Leave no online trace with Norton VPN

It’s a part of our daily grind. We go online and are bombarded with online adverts. Many are touting VPNs to the point where “VPN” has become part of our daily vernacular. Ironically, most people don’t know what a VPN is or why they might need one.

This occurred to me as I downloaded and installed Norton’s latest VPN offering, creatively called Norton VPN.

A VPN (virtual private network) encrypts all the data you send and receive to and from the internet and obscures your IP address details, making it harder for anyone to eavesdrop on you performing common online tasks such as online banking. While you might be fairly secure using your home network, far too many people send and receive a lot of sensitive information using public networks such as airport Wi-Fi and so on.

With tools easily available to retrieve passwords, credit cards and bank account details from network data, it’s fair to say that anyone looking to log in to their bank account, make purchases and so on over a public network could be playing with fire.

Norton’s VPN is available for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android and offers a simple way of keeping prying eyes away from your data.  Another key feature that also appeals is Norton’s move to adopt a no-logs policy, which means Norton doesn’t log any traffic passing through their VPN servers, so they have no idea about what you’re browsing/downloading. This gives users protection for peer-to-peer file sharing and other activities. This was borne out by cyber security auditing firm VerSprite, which gave Norton VPN a low-risk rating.

One key disadvantage of using a VPN is the speed penalty of encrypting and re-routing your data. Thankfully, Norton VPN is a snappy performer. I logged into my home Wi-Fi at around 4 pm on a weekday, just as little Johnny or Joany come home from school to binge on Fortnight. My typical wireless throughput is around 277- 400mbps.

Enabling Norton VPN resulted in a barely noticeable decrease in throughput. This probably comes down to it automatically seeking the fastest VPN connection possible by default and its support (on Windows/Android) for OpenVPN, WireGuard, and a new protocol Norton calls Mimic. Mimic uses AES-256 and other clever Encryption jiggery pokery to mimic (see what I did there) an HTTPS connection. This stops many streaming services and other websites from refusing to play nice, as they can’t tell you’re using a VPN. I’ve used Norton VPN to access US YouTube TV/Amazon Prime (both services many VPNs struggle with), and it worked a charm.

Norton VPN did a solid job of masking my identity/location. Testing for IP address leaks via ipleak.net saw my IP address staying hidden. This is largely thanks to the use of industrial-strength AES-256-bit encryption, which is used by both banks and various militaries around the globe.

Being a Norton product, VPN has both a password manager and an anti-scam tool (the utilities available vary depending on which subscription plan you choose). This will alert the user to suspicious URLs, links, and any other hints of scams, malware, and other cyber nasties. Likewise, a dark web monitoring tool will also keep an eye out for your personal details on the dark web and alert you if your information is being sold online.

There are 3 different annual subscription plans available. The most affordable is a basic Norton Secure VPN, which starts at $69.99 and allows just one nominated device to use the VPN. The review sample I tested was the mid-tier Norton Ultra VPN. It can run on up to 5 devices and handily comes with 10 GB of backup storage, malware/dark web monitoring, and a password manager. Top of the heap is Norton Ultra VPN Plus. It can be used with 10 devices and has 50 GB of backup as well as all the malware/dark web/storage goodies and parental controls for $104.99 per year.

Norton Secure VPN has lots to like. It performed solidly across streaming services, worked like a charm with online gaming, and was secure as tested. Then there’s Norton’s no-questions privacy policy and all the added security bits and bobs. The icing on the cake is the range of plans aimed at solo budget-conscious users through to entire families. All of this adds up to a well-deserved gold.

https://nz.norton.com/products/norton-vpn