Norton Ultra VPN Plus

Norton Ultra VPN Plus (short for virtual private network) has a strong security pedigree from the Norton name and a wealth of features not seen before in VPNs at this level. Conversely, it also lacks some of the basics we've seen in VPN clients for over a decade now, such as the ability to select city-level servers or an option for a monthly subscription. While Norton Ultra VPN Plus provides much more than just a VPN service, its enhancements break up the smooth experience provided by Proton VPN, Windscribe VPN, and other leaders in the space. Fans of the brand will appreciate familiar security features, but VPN experts will find themselves wanting more.

How Much Does Norton Ultra VPN Plus Cost?

Annual plans start at $39.99 for five devices at the Norton Secure VPN level, which comes with just the VPN and an ad blocker. Next up on the list is Norton Ultra VPN, which allows for five devices of protection along with added antivirus and identity protection features for $49.99 annually. The highest tier of service is Norton Ultra VPN Plus, which is $59.99 initially for 10 devices of coverage. For this review, we were given access to the Norton Ultra VPN Plus package.

Note that annual plan pricing changes after the first year. After that, you pay $79.99 per year for Norton Secure, $109.99 per year for Norton Ultra, and $129.99 per year for Norton Ultra VPN Plus. That's double or more across the board, which is above the norm in the industry. You can also purchase Secure VPN as an add-on to an existing Norton 360 Deluxe subscription at the reduced rate mentioned above, but it will reset to the higher price upon renewal.

Notably, Norton doesn't let you choose between a subscription that renews monthly or annually, which is a significant negative in our book. Though the company offers a 45-day money-back guarantee, we typically recommend that potential VPN users buy a monthly subscription to test if a service is right for them first before taking the full plunge for an annual subscription or longer. Below, you can see a full list of what services are and aren't included with each package tier:

Several other VPNs beat Norton's pricing and offer excellent monthly plans at a comparative discount, such as Mullvad, another Editors' Choice pick, which costs just 5 euros ($5.39 as of this writing).

There are also free VPNs worth considering. Proton VPN is one of the few services that does not place data caps on its free subscription plan. Norton Ultra VPN Plus does not offer a free subscription.

Norton only accepts major credit cards, PayPal, or Google Pay. Other VPN services accept cryptocurrencies and offer additional anonymous payment options.

What Do You Get With Norton Ultra VPN Plus?

Norton Ultra VPN Plus provides all the assurances of a VPN, along with a number of included benefits that extend to local antivirus, a firewall, parental controls, a password manager, and cloud backup options. On the VPN side, Norton Ultra VPN Plus lets you create VPN connections for five or 10 devices simultaneously, depending on your plan. Five is the most common allowance of simultaneous connections among VPNs we've reviewed. A 10 count is nice to have, but unlimited remains the supreme option if you have a family of devices that all need protection at once.

Before we go further, we should note that Norton Ultra VPN Plus isn't a traditional VPN product. Instead, the company has combined several different products from its many verticals into one place. This muddies the waters for both Norton and the VPN industry as a whole.

Essentially, Norton has squeezed the most essential components of its antivirus, firewall, parental control, password manager, and cloud backup services into a single "VPN" product. We use quotations here, because it's almost unfair to the rest of the VPN field to compare Norton Ultra VPN Plus with traditional offerings.

Once you consider the full value-add of everything available in the Norton Ultra VPN Plus plan, there's a whole lot on offer to dig into.

What VPN Protocols Does Norton Ultra VPN Plus Support?

Norton Ultra VPN Plus supports a number of connection protocols, depending on the platform. Overall, you can expect to see a mix of IKEv2, OpenVPN, WireGuard, and Norton's proprietary Mimic protocol, which is best for circumventing geo-blocked streaming services like Netflix.

That said, Mimic didn't always live up to its intended purpose of being a global catchall for unblocking those streaming services. More on this in a bit.

Norton's Servers and Server Locations

Norton offers VPN servers in just 32 countries, a step up from the 25 countries we saw when we last tested it. However, it remains close to the back of the pack by the standards set for a VPN in 2024. For comparison, industry stalwarts that have been in the VPN game for years cover many more countries. ExpressVPN covers 95, a number we've found isn't too far off the norm for providers that can afford to support global networks.

