Why You Don't Need Norton's Wi-Fi Privacy App

Public Wi-Fi is scary, asserts Symantec, a Mount View, California-based security house that sells a whole host of consumer products. The Norton Wi-Fi Privacy app (iOS), which costs $30 per twelvemonth, though, could make it less threatening, promising "bank-course encryption" by routing your information through a remote individual network. The program works exactly equally advertised, but information technology doesn't do anything you lot couldn't do almost every bit easily for free.

First off, Symantec claims that "while public Wi-Fi is convenient, it's never safe." It's actually rather hard to notice stats on how often users become attacked through public Wi-Fi networks. While it'southward obviously not "never," it doesn't appear to be happening at epidemic levels, either. It would exist much more than authentic to say that "while public Wi-Fi is user-friendly, and information technology likewise carries a risk." Now, the question becomes whether you really need to dish out $30 per year to protect yourself from it.

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Given the relatively express scope of what Norton Wi-Fi Privacy does, my answer is an emphatic shrug of the shoulders. Outset and foremost, the program routes all of your online traffic through a proxy server. Norton claims that this server uses very sophisticated encryption, and while it almost certainly does, you lot accept to accept the visitor at its word on that.

The company also claims that it doesn't rack or store your data, but Symantec would hardly be the first company to stretch the truth on that count, just to reveal it an embarrassing data alienation after. For the record, I believe that Symantec is every bit good equally its word, but I can't prove that, and neither tin can the average consumer.

Furthermore, the programme doesn't really have a good understanding of what counts as a "secure" Wi-Fi network. I tried information technology with both my role's (theoretically) airtight Wi-Fi network likewise every bit a public network outside the Flatiron Edifice, and Norton insisted that neither network was secure. While information technology doesn't injure to route traffic through a VPN, even on an already-secure network, it does provide an extra step that could slow down browsing.

The program does take two useful features: VPN locations and ad-tracker blocking. The first, yet, doesn't work that well. In theory, information technology lets you connect to a network in one of 13 countries, making your phone appear to exist in Deutschland, or the United Kingdom, or Spain, for example. This feature worked near half the fourth dimension, in my experience, and non reliably enough to access video content from other countries. If you lot desire to watch Physician Who on the BBC website, you're better off just using a defended VPN program like Hola — which is free, by the way.

Ad-tracker blocking is really extremely helpful, and works exactly every bit Norton promises. On the other hand, you lot could download a privacy-centric mobile browser like Ghostery or DuckDuckGo and get even more than nuanced privacy options without having to cough up a yearly subscription fee.

At that place's nothing really incorrect with Norton Wi-Fi Privacy, even though it'southward request a lot of coin for relatively trivial functionality. Still, given its limited options, uncertain claims and better gratis alternatives, there are probably meliorate ways of protecting your info on public Wi-Fi networks.

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Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site'south coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and engineering. After hours, you can observe him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.