware scanner. However, almost all the Norton 360’s security instruments would be worth purchasing by themselves. Norton is backed by a 60-day money-back warranty. You have plenty of time and space to test it and find the right antivirus.

Norton 360 Full Review

Norton’s packages include a variety of high-value security features and tools that can be used to enhance cybersecurity protections.

The cheapest plan includes a firewall, antiphishing protection and webcam protection. You also get a password manager and 10GB cloud storage.

Norton Security Features

Anti-Malware Engine

Norton uses an extensive malware directory and machine-learning to detect malware. It also offers real-time protection against malware from iOS, Android, Windows and Mac.

For testing purposes, I downloaded a nearly 1,000-strong database of malware files. It included trojans. trojans. backdoors. keyloggers. rootkits. zero day attacks. ransomware. spyware. Cryptojackers. PUPs.

Norton captured 100% of the malware files I had on my hard drive with a thorough system scan. There is only one competitor that can boast such a high malware detection rate (like Bitdefender & Advira).

After running Norton’s full scan, my real-time protection was turned on and I attempted to download the same 997 files of malware in the forms of plain, zipped and encrypted files. Norton blocked all files that were plain before my computer could start downloading them. Norton also blocked all zipped files and encrypted malware files when I tried to extract them.

Norton’s disk scan took approximately 40 minutes on my personal computer. This is about the same time as other top competitors. Norton also offers other scan options including:

• Quick scanner — Checks for areas where malware can be most easily found, such a temporary file, running processes, or system files.
• Custom scanning — Scans specified folders, disk locations.
• Norton insight Quickly scans files that may be needed to be scanned.

Norton makes it very easy to schedule your virus scans. Norton ran a full scan for me between 3-5am and I can schedule weekly or monthly scans.

Norton is designed to detect whether your apps are running in full screen mode. Norton won’t send you notifications or initiate scans (including scheduled scans). This is a great feature. Gamers will be pleased to know that Norton automatically suspends notifications when you are in fullscreen mode. Norton is one of the best antiviruses designed for gaming.

Overall Norton’s malware scanner is very good . A full system scan detected all of my tested malware without slowing down the computer, and real-time protection blocked any of the malware I tried downloading. I also liked that Norton offers multiple scanning options. This includes a quick and personal scan. It was easy to schedule scans.

Smart Firewall

Norton has a “Smart Firewall”, that is significantly more powerful than built-in firewalls from Windows or macOS. In fact, Norton was able to detect every network intrusion in my exploit testing.

Norton’s firewall allows advanced users to customize their firewall. As a public Wi Fi network is used, Norton’s firewall blocks many Windows services, including File and Printer Sharing, Network Discovery, Remote Desktop Connection, and File and Printer sharing. But, if you wish to allow any of the above options, you can find a complete list in the Permissionswindow.

Norton provides a list containing 136 uncommon protocols. Malware can use these protocols to communicate with other devices on a network. Norton’s firewall monitors each of these protocols and notifies users when it detects suspicious activity.

Overall, Norton’s Smart Firewall is a great product. It found all network intrusions in my tests and also offers advanced users an impressive array of customization options.

Safe Web & Safe Search

Norton’s Safe Web extension is available for Chrome Firefox Safari Safari Edge. It protects against phishing sites and provides community reviews.

Safe Web browser extension offers really good anti-phishing Protection. It detected most of the phishing web sites in my testing. This includes sites that Chrome or top competitors like McAfee failed detect.

Safe Web has “Isolation Mode”, which protects financial information. Safe Web allows users to choose to have their browser set to Isolation Mode. This blocks all browser-based intrusions. Your browser window will be “read-only” to prevent malicious web scripts and malware from stealing information. Hackers might be able to remotely record your screen and steal your financial information. Safe Web makes it impossible for hackers use Isolation Mode to make this happen.

Safe Web offered to place my browser in isolation mode. My browser was disconnected from the rest my system when I accepted the request. It couldn’t copy, screencape, or paste text into it.

Norton’s Safe Search Tool is a secure engine that provides color-coded assessments for search results. Red is dangerous, orange is potentially hazardous, and green is safe. Safe Search isn’t great. During my tests it falsely claimed that many pirate websites were safe. It also offered grey “untested” notifications to most sites that are actually safe.

Norton’s Safe Search wasn’t my favorite. It doesn’t accurately label unsafe sites safe and vice versa. Norton’s Safe Web browser extension is a great tool for protecting against phishing attacks and providing a secure, sandboxed browsing environment for financial transactions.