Norton used to openly claim it offered some 2,800 servers in total, but the company now declines to share exact numbers in any of its official materials. We quizzed the company directly on the issue and were told the network has only slightly grown in the two years since we last reviewed the product. And we do mean slightly; 2,800 servers in 2022 up to "approximately 2,850" today.

Hands On With Norton Ultra VPN for Windows

You can configure several devices to use Norton's services, as the company offers native apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Norton Ultra VPN is missing browser extensions for Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Edge, which are near-must-haves for any major VPN operating at this level in 2024.

Installing the Norton Ultra VPN application was a simple, three-click process on our Intel NUC 13 Extreme Kit ('Raptor Canyon') test PC, which is using the latest version of the Windows 10 operating system.

Once in the app, we were greeted with a screen asking which country we wanted to connect to. Unfortunately, the server selector still leaves much to be desired. You can only select servers at the country level, not individual servers or cities, which might be frustrating if you need a working connection in a specific region. Anyone looking for finer control of their VPN experience would be better served by alternatives such as NordVPN or Proton VPN.

A small complaint, but still annoying nonetheless, is the Windows app's inability to sit on top of any other windows. If you click on the Norton VPN app from your taskbar or Alt-Tab into the window, it won't come to focus unless you close every other window on your desktop first. These are just basic flaws in UI coding, which we're sure will be patched with time, but they remain indicative of the "needs more time in the oven" theme we'll be harkening back to throughout this evaluation.

One notable feature is the Ad Tracking tab. This shows all the ad trackers Norton Ultra VPN has blocked this week, in the last 30 days, and since you first installed the app. Several VPNs claim to block ad tracking, but this is one of the very few that shows its work. We confirmed that the number increased as we browsed around the open web.

We found extensive settings to configure within the Settings menu, including changing your connection protocol, enabling split tunneling (as well as setting app instructions for the splits), and the option to turn on the kill switch feature. Next up, it was time to dig into the Security tab, found in the left-hand side menu as a separate tab from the VPN window.

Norton Ultra VPN Plus Smart Firewall for Network Protection

Like Norton 360 Deluxe and , Norton Ultra VPN Plus includes a full-powered firewall component. The firewall handles port scans and other internet attacks. It also puts your PC’s ports in stealth mode, meaning they’re not merely closed; they’re invisible. Do note that Windows Firewall does the same—any third-party firewall must match these features at a minimum.

What you don’t get with Windows Firewall is application control, which refers to monitoring and controlling the use of your network connection by the apps running on your system. Early personal firewalls relied on the user to decide whether to allow network access the first time any program attempted it. This resulted in confusion, at best. In its default Smart Mode, Norton automatically configures network permissions for known programs, and its reputation system knows a lot of programs. The antivirus component eliminates known bad programs, naturally.

As for unknown programs, which it calls Low Risk Applications, Norton subjects them to detailed analysis. By default, it only alerts you when it finds the app to be suspicious; you can configure it to always notify you when it invokes this detailed analysis. We tested this feature using a hand-coded browser app, and it correctly put the app under its microscope, eventually giving it a clean bill of health.

We continued the test by configuring the Program Control to query the user the first time it sees a new program attempting network access. When we tried to connect using the off-brand browser, Norton described the attempted connection and offered several choices. We could allow or block all the app’s connections, just outbound connections, or connections on the exact port in use. And we could make the decision a one-shot, leave it active until reboot, or create a rule to remember that decision.

Most users should leave the firewall as it comes configured out of the box, which means most users will rarely, if ever, see these popups. As with the firewall in , pop-up alerts are rare. If you see an alert from the firewall, pay attention, as it’s probably significant.

Security protection isn’t useful if a random program can turn it off or disable it. We verified that Norton’s Registry settings are hardened against tampering, and we couldn’t terminate its 11 processes using Task Manager or a third-party task kill utility. Looking at its seven essential Windows services, we found the option to Stop them simply didn’t exist. We tried setting their startup types to disabled and got Access Denied for six. Surprisingly, the VPN service seems to yield to this attack. However, the system self-repaired on reboot, negating the attack.

