Norton Secure VPN Review

There are many different household Nortons out there. Actor Edward Norton. Comedian Graham Norton. And then there’s Norton Antivirus. Except, these days, Norton Antivirus is all grown up and goes by other names like Norton 360, Norton Mobile Security, and Norton Secure VPN. While the latter of these is the focus of this review, Norton Secure VPN is also conveniently part of Norton 360, which is what I’ve been using for the last six months.

Norton Secure VPN has strange pricing, ranging from ridiculously expensive by comparison for a single device to affordable for five devices, or as part of the Norton 360 security suite. At the time of updating this review, there was a $25 first-year discount for a one-device license, and $50 for five devices, which helps soften the regular pricing you can see in the table below (bear in mind that all Norton Secure VPN plans are charged annually).

Opting to buy Norton 360 Deluxe – the security suite that comes with Norton Secure a password manager and a range of other device protection inclusions – also has an enticing one-year or two-year saving if you’re willing to pay in advance, but regular pricing is $149.99 a year and $12.50 annually. I’ve used Norton 360 Deluxe instead of the cheaper Norton 360 Standard because the pricier option at least covers three devices (compared to Standard’s one-device limit).

For standalone Norton Secure, I’ve used the five-device plan as the basis of comparisons because five devices are the minimum standard number for other popular VPNs. The monthly costs in the table above are reflective of an annual breakdown because you can’t actually pay for Norton Secure VPN month-to-month. Using its regular annual price as a gauge, Norton Secure VPN earns a wooden spoon for the worst pricing in comparison to the other 12 VPN providers reviewed on this site.

Even $29.99 a year for a single-device subscription isn’t the worst annual pricing compared to its peers, and they all offer protection for more than one device. In terms of pricing, Norton Secure VPN is best treated as something you’d use as part of the Norton 360 suite rather than a standalone purchase. There is a 14-day trial if you opt for Norton 360 and a 60-day money-back guarantee for the annual subscriptions if you want to test for longer, the latter of which is particularly generous as far as VPNs are concerned.

For comparison, see how Norton Secure VPN compares to our current top five VPN providers in the pricing table below.

It has to be said that Norton Secure is incredibly user-friendly and speedy to connect. Activating Norton Secure automatically connects you to the nearest server, and it only takes about three seconds to connect. Disconnection is almost instantaneous. The only issue I had with it impacting real-time internet services was when switching from a US server to an international one, which meant my streaming music cut out for a few seconds.

Switching to one of the 31 supported countries is also just a few straightforward clicks away. Bringing up the VPN list tells you the region you’re currently connecting to and your current IP address. Locations are listed by country only, which means you’re reliant on Norton’s choices for what constitutes the best server.

This is a user-friendly feature that simplifies the process of connecting to servers. That said, other VPN competitors provide this simplicity but then also let you manually search for cities or connect to a more comprehensive list of servers. This not only gives you more options, but it also lets you access better speeds or, potentially, more services (streaming or otherwise) from alternative servers.

Outside of one instance where the web widgets on a page stopped working and refused to come back, I had no issues with regular browsing or using my usual computer software while Norton Secure VPN was connected. This means it does its job as a background web companion, and the fact it automatically blocks ad trackers makes it even better in this role. You can disable this feature if you have site issues or leave it on to see how many trackers it’s blocked in a week-long or over a 30-day period.

Compared to other VPN services, Norton Secure VPN keeps things simple when it comes to its supported devices. That’s a nice way of saying it’s only available on popular platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

While other VPN services restrict in terms of multiple simultaneous connections – meaning you can technically have them installed on stacks of devices as long as you’re not using them at the same time – Norton Secure locks it down to individual devices whose access has to be added then revoked if you want to use a device outside your license count. Considering licenses are sold to cover either one, five, or ten devices, this is a major pain if you hope to use Norton Secure on more devices than your limit supports.

The reality of using any VPN service is that it’s going to increase the latency (online responsiveness) and impact your download and upload speeds. For some services, this impact is impressive and low, while for others activating a VPN has a major impact on one or all of these factors.

The table below uses my Superloop NBN 100/40Mbps Fibre-to-the-Curb home internet to compare the impact that Norton Secure has when connecting to a local US and Australian server around the middle of the day.

