Norton 360 antivirus review
Our Verdict
Norton 360 Standard, Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 with LifeLock include the most complete antivirus-software and identity-protection-service combinations y'all'll find today.
For
- Excellent malware protection
- Backup software, online storage, password manager, webcam protection
- Unlimited VPN service
- Optional LifeLock ID identity protection
- Light background performance impact
Against
- Gets expensive quickly
- No file shredder or file encryption
- Heavy slowdown during total scans
Tom'due south Guide Verdict
Norton 360 Standard, Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 with LifeLock include the most complete antivirus-software and identity-protection-service combinations you'll find today.
Pros
- +
Fantabulous malware protection
- +
Backup software, online storage, password manager, webcam protection
- +
Unlimited VPN service
- +
Optional LifeLock ID identity protection
- +
Light background performance impact
Cons
- -
Gets expensive apace
- -
No file shredder or file encryption
- -
Heavy slowdown during total scans
With features such equally a countersign manager, backup software, online storage, parental controls, unlimited VPN service and three dissimilar levels of identity protection along with excellent malware protection, the Norton 360 2020 antivirus lineup offers some of the near complete security (and privacy) suites around.
Norton's nine different Windows antivirus packages are for people who prefer everything in one identify, who would rather not mix-and-match applications and services — and who can afford Norton's prices. All this integration gets expensive quickly as you lot add features.
Norton'due south malware-scanning engine uses a lot of arrangement resources during full scans, and no Norton package offers file shredding or encryption. Simply if you're looking for a single solution to cover your digital security and privacy from every angle, await no further than Norton.
None of its competitors offering equally comprehensive an approach to security. Kaspersky offers similarly excellent malware protection and a full range of extra features, only its production lacks identity-protection options. McAfee does offer identity protection, simply it lets more malware through.
If you want to combine some of the best identity-theft protection with some of the all-time antivirus protection, i of the iii Norton 360 with LifeLock plans is for yous.
Read on for the residual of our Norton 360 review.
Norton 360: Costs and what's covered
The nine Windows antivirus products of the NortonLifeLock family unit can protect anything from a single PC to a household'southward worth of computers and mobile devices along with the identities of their users.
At that place'southward no free Norton software, but there's a 60-24-hour interval satisfaction guarantee on the paid products, as well as Norton'south Virus Protection Promise of a refund if the software tin't continue your organization clean. The list prices are higher than comparable products from other antivirus vendors, merely y'all tin frequently find substantial markdowns.
The entry-level Norton AntiVirus Plus protects a single PC or Mac and works with Windows 7 through 10. (Norton representatives told us AntiVirus Plus unofficially runs on Windows XP and Vista.)
AntiVirus Plus costs $threescore per year and offers features unremarkably reserved for more expensive suites, including a two-way firewall, a countersign manager and backup software with 2GB of online storage space.
The next stride up is Norton 360 Standard, which protects a single PC, Mac, phone or tablet. It boosts the online storage to 10GB and, on Windows, includes online cyberbanking and webcam protection.
Norton 360 Standard offers unlimited access to Norton's Secure VPN virtual private network, which on its own costs $50 a year. It as well includes LifeLock monitoring of your personal data on the nighttime web.
As of June 2021, all versions of Norton 360 were being updated to include Norton Crypto, a rather surprising feature that lets you use Norton software to mine and hold the Ethereum cryptocurrency. Norton 360 Standard lists for $85 per year.
For $105 a year, Norton 360 Deluxe covers five devices, regardless of platform. It adds parental controls and gives y'all up to 50GB of online storage and v simultaneous VPN connections. Information technology maxes out all of Norton'due south core antivirus features; the next five products add together device licenses, online storage and identity protection.
Norton 360 for Gamers is a three-license version of Norton 360 Deluxe designed specifically for PC gamers. All the same, the license does encompass Mac, Android and iOS software. Information technology costs $100 per year.