Norton’s firewall protection has long included detection of exploit attacks, which take advantage of vulnerabilities in Windows and in popular applications. Keeping Windows and your apps updated is a good defense against such attacks, but an active anti-exploit component covers that dangerous time between discovery of a security hole and the corresponding security patch. To test this protection, we use about 30 exploit attacks generated by the Core Impact penetration tool. In its latest test, Norton actively detected and blocked 29% of the attacks, part of a general downward trend in scores for this test. Because the virtual machine testbed is fully patched, none of the exploit attacks succeeded.

Norton Ultra VPN Plus Family Parental Monitor

PureVPN, Surfshark, and Windscribe, along with a few other VPNs, offer a limited kind of parental control based on cutting off all access to domains hosting inappropriate content. With Norton, parental control is wholly separate from the VPN and vastly more effective. If you choose to install it, what you get is a full installation of . We’ve covered that product separately, so we’ll simply summarize here.

You manage parental control through the My Norton console online. This is where you configure controls for each child and view activity reports. A small local agent on each device or Windows account belonging to the child enforces the house rules you create. The parental control system handles Windows, Android, and iOS, but not macOS. There’s no limit on the number of devices, and you can track up to 15 kids, which is surely sufficient.

For each child you enter a name and pick an avatar (or use a picture). You choose one of four initial restriction levels: Very High, High, Moderate, or Low. You can change or fine-tune restrictions later in the My Norton console. Add a device belonging to the child, and you’re ready to go. You can add more devices in My Norton, and your settings affect all the child’s devices.

Norton tracks almost 50 potentially unwanted categories, pre-selecting banned categories based on the restriction level you chose. Depending on the restriction level, it either blocks all access to those categories or warns the child that continuing to the site will result in parental notification. You can fine-tune the category choices and optionally set the content filter to simply log access without a warning.

Preventing accidental or deliberate visits to inappropriate sites is one main facet of most parental control systems, while controlling the child’s screen time is the other. Norton pre-configures time supervision based on the restriction level you select.

Many parental control systems let parents lay out a schedule for internet access on a grid that crosses days of the week with times of day. With one mouse gesture you can, for example, block access every day between midnight and six in the morning. Norton’s timeline view is less flexible, but it does let you configure availability in half-hour increments, separately for each day.

When the child runs out of time on a smartphone, the phone function remains available, but apps are disabled. Because the time limits apply on a per-device basis, a kid who runs out of time on one device can just switch to another. We prefer systems that apply time limits across all devices.

Some parental control apps just handle content filtering and time scheduling; Norton goes way beyond that. It can track app usage and control when (or whether) certain apps can be used. It enforces Safe Search and tracks just what the little darlings are searching for. It can even monitor what videos they watch.

Installed on a mobile device, the parental control system can keep parents apprised of the child’s location. Parents can define known locations (for example, a school) and get notifications if the child’s device leaves that location.

As a bonus feature with Norton Ultra VPN Plus, Norton Family offers comprehensive parental supervision features. We admire its emphasis on supervision and dialogue—if you don’t get buy-in from your kids, they’ll probably defeat any controls you impose.

Norton Ultra VPN Plus Malware Protection: Different Appearance, Same Results

Norton 360 Deluxe puts malware protection front and center, with numerous choices for on-demand malware scans along with specialized scans of email attachments and USB drives. You can dig into security history if the need arises, or have it generate a detailed protection report. Norton Ultra VPN skips on-demand scans and, as much as possible, pushes antivirus protection out of the limelight, but it offers the same protection.

Both apps include real-time protection against malware, but they approach it differently. With Norton 360, the tiny file access that occurs when Windows Explorer displays information about a file is enough to trigger an on-access scan. Norton Ultra VPN holds off on scanning until a program launches. Despite this difference in style, both scored the same in our malware protection test.

Norton Ultra VPN prevented almost every malware sample from launching, causing Windows to display an error message. In a few cases, it identified the sample as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program), but it sent most of the samples straight to quarantine. Its notification in almost every case demanded a system reboot for complete cleanup. By observation, the reboot was rarely necessary, but it couldn’t hurt.

Norton Ultra VPN detected 99% of the samples, including all the ransomware samples, and scored 9.8 of 10 possible points. also managed 99% detection and 9.8 points. and also detected 99% and managed to edge out Norton with 9.9 points.

