Norton 360 Mobile Security Review: Good but Expensive

At a glance

Expert Rating

Benefits

Excellent protection against viruses
Detailed Web Protection
Best in class VPN

Disadvantages

Lack of anti-theft protection
Relatively expensive

Our verdict

It’s not the cheapest, but for the base price you actually get a lot, including a good VPN service. Excellent additional social media security is a plus, but more features would have been nice.

Norton 360 Mobile Security is part of the manufacturer’s Norton 360 multi-license security package, but it can also be purchased separately for mobile devices only.

You can choose between a plan without a VPN and identity monitoring for dark web leaks, and one that includes them. Both are relatively expensive: the simplest plan costs £12.99 per year or $19.99 in the US, and the full version with a VPN costs £22.98, again for the first year.

Norton doesn’t have a free version, but you can get a full refund within the first 14 days. Just remember to cancel before then on the Google Play Store if you don’t want to continue paying. Norton is also available for iOS.

After installation, an initial virus scan, and the usual fiddling with all the permissions the app requires, I’m greeted by a clean and uncluttered interface. It makes good use of the limited screen space, but it can be a little tricky to intuitively figure out where your various functions are.

VPN, for example, is located in the Privacy section and it’s the only feature present. Why not just call it VPN then? However, there aren’t many individual functions, so you’ll learn that quickly.

Digitization and VPN

You perform a manual virus scan by swiping down on the screen and then up to find a security report. It records app and user activity, and also gives you a detailed list of installed apps and their risks, how much data they collect, what permissions they ask for, and more.

Norton blocks access to malicious websites in apps like Chrome, Instagram, Facebook, and Outlook. There are probably other apps as well, but these are the ones I had installed on my test phone. Even links in text messages are scanned before you can click on them.

You can also get a quick icon for Norton Safe Search, a separate search box that provides safe search results. The same feature is also available in the Windows version of Norton 360.

The VPN (if you choose this plan) is one of the best I’ve tried, with fast, or at least fast enough, servers all over the world. There’s not as much choice as, say, McAfee’s service, with servers in about 30 countries. But even on the other side of the planet, they’re fast enough to stream videos from services, for example.

There’s no guarantee that this means you’ll always be able to bypass regional blocks, but no VPN can claim that.

Identity Monitor and more

Identity Monitor, which keeps track of sensitive information on the darknet, allows you to record five email addresses, five phone numbers, ten credit card numbers, and other information such as player IDs and passport details.

Norton’s service provides the same warnings as its competitors about anything I choose to monitor, but it’s much less intrusive than McAfee, which doesn’t take note when I manually mark an issue as fixed. It’s much more discreet and seamless.

All of Norton’s features are individually very good. It’s 100% anti-virus, it adds excellent protection for web browsing and links in instant messaging, SMS and emails, and the VPN service is really good if you feel like paying for it.

But that’s it, you don’t get any extra features like backup, call control or anti-theft. Then, the somewhat high price tag can make it hard to justify a purchase.