Norton 360 Premium, available at retail stores but not on the Norton website, expands the Deluxe antivirus and VPN coverage to upwardly to 10 devices and 75GB of online storage. Information technology lists at $100 per year at online retailers, although the Norton website price list has its subscription cost as $125 per year.
Norton 360 Platinum, also retail-only, goes for $130 per year, covers up to twenty devices and offers 100GB of online storage.
The top iii products add increasing levels of LifeLock identity protection to Norton 360 Deluxe's antivirus features.
Norton 360 with LifeLock Select, $15 per calendar month or $150 a twelvemonth, monitors your Equifax credit file. If your identity is stolen, you'll be reimbursed upward to $25,000 for stolen funds, $25,000 for expenses incurred and $1 million for lawyers and experts. The antivirus protection and VPN connections are limited to five devices, just yous'll get 100GB of online storage.
Norton 360 with LifeLock Advantage covers 10 devices for $25 a month, or $250 a year, and provides 250GB of online storage. You'll go up to $100,000 for expenses and stolen funds each. Information technology also monitors your bank and credit-card accounts, scans court records for your name and watches for fraudulent use of your Social Security number.
You lot'll besides become Telephone Takeover Monitoring, a new feature that began rolling out in January 2021. It prevents SIM-swapping and port-out scams in which strangers hijack your phone number, frequently with the intention of hijacking cryptocurrency or mobile-payment accounts.
Finally, Norton 360 with LifeLock Unlimited Plus lists for $35 a month. or $350 a year. and increases the insurance coverage for expenses and stolen funds to $i 1000000 each. Information technology monitors your retirement and investment accounts, plus your files with all three major credit bureaus.
It too covers an unlimited number of devices and VPN connections and includes 500GB of online storage. Because of the dizzying number of options and features, we retrieve it'due south the best net security suite you lot tin purchase.
Norton's Mac antivirus software (which nosotros've reviewed separately, although it's not sold that way) supports the current and ii previous versions of macOS, merely the parental controls, backup software and webcam protection are simply for Windows.
Android phones and tablets need version six or higher to run Norton Mobile Security (also reviewed separately), and the somewhat toothless iPhone and iPad apps run on the current and 2 previous versions of iOS. There's no Norton Linux software.
- Best Android antivirus apps
- The all-time Mac antivirus software
- Best Windows x antivirus
Norton 360: Antivirus protection
Each NortonLifeLock product defends against malicious e-mail attachments, phishing attacks and spam as well as malware. If the programme's defenses can be adjusted, and Norton's Silent Mode can prevent updates, pop-ups and other interruptions during movies or games.
There'due south a quick-browse push on the program's main screen, and total or custom scans are 3 clicks away. You lot can also scan any detail by right-clicking it in Windows Explorer, just dissimilar many antivirus programs, Norton won't automatically scan USB drives when they're plugged into your PC.
If your PC gets then blimp with malware that Norton tin can't clean it, Norton's Bootable Recovery Tool can aid. Put the downloadable software on a DVD or flash drive, and information technology will reboot the computer in a secure Linux environment for comprehensive cleaning.
Norton 360: Antivirus performance
Forth with Kaspersky, Norton's malware engine is among the best at protecting Windows computers.
Norton detected every instance of known "widespread" malware in every monthly evaluation conducted past German language lab AV-Test from January 2017 through December 2020. Its otherwise perfect winning streak against previously unseen "zero-day" malware was marred past a single miss in April 2020, when it got a 99.5% detection charge per unit.
Only Kaspersky matched those numbers (and bankrupt its winning streak in the aforementioned calendar month), although Kaspersky'southward malware engine was arguably better "tuned" every bit it picked up only viii false-positive detections over that three-year period compared with Norton'due south 35. (Norton'south false-positive rate has been going downward.)