Norton Ultra VPN Plus Shared Components

When possible, we supplement our hands-on testing with results reported by four antivirus testing labs from around the world. Norton Ultra VPN Plus relies on the same antivirus engine used in Norton 360 Deluxe. The official stance of the antivirus testing labs is that results apply only to the precise product tested, but we can presume the VPN would score the same.

It’s not too hard for an antivirus to get the attention of one testing lab, but very few appear in reports from all four of the labs we follow. Avast, , and Norton are the only ones in the four-score crowd at present. Our scoring algorithm takes stylistically varied scores from the labs and returns an aggregate score from 0 to 10. The algorithm yields 9.6 points for Avast, 9.3 for Microsoft, and 9.1 for Norton. Tested by three labs, , , and Bitdefender come in at 9.9, 9.8, and 9.7.

Both Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton Ultra VPN Plus come with protective browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Among other things, browser-level protection handles blocking access to malware-hosting websites, detecting and eliminating dangerous downloads, and steering the browser away from fraudulent (phishing) websites.

For a look at how well the security system handles the very latest malware, we start with a feed of malware-hosting URLs supplied by London-based lab . We launch each URL in turn and note whether the security app keeps the browser from visiting it, deletes the dangerous download, or sits by idly. Once we have 100 data points, we run the numbers. Norton managed 93% protection, with most detection at the download phase. That’s a good score, but , , , and all managed 100% protection in their own tests.

Rather than trying to get past security and plant malware on your system, phishing sites do their best to trick you, the user, into giving away your credentials. They mimic banks and other secure sites, hoping you’ll enter your username and password. When you do, the fraudsters own your account. Our phishing test uses hundreds of reported phishing sites, always the newest available.

Norton scored a solid 97% in this test, substantially better than the phishing protection built into Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Even so, a few others did better. Guardio, McAfee, and Trend Micro all reached 100% detection, as did the phishing-focused .

Speed Test Results

When benching VPNs, we compare speed test results from Ookla with the VPN active to results without the VPN active to find a percent change. For a deep dive look at how we benchmark VPNs in full, check out how we test VPNs. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company. For more, see the ethics policy in our Editorial Mission Statement.)

When we last tested Norton Ultra VPN in 2020 (then known as Norton Secure VPN), we found that it increased latency by an astonishing 643.8%, far above the median result. We also found that it reduced download speeds by a far more reasonable 70.9% and upload speeds by 63.4%.

Unfortunately, these results did not hold in our testing this year. In our first tests, we achieved our worst download and latency results yet, a 75% reduction and 2,650% increase, respectively. Oddly, our upload results were nearly as dismal, posting a respectable reduction of just 11.86% from our baseline result.

You can see the latest results in the table here:

Now, we should mention a caveat here. Because the Norton VPN app does not allow you to select servers based on your city in the United States, we weren't able to connect to a server in New York City directly. Instead, the auto-connect feature routed us to one of two locations: Northern Virginia or Boston.

To keep results impartial, we always use the first server that a VPN chooses to connect to via the auto-connect feature to test with. While some servers may be closer or faster, we rely on the VPN provider's own implementation of auto-connect to, in optimal scenarios, link our testing box in Manhattan with the most performant server available in the area.

We followed this regimen when testing Norton Ultra VPN, which at first connected us to the Northern Virginia server bank and produced the results recorded in the paragraph above. However, once we mentioned this issue to Norton, the company specifically spun up servers in Manhattan. The Manhattan servers performed much better across download speeds, achieving the number nine spot out of our top 10 results seen in our official speed test chart.

That said, the upload speeds oddly suffered more compared with our connection in Virginia. Plus, despite drastically reducing the distance between our testing box and the VPN server, the latency results only improved by a marginal amount—2,600% compared with 2,650%. This made everyday browsing and usage tasks a laggy mess while streaming quality was left uninterrupted.

When asked about the issue, Norton told us, "We are aware of and are actively working to quickly address the performance concerns flagged. We have accelerated plans for server upgrades in high-density locations. As well as support for additional cities and countries, including the ability for people to select VPN servers at the city level, is on our ongoing roadmap.”