Dark Web Monitoring (Select Countries Only)

Nortons dark Web Monitoring feature scans dark forums, credit report and breach databases to notify users if their information has been stolen. LifeLock also offers strong identity protections to US users.

Norton’s dark net monitoring scans for a huge array of personally identifiable information (PII).

• Bank account numbers.
• Credit cards
• Addresses.
• Information concerning driver’s license
• Insurance numbers

Norton provides a better data breach monitoring system than most. This is done by employing live human agents, who are paid to penetrate dark web forums. Norton dark web assistants can find information that most companies cannot. You can get advice and feedback in case your information is posted on the dark net. This “real person approach” is much better than other database-based breach monitors such as Kaspersky.

Additionally, dark internet monitoring is active whenever you enter your information. Norton’s dark net monitoring team will issue a notification to you with instructions on how you can protect your identity, accounts, and privacy.

Norton has a great dark web monitoring service. US users have access to Norton’s LifeLock identity protection and services.

Identity Theft Protection (US Only)

Norton’s LifeLock identity-protection products include a large number of features, including:

• Credit report monitoring
• Live Identity Recovery Assistance
• Legal assistance
• Credit freeze
• Home title, court record and ID monitoring.

LifeLock identity theft protection services are excellent. LifeLock will notify you about any loan, purchase, investment, rental application, or credit card application that includes any of your personal information. LifeLock compiles the data from the top three credit reporting companies in the US: TransUnion and Equifax. LifeLock will notify anyone who is trying use your information.

I dislike that LifeLock only offers protections for US users. BullGuard , TotalAV, and BullGuard offer credit monitoring in Europe, the US, and Canada for less than LifeLock. However, their protections aren’t as extensive as LifeLock’s.

Norton’s LifeLock plans provide the best way to protect your identity, finances, investments and personal identifying information. However, they are only available for US users.

Secure VPN (Virtual Private Network)

VPNs can hide your IP address behind any one of thousands of servers around the globe. It also encrypts your web activity, which helps to increase privacy. Norton’s VPN does have some downsides and is not as reliable as the top-rated VPNs of 2022.

Norton Secure VPN lets users connect to multiple servers all around the world with Norton’s Secure VPN. Norton has servers located in Australia, South Africa (Japan), Singapore, and some less well-known countries such as India or Ukraine. There are far fewer international servers than any other competitor’s internet security suite (for example, McAfee Total Protection only connects with 23 countries).

Norton’s VPN has many other security features.

• Strong encryption (256 bits AES).
• No-logs policy.
• Switch to kill
• Blocking ad trackers
• Unlimited browsing data (even with the cheapest plans).

The connection speeds of Norton’s VPN are not bad. However, they do slow down your connection. Each VPN has a different way of handling these tasks, so all VPNs will have different speeds. While Norton’s VPN was slower than some of the antivirus competitors Bitdefender and TotalAV , it wasn’t the slowest.

This is my internet connection via my local network, and it does not use a VPN.

Then, I ran the speed tests with Norton’s VPN connected at a US server.

As you can see my download speed was reduced quite dramatically, but my “Ping” increased by a lot. The ping going up so much isn’t a big problem unless your streaming or gaming — With Norton’s VPN enabled, I was still capable of streaming HD video and browsing the internet without noticeable slowdown

While my download and Ping speeds were the same, upload speed was reduced by half when I connected via Dutch server.

There’s bad news for Netflix US customers. I was unable to access Netflix US content because Norton’s VPN couldn’t get past Netflix anti-VPN firewalls. This is a problem since many top VPNs, such as ExpressVPN, and CryptoGhost VPN can easily access all top streaming services. (See the top VPNs For Netflix here).

The VPN from Norton doesn’t permit torrenting. The VPN stopped working as soon I opened any torrent client. This is not the best as there are tons torrenting VPNs .

Norton Secure VPN works slower than some competitors, doesn’t allow torrenting, is not compatible with Netflix, or other streaming platforms such as ExpressVPN and standalone VPNs. Norton remains a top-rated antivirus that includes a VPN. It allows encrypted web access over a range of servers around the world, which is something most competitors do not offer.

Cloud Backup

Norton’s cloud backup is very good. However, it is only available to PC users. These options are offered by it:

• Backups are a must.
• Save specific files.
• Save or delete backed-up files from your local disk.
• Backup your data to the cloud and local disk.

Cloud Backup works very well. It automatically selected 50GB worth of important files. Advanced users can go to the “What” section and select the folders that they wish to backup.

Norton’s backup may not be the most innovative, but it’s an excellent solution for protecting data in the Cloud. Depending upon which Norton plan you have, you can get up to 10-500GB of storage through Norton’s Cloud Backup feature.

