Norton Family Free Review

A product by Symantec Corporation

Overview

Norton Family is a software made for parents and their children. The program can be used by parents to monitor and control how their kids are using the internet, which websites they can access or not and schedule their time in from of computer.

As parent, you will have an online account and there you add different profiles for each child. The application can be installed on multiple devices and operating systems, but you will manage it from a single control panel (the online account). However, once you change the blocking rules on your online account, you need to manually access and synchronize the Norton Family application from devices where is installed.

The program is free, but they also have a Premiere (paid) version with additional features such as geolocation and text messages supervision (for mobile devices).

Blocking & Filtering
5.71/10

There are almost 45 built-in categories (hacking, crime, porn, gambling ..) and you can allow or block the access to each one with a single click. For search engines, you can set the application to automatically turn on the safe search module.

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Tracking
4/10

It will display a list with all visited websites, how many times was visited and a small screenshot of that website. Then, you can choose to block that site or to block the entire category. It is able to track and report search queries used in search engines and the exact time for each search.

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Management & Control
7.50/10

The access to interface is allowed only with your email address and password, so the child cannot disable the program..

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Reporting
4.83/10

In your online account you can view a top of most visited websites and most used search queries. For each category of reports, it displays detailed information and you can quickly take action (block, allow).

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Scheduling
10/10

From the House Rules menu, you can enable time limits and set custom hours per each day when your child can use the internet. You can track the total time of computer usage and set time limits (in hours). After a time limit has been reached, the application can automatically lock the computer.

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Cons

  • it needs add-ons for each browser (are included in the installation package)

Conclusion
7.01/10

A well organized and an intuitive interface to monitor your children, no matter what type of device they use.

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