Finally, we tend to warn against choosing a VPN solely on its speed test results, especially in cases like what we've seen here. The available features, overall value, and dedication to customer privacy should also be important considerations in your purchase.

Your Privacy With Norton Ultra VPN Plus

VPN companies outline what information they collect and why in their privacy policies. Norton has many services, but it does provide a privacy policy specific to its VPN product.

A Norton representative told us that the company does not collect any user-specific information from using the VPN. Perhaps more important, we were assured that the company does not make money from sources other than subscriptions. That's good, as other VPN companies sometimes have a habit of selling user data to recoup costs.

The physical location of a VPN company also matters in the context of user privacy. It determines what local laws and legislatures apply to (and regulates the VPN's policies around) what information needs to be kept about its customer base. Gen Digital, the parent company of Norton, is physically based in Tempe, Ariz. As of this writing, the United States doesn't have any laws that would require VPN companies to collect or maintain user information, which leaves Norton in the clear.

Most VPN companies commission third-party evaluations to ensure that their networks are free of vulnerabilities that can be exploited. In this vein, Norton only recently completed and passed its first third-party no-logs audit this year, performed by VerSprite.

Norton Ultra VPN Plus on Other Platforms

We tested the Norton Ultra VPN apps for iOS, Android, and macOS. On iOS, the app was clean, snappy, and responsive. Using the iOS app, we tested the Norton adblocker on PCMag.com, and it blocked all the ads on the page. Our VPN was also connected to a closer server in Denver this time since we normally remote into our desktop client in New York, which meant much faster downloads and snappier response times while browsing due to the lower latency of the page requests.

Notable features on iOS include Internet Security browser protection (anti-phishing, anti-tracking, and anti-malware), along with an easy window to access your personal information monitoring service. While again we found the layout somewhat minimal as we did on Windows, some prefer simplicity. Those of us who would like a bit more data to work with regarding things like connection type, amount of data used by our device while connected to the network, or at least more specificity on where our VPN is currently connecting from will be left wanting. None of these metrics was available on any of the alternative apps we tested.

Can You Watch Netflix With Norton Ultra VPN Plus?

One of the primary use cases of of VPNs globally is to enable unrestricted streaming rights. While Netflix may offer the ability to watch Brooklyn 99 in the UK due to licensing agreements there, you may find you're only able to stream that show via Peacock in the United States. We use Netflix as a baseline benchmark to test the robustness of a VPN's ability to stream globally, and if you'd like to know more about how we classify those results, check out how to unblock Netflix in your region.

Streaming services often block VPNs because they can be used to access region-locked streaming content. When we tested Norton Ultra VPN Plus, we found we were able to stream content from three of the five regions tested with an Open library, including the US, Australia, and Japan.

However, Canada and the UK, two of the biggest streaming markets globally, were Blocked. Not just Blocked, but completely unable to access the Netflix website, which is a rarity in testing these days. Mimic is purportedly favoring VPN traffic obfuscation over some of the benefits offered by WireGuard, but we found that promise didn't always deliver in each region tested.

Verdict: Personal Security and Privacy in One Imperfect Package

Until the past several years, it was exceedingly rare to see a VPN and a security suite together in the same software client. As mergers and acquisitions finally come for the VPN market, though, we expect this will become the trend among many of the largest providers in the industry. Norton has attempted to beat many companies to the punch in this regard, but in its haste, it has left a confusing value proposition on the table, both for VPN enthusiasts as well as current customers of the Norton 360 antivirus suite.

Its Mimic protocol is underbaked and lacks some of the basic unblocking capabilities of much older protocols. Its latency makes everyday use and browsing a struggle, and it's all in a subscription plan that you can't sign up for on a monthly basis. That said, its antivirus, firewall, parental controls, and password manager are all top-notch performers, as has come to be expected from the Norton brand in those specific arenas.

Editors' Choice winners like NordVPN and Proton VPN will better serve those looking for a more robust VPN offering, while anyone on the hunt for a more complete antivirus experience (with identical capabilities) can still find what they're looking for in Norton 360. With a few more months in the oven, Norton may have a formidable product package on its hands. But as of now, it's a mid-tier VPN offering with a top-tier security package tacked on top.