Norton Secure VPN, formerly called Norton WiFi Privacy, is a VPN company by Norton, the renowned anti-virus owned by Symantec. The company has its headquarters in California, USA. The VPN can be bought independently or as a part of a premium software package sold by Norton.
The VPN promises to give you ultimate security and privacy for anonymous Internet browsing but according to our evaluation, Norton Secure VPN is not as safe as it claims for the following reasons.
Table of Contents
The Most VPN-Unfriendly Jurisdiction
Norton Secure VPN’s parent company is located in Mountain View, California in the US. Their location places them inside the 5 Eyes Surveillance Alliance. The US is a leading member of the 5 Eyes alliance which is a spying network of five countries that share intelligence information about their citizens. The organization began with 5 member countries but has now expanded to 14 countries worldwide.
The US is also known for its strict data retention regulations and infiltration of organizations and companies by its investigative agencies such as the NSA, CIA, and FBI. Norton Secure VPN will readily hand over your personal data to the authorities if presented with a court order.
The information can then be shared with other agencies in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries that belong to the 14-Eyes Surveillance alliance.
Logging and Privacy
If privacy or security is a major concern in your choice of a VPN, we highly recommend that you keep away from VPN companies based in the US, which is the leading country in the Eyes spying networks.
You should also carefully check the VPN company’s policy on privacy and the data they log. According to Symantec, the company that owns Norton Secure VPN, they don’t keep logs but your interpretation of the claim depends on what you consider to be sensitive data.
Norton Secure VPN admits that they log some data such as your device information including device name and operating system, and your data usage. They claim the data is logged in real-time as part of their “automated rule-based traffic management” which is basically a technical way of saying they monitor your activities to ensure that you are not abusing their system with excessive data usage.
The company also states that they may at any time “monitor” IP addresses and destination websites. Symantec claims that they don’t log that information but if you are security conscious, especially with a VPN based in the US, you would be justified to be skeptic at such claims. The bottom line is that Norton Secure VPN is not a zero-log VPN service and therefore not the safest option available today.
Security Features
In terms of other security features, Norton Secure VPN admittedly does a good job. They use strong AES 256-bit encryption together with OpenVPN and IPsec protocols to give you the highest level of military-grade encryption and protection of your data from hackers and prying eyes.
OpenVPN protocol can only be used on Windows, macOS, and Android devices. iOS devices can only use the IPSec protocol. Keep in mind that you cannot change the connection protocol via the app settings.
You cannot customize your security settings. Norton VPN also provides a secure tunnel without DNS and IP leaks, as we found out in a few random tests.
Norton Secure VPN Alternatives
As you can clearly see, Norton Secure VPN is not safe. There are better and more secure VPN alternatives out there including the following:
- Provider
- User Rating
- Our Review
- Price
PureVPN- 4807 Votes
- $3.24 / month
ExpressVPN- 3795 Votes
- $6.67 / month
Conclusion
Is Norton Secure VPN safe? Not at all. They can decide to monitor your traffic and browsing activities at any time and fall in the 5-Eyes surveillance jurisdiction. The alternative VPNs mentioned in this article provide better and more secure services.