Norton Secure VPN review: Easy to use, but 7 drawbacks

Norton Secure VPN review: Easy to use, but 7 drawbacks

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With a lineage that includes online security giants like Norton and LifeLock, you’d expect Norton Secure VPN to be an industry leader. But Children don’t always live up to their parents’ expectations, as you’ll see in this Norton Secure VPN review.

Norton Secure VPN is easy to use and provides high quality security and encryption protocols to hide your online activity from prying eyes. But she has some big flaws And shortcomings What you need to know before relying on them to protect your privacy online.

In this Norton VPN review, we take you with you as we look at the pros and cons of Norton Secure VPN. In particular, we’ve highlighted factors we don’t like. Not because we don’t like Norton, LifeLock, or their Secure VPN, but because there are so many other good VPN services to choose from. We hope this review has been helpful to you in your search for the VPN that best meets your unique needs.

Norton Secure VPN Overview

Here is an overview of the test results and search results for this Norton Secure VPN review. We’ll of course cover each of these elements in more detail throughout this review:

+ Pros

1. easy to use
2. Powerful privacy and security features
3. No VPN leaks were detected during testing
4. Support for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android
5. Built-in ad blocker (and tracker)

– Negatives

1. Norton keeps data logs
2. Limited number of countries and no choice of city server
3. Limited Features
4. No linux support
5. No router support
6. Subscription price increases after the initial period
7. Inconsistent and sometimes slow speeds

Additional interesting facts:

1. Secure VPN and NortonLifeLock Inc. (Basic information)
2. Mixed results for Netflix and other streaming services
3. No support for P2P / torrenting activities
4. Customer support has its pros and cons

Norton Secure VPN Promotions

Norton Secure VPN puts many things into perspective. Here are the positive points you should know about this product:

Norton Secure VPN is easy to use

Norton Secure VPN is really easy to use.

1. Run the client either from the desktop icon or the system tray.
2. Click on default location tab.
3. select country And that’s it.

If you are not picky about what country you seem to be in, there is an automatic selection option that will find the best country for you automatically. This is the Windows app, connected to a location in the US:

This simplicity would be perfect for people who are new to VPNs or just want something that works out of the box, without having to mess with anything. This design is similar to what we observed in our NordVPN vs. PIA comparison.

Powerful privacy and security features

Norton Secure VPN uses powerful industry-standard privacy and security features.

In keeping with this VPN’s usability approach, there are no real options to tweak when it comes to privacy and security features. When using it, your configuration is:

• OpenVPN protocol for Windows, Mac and Android; L2TP / IPSec for iOS
• AES-256 data encryption (described in marketing as bank-level encryption)

Norton Secure VPN does not support WireGuard VPN, IKEv2, or any other protocols. If you want to use WireGuard, we recommend checking out the other options. We compared the two fastest VPNs for WireGuard in the NordVPN vs Surfshark report.

No VPN leaks were detected in our VPN tests

Secure VPN desktop and mobile clients passed our usual VPN tests without any issue.

Unlike most other leading VPN services, Norton VPN does not offer many configuration options in terms of encryption or a kill switch. However, everything seemed to work fine in the test.

For this Norton VPN review, I ran the Windows and Android clients through a leak test. Here are the results of the Windows VPN leak test:

There is one potential problem here. Your ISP does not support IPv6 at the moment, which is why you see a file Unable to access IPv6 test message in the image above. We’ve heard reports from users that they have seen IPv6 leaks. While this is not a problem today for most people (because most ISPs still only use IPv4), it may become an issue in the future.

Support for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android

Norton provides VPNs for the four major operating systems: Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. You’ve already seen what the above desktop app looks like in the review. Here is the Android version of the Norton Secure VPN app:

As we have already indicated, VPN clients are very basic and also lack some features and preferences. Norton is probably not the best VPN for Android, but it’s not the worst either.

Note that Norton Secure VPN does not offer any browser extensions.

VPN Ads & Tracker Blocker

One of the great bonus features of Norton Secure VPN is the built in ad blocker and tracker. I’ve spoken to the support team about this and it appears to be basic ad and tracker blocking, with no customization or options besides being able to turn it on or off.

Using a good ad blocker with your VPN is not a bad idea, as the ads can be very invasive. We have tested quite a few VPN ad blockers. Some work well, but others are not very effective, as we noted in our Cyberghost VPN review.

Now that we’ve covered the pros, let’s examine the cons of Norton Secure VPN.

Norton Secure VPN CONs

Here are the main things we don’t like about Norton Secure VPN:

Norton keeps data logs

Let’s get this out of the way: Norton Secure VPN is not a no-logs VPN service. Instead, they log a large amount of data.