Out of the gate, Norton Secure VPN presents testing problems because I like to test a manually selected Australian server – ideally a Sydney server to gauge the fastest possible speeds relative to my location – an automatic US server, and then I manually connect to the closest US server I can find (typically in Los Angeles). The automated nature of how Norton Secure handles server connections means I have no control over the servers, so I can only select a country and hope for the best.

Initially, the 7% variance for download speeds, 6% for upload, and 2ms jump for latency are all positive indicators of a speedy VPN. For context, these are perfectly acceptable slow-downs for using a VPN. Things get a whole lot slower when connecting to an international server, with a whopping 46% hit to downloads, an even bigger 56% sting to uploads, and the 212ms latency is noticeably higher than the sub-160ms speeds offered by other VPN competitors.

Given the disappointing speed results from above, I wasn’t expecting a lot from Norton Secure VPN in terms of its streaming potentially. It does, after all, present as a bare-bolts VPN service. For those who don’t mind running the risk of violating the terms and conditions of streaming services, certain VPNs can be used to stream geo-blocked content from abroad.

The table below breaks down how well Norton Secure works with the popular US and Australian streaming services that typically do a good job of sniffing out VPNs and blocking a connection.

Despite the 46% hit to download speeds when connecting to a US server, Norton Secure still provided snappy playback of content from the Netflix library. Max and Peacock also worked but weren’t as quick at buffering and streaming content. Despite being one of the US streaming services that work with most big-name VPNs I’ve thrown at it, Hulu blocked playback while using Norton Secure VPN.

Using an Australian server to connect to Kayo came up with a common VPN error that wouldn’t even let me browse content, which means Norton Secure shouldn’t be used by people hoping to access Kayo from around the world. That said, Stan had no issues playing content.

Normally, this is where I’d use a table with popular US streaming services that offer 4K to give you an idea of how many simultaneous streams you could watch with Norton Secure, relative to the aggregated average typical evening download speeds for all NBN fixed-line speed tiers. The problem is, that one of those services is Hulu, which doesn’t work with Norton Secure, while the other two services – Netflix and Max – both have 25Mbps speed recommendations, which would make for a very boring table.

For context, though, Norton Secure is too slow to stream Netflix and Max in 4K until you hit an NBN 100 connection, which can then only reliably offer one stream, instead of the two or three offered by competing VPN services on the same connection.

Outside of the ad tracking (and blocking) feature mentioned above as well as split tunneling for more advanced users, Norton Secure VPN doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of extras. It’s actually easier to see Norton Secure VPN as the extra when viewing it as part of the Norton 360 security suite. This makes the value a whole lot clearer, even if you do have to pay more to protect additional devices.

Still, if you do get Norton 360, you get access to antivirus, anti-malware, anti-spyware, and ransomware protection. There’s also a PC cloud backup, a firewall, and a password manager, plus you can add Norton Secure to that list, too. First-year pricing is competitively priced and enticing for all versions of Norton 360, including the typically pricier Deluxe and Premium versions, but even these only allow for the protection of three devices.

Outside of user-friendliness and having a no-log policy, which is great for peace of mind on software designed to protect privacy, Norton Secure VPN falls short in key comparisons to our current top pick of VPNs. The most noticeable one is the device limit. Norton Secure gives you either one, five, or ten devices, depending on which service you pay for, but ExpressVPN and Hotspot Shield offer the lowest count of our current top five.

Even then, it’s five simultaneous connections, which means you can install the software on more devices or configure these VPNs at a router level to protect all devices in your home. On the other end of the scale, CyberGhost allows for seven simultaneous connections, while PureVPN lets you have 10.

Norton Secure has, by far, the lowest country count at 31, with the next closest being NordVPN’s 59 and the best of our current top five being the 140+ on offer from PureVPN. At 3,000 servers, the server count is also the lowest, which pales in comparison to the 6,500+ from PureVPN and the 7,000+ from CyberGhost.

As for speed, all of the VPNs in our current top five have Norton Secure beat, most notably Hotspot Shield, which is the VPN you want if you care more about speed than anything else.

As a standalone VPN service, it’s difficult to make a strong case for buying Norton Secure VPN. As part of Norton 360, it’s an attractive bullet point to a robust security suite. Norton Secure has great speeds to local servers, but my internet speed was almost halved when connecting to an international server.

Not having the option to manually select options also keeps Norton Secure relegated as something that’s meant mainly for new users who appreciate that level of hand-holding. Ultimately, there are plenty of other VPN services that do what Norton Secure does better, at a cheaper price point and with faster speeds as well as greater versatility.