Norton Ultra VPN review | Macworld

Norton is likely a brand that needs no introduction, with decades of experience protecting devices from cyber threats (read our review of Norton 360). That means there’s plenty of cache in the name, and the company’s VPN service wisely leans on that pedigree.

Norton’s VPN plans are, outside of the basic tier, tied into its security software to help offer real-time protection from bad actors. It comes with a password manager, dark web monitor, and cloud storage, but the VPN side of things is a little lacking.

Perhaps it’s from testing so many of the best VPN services that we’ve grown used to a certain set of non-negotiables. Chief among them is browser extension options to allow for quick switching, but at the time of writing, there’s no such offering from Norton.

Then there’s the option to pay monthly, but Norton demands an annual fee. While it’s a smaller amount than many charge, there’s a caveat that while Norton Secure VPN (one device) is $39.99/£19.99 for the first year, it then renews at $79.99/£39.99, and other plans only get more egregious – the Norton Ultra VPN (five devices) $49.99/£24.99 plan rises to $109.99/£79.99 for a second year, while the $59.99/£29.99 Norton Ultra VPN Plus family plan (ten devices) jumps to $129.99/£94.99.

With better, and, crucially, faster options, available, it’s hard to escape the feeling Norton’s VPN offering needs some retooling. Still, if you’re looking for real-time protection it remains a good security-focused option, but with geoblocking being inconsistent in our testing, you might want to look elsewhere for your international Netflix fix.

Take a look at our round-up of the Best VPNs for Mac.

Features & Apps

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As mentioned above, Norton’s VPN does include plenty of accouterments that other VPNs either don’t have or charge extra for.

You can install the app on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and all three platforms have apps that work well and run nicely in the background.

Despite the lack of a browser extension or plugin, Norton’s solution is a menu for Browser Protection, which scans sites as you browse. That means it’s not as easy to switch one browser to one region (perhaps for site testing), but does mean you get the benefit of real-time detection alerts if a site might be unsafe.

The same goes for downloads, with Norton scanning files before they land on your device. It worked well in my testing, and barely added any additional time to the length of downloads.

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One thing that was interesting was how it monitors trackers on emails. As a journalist, I receive a lot of press releases and pitches, and while I’ve always assumed many of them use some kind of tracking to see when they’re opened, Norton offered to quarantine so many that I was quite taken aback.

Whether it’s a little over-enthusiastic or well within its rights will depend on how much you value your inbox’s privacy, but it did well to work with third-party apps like Outlook and Spark.

There’s also a password manager if you’re not already using Apple’s new Passwords app, but most of these features are tied to the middle subscription tier and above.

The basic tier, simply dubbed Norton Secure VPN, will only protect one device, block ads and offers VPN functionality, but it’s a little more barebones. Considering that second-year price hike, that’s something to consider despite the low price right now.

Performance

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VPNs naturally decrease your internet speeds as your signal is fired across the globe, and Norton has servers in 32 countries – a steep drop from the 111 in NordVPN’s portfolio – but it does offer four protocols to choose from.

IKEv2, OpenVPN and WireGuard are pretty commonly found across the board of rivals, but Norton has its own Mimic protocol which is intended to be ideal for unblocking international streaming services.

Sadly, testing on a 70 Mbps connection saw a consistent speed drop-off. For context, NordVPN and ExpressVPN dropped 12 and 13 percent of speeds when using them in our tests, while Norton’s offering dropped closer to 25% lower in download speeds.

That’s not ideal, but not lagging behind some rivals. It just underlines how far ahead some VPNs are, and it’s worth considering when you’re locked in for a year, or plotting an expensive renewal.

As for Mimic, Norton’s own VPN protocol, I was disappointed to find some international streaming services simply weren’t able to be unblocked with it. With that said, I did have more luck with more standardized protocols, and I’m pleased to see Norton at least give the option to shift between them.

Privacy & Security

VPNs worth their salt should always focus on privacy as their primary concern, and in this instance, Norton does a good job.

While it remains a curious thing to prove a company has a “no logs” policy (where users and their session data aren’t logged), Norton underwent an audit from VerSprite, a security firm, just a few months ago.

The 2024 audit passed Norton’s VPN, although, unlike some companies, it’s not necessarily easy to find the audit’s conclusions online (although that could be an indictment on the current state of Google search at the time of writing).

Still, the company’s privacy policy has a dedicated VPN section that confirms what kind of data is included.

Should you buy Norton Ultra VPN?

Here’s the rub with Norton’s VPN offering. If the price was static year-on-year, I think I’d be inclined to recommend it more wholeheartedly.

It’s not a bad VPN, and if you’re looking for an option that packs a whole host of cyber-security tools into one easy-to-use package, the $49.99/£24.99 a year deal is an easy sell.

That hefty second-year price jump is always coming around the bend, though, and for that reason, I’d consider signing up for a year and potentially canceling to see if there’s a new customer deal after twelve months.

As impressive as the security-minded tech behind Norton’s VPN is, whether it’s worth the trade-off of inflexible payment options and a decrease in speed will be down to you as the end user.