This service describes itself as a no-log VPN provider. But their privacy policies (yes, there are three separate ones) give us some cause for concern. This VPN’s privacy policy is admirable for its brevity, but it also comes with some drawbacks.

This privacy policy describes how the company does It collects an unusual amount of user information, Including:

• the device name
• Device type
• OS version
• potential security risks
• “URLs of websites visited that the software considers fraudulent,”
• Malware files that may contain personally identifiable information (this piece can be manually deactivated)
• Other information used for the purposes of analyzing and improving the functionality of Norton products.

Doesn’t look good. But on the bright side, none of this information is supposed to be linked to any personally identifiable information.

This information is still much more than what we are used to seeing while logged in.

As usual, NortonLifeLock may Information disclosure They have if requested by law enforcement, a subpoena, or other legal process. They can too Exchange of information With researchers and other security software vendors, “to enhance awareness, detection and prevention of Internet security risks.”

Then there is the NortonLifeLock products and services privacy notice document, which states in the Norton Secure VPN section that they are Diagnostic data may be recorded, Including,

Temporary usage data to help debug the service (serial number from the app to give installation status)

this data,

An alias using internal identifiers and not made available to the user. Diagnostic information is kept in an encrypted pseudonym and cannot be deleted/forgotten.

It is assumed that the “cannot delete/forget request” part means that the GDPR rules on forgetting do not apply to temporary usage data that a product may record. This right is discussed in the Norton LifeLock Global Privacy Statement, where it states in the Your Privacy Rights section You probably have a The right to delete or request erasure of personal data relating to you.

Taken together, these privacy documents do not make us feel too comfortable about the privacy of your data. Most VPN users expect a higher level of privacy. There are some great no-log VPNs that we compared, which you can see in NordVPN and ExpressVPN’s report.

Limited number of countries and no choice of city server

When you activate Norton VPN, you can let the service handle the connection for you, or you can manually Choose the country for your VPN server. As of this review, the Server network is limited, with locations in 31 countries. This selection of sites is on the low side when you consider that other great VPNs give you over 50 countries to choose from, as you can see with NordVPN and IPVanish.

Also note that we said you can choose the country. Unlike most services, you can Choose the country want but Not a specific city inside this country. In some cases, this is fine. In other cases, it can be a real problem.

The problem is further compounded by the fact that we don’t know exactly how many sites Secure VPN has in the US, nor how we are assigned to one of these spaces when we connect. Below is an example of the types of problems this can cause.

My bank gets annoyed when I log in from a different site than I did before. I have to go through different steps to confirm my identity each time this happens. With Norton Secure VPN, I don’t know where I will connect within the US. This time when I called, the IP address was in New York. The last time it was on the IP address of the state of California. This would make my bank’s security system crazy which could drive me crazy.

Not being able to control which city you’re logged into is a major drawback of this VPN.

Limited Features with Norton VPN

One of the reasons why Secure VPN is so easy to use is that it has a file Very limited feature set. For example, you don’t have to worry about which communication protocol to use, since it’s fixed. Additionally, when considering Norton Secure VPN, you should be aware of the operating systems you will be using it on. that’s why Not all features are available on all operating systems.

Sure, you might expect no features with a free VPN – but not a paid VPN service.

One example suffices to clarify the issue. Norton Secure VPN Do not provide the key to the lock To prevent your data from being leaked, except with the Android client. Even Windows and Mac OS VPN apps did not have a kill switch. For us, this is a privacy issue and reason enough to avoid the service.

If you are considering this product, do your due diligence to ensure that all the features you need are available for all the operating systems you are considering using.

No linux support

Norton Secure VPN does not support Linux.

If you are a Linux user, it is time to move on. See other VPNs for Linux.

No router support

Norton Secure VPN does not support installation on routers.

Using a VPN on the router offers some advantages, which is the complete encryption of all devices connected to the VPN router. Most VPNs support this, but Norton VPN does not.

Noticeable: If you want to check out the latest VPN router technology, check out our Vilfo VPN router review (it scores highly).

Subscription price increases after the initial period

If you’re like most people, you hate hidden items and surprises when it comes to payments.

Norton Secure VPN’s starting price is reasonable if you are a new user signing up for the first time.

The $39.99 price tag for five devices sounds good. In fact, this would meet our criteria for a cheap VPN. But as you’ll see if you scroll down the page to get to the subscription details, the The price is for the first year only. After that, your subscription goes back to the full price. In this example, this is $79.99/yearAnd it’s not nearly a good deal. They accept all major credit cards in addition to PayPal.

Refunds from Norton VPN

It’s hard to say what will happen if you cancel the VPN and want your money back. The Cancellation and Refund Policy page is filled with terms, exclusions, and…

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