The two brands jockeyed for the atomic number 82 in evaluations run past Austrian lab AV-Comparatives in 2020. Norton detected an average of 100% of malware from February through May 2020, ahead of Kaspersky's 99.nine%. The tables were turned in the July-October 2020 tests, in which Kaspersky averaged 99.7% detection to Norton'southward 99.five%
Just Norton got a full of 72 false positives over the course of 2020, while Kaspersky had just two. The latter's malware-detection engine may be improve tuned.
| Malware detection rates | AV-Test zero-twenty-four hour period | AV-Test widespread | AV-Comparatives | SE Labs |
| Bitdefender | 100% | 100% | 99.6% | n/a |
| ESET | 100% | 100% | 99.3% | northward/a |
| Kaspersky | 100% | 100% | 99.seven% | 100% |
| McAfee | 100% | 100% | 98.v% | 100% |
| Microsoft | 100% | 100% | 99.5% | 97% |
| Norton | 100% | 100% | 99.v% | 100% |
| Sophos | 100% | 100% | 98.3% | 86% |
| Trend Micro | 100% | 100% | 100% | 92% |
In the Oct-Dec 2020 sets of tests run by London-based SE Labs, both Norton and Kaspersky detected every piece of malware.
Still Norton neutralized ane piece of malware later on installation without blocking it outright, and also misclassified half-dozen% of benign websites and pieces of software every bit possibly malicious. Kaspersky and McAfee were perfect at both.
Norton stumbled a bit in the labs' July-September 2020 tests, however, letting through one slice of malware to compromise the test system. Kaspersky had a perfect score.
Norton 360: Security and privacy features
All Norton products, starting with Norton AntiVirus Plus, include a two-way firewall, an unlimited password director and a file-fill-in program.
They besides include the visitor's Condom Spider web browser extensions, which work with Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome and Firefox. Prophylactic Web'due south Isolation Mode renders the contents of known dangerous sites as read-simply. If you connect to a banking site, Norton runs the browser session in a virtual machine.
Norton'due south Secure VPN comes with Norton 360 Standard and higher up. Unlike other antivirus companies, Norton doesn't tease yous with a free limited-data offering and then make you pay for more — you get unlimited VPN information from the beginning.
You can hide your location similar a digital James Bond, or only stream localized movies and sports as if you were in London or Mexico City. Information technology took us an average of six.5 seconds to connect to Norton's VPN, but the VPN's encryption and routing cutting our usable bandwidth past half.
You can set Norton's excellent parental controls, included with Norton 360 Deluxe and above, to block age-inappropriate textile, schedule screen time and come across the locations of individual children.
LifeLock identity-protection services come with Norton's top three plans, every bit detailed above. LifeLock is the virtually comprehensive of the best identity-theft protection services, but its high prices (even when bundled with Norton antivirus software) may not justify the expense for many people.
However, none of the Norton antivirus packages has a file shredder, a file-encryption tool, a truthful hardened browser or a file scroll-back in case of ransomware infection. Bitdefender and Kaspersky offer all of these.
Norton 360: Functioning and organization impact
| Arrangement hit | Post-installation | Full scan | Quick scan |
| Bitdefender | nineteen% | 33% | 31% |
| ESET | 2% | 12% | n/a |
| Kaspersky | 12% | 26% | 22% |
| McAfee | nine% | 96% | 37% |
| Norton | five% | 51% | 22% |
| Sophos | half dozen% | 47% | n/a |
| Tendency Micro | 4% | 57% | 35% |
Norton'southward malware-detection engine takes upwards few system resources in the background, but a lot during active scans. Yous'll want to gear up your scans to run during off hours.
To measure out Norton 360 Palatial's performance impact, we used our custom benchmark test, which measures how long the CPU takes to friction match 20,000 names and addresses in an Excel spreadsheet. Our examination machine was a Lenovo ThinkPad T470 with a two.5GHz Core i5-7200U processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of solid-state storage holding 43.3GB of files.
Before we installed any antivirus software, it took the system 8.2 seconds to cease the benchmark task. The completion time rose to 8.half-dozen seconds subsequently Norton 360 Palatial was installed. This four.9% background performance loss is among the smallest we've seen.