Password Manager

Norton’s password manager is quite good – a lot of antiviruses have password managers that provide basic password storage but not enough to make Norton’s password manager special.

Although it doesn’t have the same functionality as standalone apps 1Password or Dashlane, it is simple and secure with some useful extras.

Here’s a list of Norton’s password managers:

• Secure 256-bit AES encryption
• Unlimited password storage.
• Synchronization of PCs, Macs, Androids, iOS devices and Macs.
• Chrome extensions for Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Chrome.
• Auto-save or auto-fill
• Password generator.
• Password vault auditing.

Norton provided me with the option to import my password vaults using Chrome, Firefox or Dashlane after I created my master password.

After I had imported my passwords into LastPass and navigated to PayPal, Norton presented me with a small icon and I entered my email address and password in one click.

Norton beats other antivirus providers by including vault auditoring tools in its password management. The helpful chart shows which passwords are secure, too simple or repeated, and how old. Automatic generation of new passwords can be done by the vault auditing tool’s “Autochange” function. Norton’s Autochange does not work with all sites. Dashlane offers a better auto-change option — it works with a few hundred more sites that Norton’s.

Norton’s Password Manager includes a mobile login function. It allows users to log in to their vault with their mobile device, instead of using their master password.

Norton’s password management system isn’t perfect. The first problem that I encountered was the inability of Norton to provide account recovery and emergency access. This means that if your master password is forgotten, you won’t be able to log into any password vault. Norton’s only option is to destroy the vault and make a fresh one. Norton lets users make a password hint for the master password. However, it’s not easy to make a hint for a string consisting of random numbers and letters. That is what a master passphrase should include.

This lack of account recovery options may be appreciated by some users — it makes con artists unable to gain access into your vault — but I think most users would prefer email account Recovery or emergency contact options like LastPass.

Norton’s password manger isn’t as powerful as standalone competitors but offers multi-device backup, a secure code generator, password auto-fill, password auto-saving, password auto-fill, mobile login and vault auditing. In fact, Norton was ranked #1 antivirus with a password manage in 2022.

Parental Controls (Safe Family)

Norton has parental controls for Android, iOS, Windows and Windows (not available on Mac) — Norton is ranked as #1 Best Antivirus with Parental Controls in 2022.

Norton’s parental controls give parents the ability to:

• You can filter inappropriate content with accuracy.
• Watch YouTube and Hulu videos.
• Track location for mobile devices.
• Block Android apps
• For all devices, set time limits and plan usage.
• Set emergency contacts.

I’ve tried a lot of parental control tools to see if they were suitable for my daughter. Although many antivirus parental control programs promise lots of features, most fail to deliver. BullGuard offers a lot of content filtering options online. I was able to access porn videos and violent videos with BullGuard parental controls activated.

Norton, however, blocked numerous sites correctly during my tests. Norton had the ability to block 47 different categories of websites, including “Cult”, Hate Speech, and even Abortion. It sets filters automatically based on your child’s age. But, it also allows users to toggle all parental controls separately.

Norton Safe Family has a “School Time” mode. This allows access only to apps and websites that the parent considers important for their child’s education. This can be very helpful for any kid who is involved in virtual school.

Safe Family also recorded every search and YouTube video and Hulu program I made on my iPhone, PC and Chromebook.

Norton’s location monitoring, app blocker and usage scheduling tools all can be accessed easily from the online dashboard. It was impressive that Norton could pinpoint my iPhones exact location at 65 feet.

Norton’s GPS tracker is not equipped with geo-fencing alerts so parents are notified if their kids leave a restricted zone. Bitdefender, Bitdefender, and other companies include geofencing within their parental controls. This would be an excellent addition to Norton’s product line.

Norton Safe Family’s content filtering capabilities, app blocking, usage limitations, location tracking, YouTube monitoring, and YouTube monitoring are all very impressive. This is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive and intuitive parental control apps on market.

Privacy Monitor

Norton’s privacy watch is a simple, but effective feature that protects your personal identifying information (PII), from being sold to data brokers.

Data brokers use metadata collected from thousands of websites to create an identity profil. This profile can include your last address, family names, favourite brands, your birthday and gender. The data brokers then make a profit by selling that information to the highest bidder.

Privacy laws worldwide prohibit data brokers collecting or selling your information. Norton asks around 25 data brokers to stop collecting your information.

Access Norton’s Privacy monitor can be accessed via the my.norton internet dashboard. Privacy Monitor provides a list containing the names and dates of your birth. Privacy Monitor allows you to either request the deletion of your information directly from each site, or you may subscribe to Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant to have the data brokers handled by Norton employees.