Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking Admittedly, prices start at $39.99 but that’ll only to protect one device with Norton AntiVirus Plus, and the price jumps up to $69.99 after the first year. The better value is found from the Norton 360 products. Norton 360 Standard costs $79.99 for the first year ($99.99 normally) to protect one device with more features than the entry-level product. The best value is from Norton 360 Deluxe for an initial $89.99 annual fee ($149.99 typically), which protects three devices. If you want to protect five devices with the same features as Norton 360 Deluxe, go with Norton 360 Premium for an initial $99.99 annual fee ($194.99 normally). Norton does offer two-year pricing for its 360 plans, but the savings aren’t particularly flash to warrant the steeper initial investment. That said, installation and everyday use are incredibly straightforward on computers and mobile devices. Norton 360 has an uncluttered My Norton dashboard with its most prominent features front and centre. Real-time threat protection happily works in the background with minimal performance impact for everyday device use, plus it’s easy to get to quick or more involved scans. I like that you can force a live update at any time to grab the most up-to-date threat signatures to run a scan with the very latest protection. While there are advanced features to tinker with (more on those below), Norton works best as an invisible background protector that gets its work done without unnecessary interference. We defer to the expertise of respected antivirus analysis from AV-Comparatives and AV-Test, both of which regularly put the latest available versions of popular antivirus software through their paces. Understandably, Norton is one of those antivirus services, and the results are top of the pack. Starting with AV-Comparatives, Norton had a perfect 100% block rate for its real-time threat protection. That’s equal with Bitdefender, and the only thing slightly holding back Norton overall is it came back with 35 false-positive reports compared to six from Bitdefender. Check out the full results below. Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 Premium include all of the features above but boost the cloud backup to 50GB and 100GB, respectively. These pricier plans also have parental controls, including a remote-learning tool, as well as dark web identity monitoring and SMS security for mobile devices. The one feature that Norton doesn’t tout on its product page is Norton Crypto—an optional feature for computers that meet the necessary spec requirements—that lets you use a compatible device as a crypto-mining machine. Given that performance impact is a viable metric when it comes to antivirus software, adding a feature that effectively cripples performance, puts extra strain on a computer and saps power doesn’t really feel right. AV-Comparatives and AV-Test are the two big ones, and we use their latest available reports at the time of reviewing to determine how effective antivirus software is at blocking real-world threats. AV-Test also performs tests to determine the performance impact of antivirus software and its usability, across three of the four main platforms that antivirus services tend to protect. Our more active hands-on testing involves downloading, installing and using antivirus software or apps under everyday conditions. We test across computer and mobile versions and keep an eye out for any instances where it impacts everyday functionality. When it comes to scoring, we value real-time threat protection above all else, then factor in pricing (initial and ongoing) relative to the competition and included features.