A full browse raised the benchmark-completion fourth dimension to an boilerplate of 12.4 seconds, representing a 51% pass up in performance. But among the seven paid antivirus products we've reviewed recently, Trend Micro Maximum Security and McAfee Total Security did fifty-fifty worse during full scans, the latter with a whopping 96% slowdown.
With Norton'southward quick scans, the performance driblet was a more acceptable 22%, the second-lightest of the bunch behind Kaspersky.
ESET Smart Security Premium had the lightest active-scan affect of all, with an boilerplate 11.viii% performance drib during full scans. Its background load also came in lite at 2%.
It took Norton 360 Deluxe 18 minutes and 20 seconds to run its first full scan and index all 446,354 files. That time dropped to 6:34 in subsequent scans, after the software learned what to skip. Norton's quick scan took i minute and sixteen seconds to churn through 12,126 files. That'south a bit longer than Kaspersky Total Security'southward quick browse, which looked at nigh four times every bit many files.
Norton 360: Interface
Norton'southward Classic interface has the familiar screen icon with green, yellow or ruby indicators, while the new Launch interface has a calming picture of a mountain climber on the left and a correct-side column of cardinal security tasks, like Device Security, Dark Web Monitoring, Secure VPN, Deject Fill-in and Password Manager.
In Settings, you can adjust or command just about every aspect of the programme. Below the surface are dozens of individual settings that tin be turned on and off. The online dashboard at https://my.norton.com is one of the most thorough antivirus portals.
Norton 360: Installation and back up
The Norton installation process begins with a 3.5MB beachhead installer. One time you lot accept the production license agreement, the full 226MB installation program downloads and runs.
Installing Norton 360 Deluxe took the states 9 minutes and thirty seconds, merely information technology would have taken longer had we opted for LifeLock ID protection. We would take had to enter a lot of personal data and run through a gantlet of questions to constitute our identity.
The Norton desktop interface includes a directly link to the company's support website, and all the programs include full 24/seven technical assistance. You can contact support technicians past phone, online chat or email. Norton'southward support site has a slew of self-serve options, including instructional videos.
Need fifty-fifty more than help? The visitor's Ultimate Assistance Desk service provides expedited access to technicians, iv tune-up sessions a twelvemonth and service reports for all your figurer-related issues, not just those related to Norton products.
Subscriptions to the Ultimate Help Desk-bound service toll $150 per yr (for one PC or Mac), or $20 a calendar month (for upwardly to three systems). There's too a quondam service providing similar advice and information for $70 if you lot're technically flummoxed and take deep pockets.
Norton 360 review: Lesser line
With one of the most complete (and crowded) lineups of personal digital-security and privacy products, NortonLifeLock can protect a single computer or an entire household's devices.
Betwixt the unlimited VPN, the password director, the parental controls, backup software, online storage and the comprehensive identity-protection services, Norton offers pretty much everything yous could ever demand — simply it can quickly go expensive every bit y'all add together more than options.
If you'd rather mix and match these various services, or yous don't demand them all, Kaspersky Total Security has first-class malware protection, a password director, backup software and parental controls plus items Norton lacks, such as a hardened browser, file encryption and file shredding.
Bitdefender Premium Security swaps out the backup software for unlimited VPN service, but its malware protection is a half-step downwards from Norton'southward. McAfee Total Protection + VPN offers identity protection as well as unlimited VPN, but has an fifty-fifty lower caliber of malware protection.
In other words, no software company covers all aspects of modern-twenty-four hour period security as completely as NortonLifeLock. Information technology's truly a one-stop store for all your digital security and privacy needs — if at a premium cost.
Updated to add together Norton Crypto. This review was originally published in February 2020.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/norton
Posted by: watsondany1991.blogspot.com
0 Response to "Norton 360 antivirus review"
Post a Comment