Norton 360 Deluxe: Excellent protection, lots of features, but a slight performance impact

Norton 360 Deluxe is an excellent product overall, but midrange or budget PCs might see a dip in performance.

- IAN PAUL

We’re well into the Norton 360 era now where the company’s storied antivirus services combine with identity theft protection from LifeLock. Despite the changes behind the scenes, the front-facing product hasn’t changed that much. The basic Norton security interface has looked pretty much the same since 2015 save for some cosmetic touch-ups to keep it looking modern. Under the hood, however, Norton has kept working on its malware detection technology to deal with new security threats.

We’ll take a look at Norton 360’s protection capabilities soon, but first let’s talk about our review choice from among Norton’s portfolio. By my reckoning, the best option in terms of value and capabilities in the current lineup is Norton 360 Deluxe. Norton offers two other premium suites above that with extra LifeLock features, but for most people 360 Deluxe hits the sweet spot at $35 for the first year for new users and $105 per year for returning users, covering five devices.

FEATURES AND SERVICES

All Norton 360 suites work with two primary apps. The first is My Norton, a launcher for the actual antivirus program known as Device Security. My Norton is home to other features that come with 360 Deluxe such as Dark Web Monitoring, aka Privacy Monitor, a secure VPN, 75GB of cloud backup, a password manager, and a link to the Norton website for parental controls. The company also recently introduced an anti-tracking service for web browsing called AntiTrack that’s available for $40 a year. AntiTrack blocks cookies and also prevents device fingerprinting.