Norton 360 is a software suite developed by NortonLifeLock and thought of as a solution for complete protection in the cyber world of Internet users, regardless of how they access the virtual world. NortonLifeLock is one of the oldest companies specializing in virtual protection solutions for consumers, and some of you have most likely heard about Norton Antivirus for a while, but now we are talking about a solution that is more than that. The Norton 360 range is now available in stores in Romania.
Many of you know that the Coronavirus pandemic has generated an exponential increase in cyber attacks and dangers in the online environment, so that protection solutions such as Norton 360 is a method to avoid losing data or money. Cyber security must be taken very seriously in the context where most people have a lot of personal information on their phones, computers, tablets, which they would not want to lose or see stolen by hackers, so a security suite like Norton 360 it could be ideal for you.
Norton 360 is thought of as a security suite that includes several systems designed to protect our computers or phones from viruses, malware, spyware, ransomware, etc., but at the same time to secure our data sent or received through Internet connections or to data backup in the cloud. Protection against accessing malicious websites, improving PC performance, parental control or safe storage of passwords are the main elements, and I will talk about all of them below.
My Norton – the control panel for your online safety
It all starts with My Norton, a main interface through which the people from Norton offer the possibility to have quick access to the main functionalities that the protection suite offers for PC or Mac, this being composed of sections (although not all features are available in all Norton 360 plans and on all devices/operating systems, you have the option to choose the right plan for your needs):
- Device Security
- SecureVPN
- Cloud Backup
- Password Manager
- parental Control
My Norton is the main element through which we can control the functions offered by the software suite for computers, but depending on what you want to access, you can either make local settings, or you will be directed to the company's website to have access to certain functions.
Antivirus and Firewall - protection for PC and Mac
One of the essential components that all Norton 360 plans include is a powerful software whose purpose is, first of all, to prevent computers from being infected with viruses, malware, spyware, etc. To do this, it constantly checks the files that we try to access on our PCs or download from the Internet, to discover potential threats and alert us before we access them.
Real-time protection is one of the best weapons in the fight against PC infection, but it goes hand-in-hand with constant system scans to discover potential problems. The antivirus component of Norton 360 has a dedicated menu in the application where we can generate system scans, see the automatic updates of the definition lists for malicious files or control the way files are scanned in real time.
The suite can perform the following types of scans to discover threats in our devices
- Fast scan;
- Full system scan
- Custom scan
- Norton Power Erase: for discovering and erasing hard-to-detect viruses and malware
- Norton Insight: for determining which files should be scanned
Also on the advanced security side for PCs, Norton 360 comes with an intelligent Firewall that monitors the data traffic of our applications and on the Internet to detect possible unauthorized traffic. In the same way, a firewall is meant to protect PCs from unauthorized access from the outside, so we are talking about a security solution that should be installed in any kind of PC or Mac by users.
Secure VPN and data backup in the Cloud
VPNs have become increasingly popular in recent years, mainly because of geographic restrictions, but also as a solution to protect communications on phones and tablets. Those from Norton offer a classic VPN solution, which can be activated right from My Norton, and there we can choose the location of the server through which the data is transmitted, but we can also set the automatic connection to the VPN, together with the desired location, the automatic closing when disconnecting the internet, blocking advertising trackers or using the connection only for certain websites.
The Norton 360 VPN suite is offered for each of the devices included in the subscription and connected to the account, that is, including phones, and as you can see, the speeds offered are good enough for any needs.
On the backup side, Norton 360 offers the possibility to save tens of GB of essential data from Windows PC in their servers, to protect them in case the storage medium of our device is damaged. By default, Norton uploads standard documents to the cloud, i.e. photos, music, video, documents, etc., but in practice we can also upload important files from the operating system partition, the interface allowing us to choose exactly which folders we want to add to the system automatic saving in the cloud.
Secure password manager
We all know how hard it is to remember all the passwords you have set for various websites that you access daily on the Internet, but we also know that it is not good to save them all anywhere. The Norton password manager comes to our aid, a virtual safe connected through an extension to our devices to facilitate saving passwords, addresses, bank accounts, cards and many other data, for any kind of websites on which we access them daily.
Norton offers the possibility to use a browser extension for the automatic completion of saved passwords, both on phones and on PC, and on phones through the Norton Password Manager application it also offers a secure browser and a complex password generator. Accessing the "safe" with the saved passwords is done through the mobile application, if we are trying to see the data from the PCs, so we are talking about a fairly well thought out security system.
Parental control and SafeCam
Parental control is an extremely important function for many parents who want to keep their children safe online, and most Norton 360 plans offer it for phones with Android and iOS systems and for tablets and PCs. The suite is also available with a separate subscription, which can be tested for free for a period of 30 days.
After you activate the feature, you need to add a child's device, install the Norton Family Parental Control application on their device or in the browser used for surfing the Internet and start monitoring. In this way, Norton helps us to pay attention to what children do online with their own devices and to discover in time possible dangers to which they expose themselves and to block them before they are affected by them.
SafeCam for Windows PC is another extremely useful functionality offered by Norton 360, and this is because it can block intruders' access to the front camera of our devices or to web cameras. The pandemic has forced many people to participate in video conferences, and SafeCam is thought to help us avoid embarrassing situations in which we are monitored from a distance due to the vulnerabilities of our devices, the function also displaying alerts when someone tries to gain unauthorized access to the camera.
Conclusion and price
Norton 360 is an all-in-one solution for protecting phones, tablets, PCs, Mac devices. You can choose any of the Norton 360 plans now sold by retailers in Romania, with promotional prices available in stores. For this review I received access to the package Norton 360 Deluxe, which you can find in stores cheaper than the standard price of 39.99 euros, for the first year, (94,99 euros per year upon renewal) and which offers the following:
- Antivirus
- 50 GB of Cloud Backup for saving data
- Firewall for PC and Mac
- Password manager
- Parental control
- VPN
- safe cam
All in all, Norton 360 is a solution that can provide protection for all mobile devices, PCs and Macs in your home, in a world where cyber attacks are more and more frequent, and the price of security is one worth paying.
Article powered by NortonLifelock.
