Parental control software for computers and phones uses a variety of methods to monitor children's online activities, track their location, and limit their screen time. Some of them install invisibly and snoop on your linked children, which is rather creepy. On the other hand, Norton Family (formerly known as Norton Family Premier) encourages parents to interact with their children and teach them about the regulations in place.

Norton Family Plan can manage an infinite number of devices and allows you to keep track on your children's activities via the web or the mobile app's parent option. The most recent upgrade removes social network platform oversight and adds geofencing capabilities. It's worth noting that the application can't monitor Macs or PCs running Windows 10 in S mode.

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Norton Family Plan Cost

The cost of parental control services varies greatly, but Norton Family plan is straightforward. A year's subscription to Norton Family costs $49.99 and includes features such as browser blocking, time-usage limitations, and location tracking. It saves 30 days of activity data and offers several added features, such as the ability to lock devices instantaneously. You can test the program for free for 30 days before going in for an annual subscription.

The amount of devices you may add to an account is unlimited, which is great for the always-connected generation. An account can have up to 15 child profiles, which is suitable for large families. Net Nanny (one-child license) can cost you $39.99 per year, whereas an annual subscription to that program for $89.99 buys you a 20-child Family Protection Pass. Qustodio costs $54.95 a year and can be used on up to five devices (phones, tablets, PCs, and Macs). The best offer is Kaspersky Safe Kids: It costs only $14.99 per year and can safeguard an infinite number of children and their devices.

What Operating Systems does Norton Family support?

Android and iOS. To enforce rules and monitor activities, on each monitored device, you install a local child app. Norton Family is capable of monitoring Windows (but not Windows 10 in S mode), Android, and iOS devices, but not Macs. Qustodio and Kaspersky Safe Kids, for example, can monitor both Macs and Windows devices. On the other hand, you may still use a Mac to set up rules/parameters, manage other child profiles including view your child's activity using the web portal.

We used a Windows 10 desktop computer to evaluate Norton Family's parental controls for Windows. The iOS capabilities of Norton Family were tested on an iPhone XS running iOS 14.6, and the Android capability was tested on a Samsung Galaxy A71 having Android 11 on it.

How to set up Norton Family?

You must create profiles for each child you intend to monitor when you first log in to the Norton Family dashboard. Enter a name for the child, select a restriction level (low, moderate, high, or extremely high), and either choose an avatar or submit a profile photo. After that, you choose whatever device you want to install Norton Family on and follow the steps for that platform.

It's simple to set up Norton Family on a Windows system account. The Norton Family Installer application is used to complete the setup process. In testing, the 64 MB file took roughly 20 seconds to install. After that, you either establish a profile for your child or you add the computer to their linked device list by selecting your child's profile. The installer will question which login belongs to your child if the computer has multiple accounts.

To prevent your child from uninstalling Norton Family, we recommend setting it up on a non-admin account. Of course, there are workarounds. Because Norton Family can't prevent desktop software, a savvy child may exploit virtualization apps like Oracle's VM VirtualBox. Non-admin users are unable to install any apps, but they would only require admin authority once to do so. In any case, setting up Norton Family is a pretty simple process that takes only a few minutes maximum. Once the installation is complete, the youngster will receive a notification tray icon telling them that they are being watched.

Norton Family has an iOS app for parents (Norton Family for Parents) as well as one for your child's device (Norton Family for Kids) (Norton Family). Screen Time, not Norton Family, handles the majority of the phone's app and content restriction. Instead of paying for the Norton Family service, you might use Apple's Screen Time features if your child uses an iPadOS, MacOS device or iOS.

The Norton Family app for Android has two modes: child and parent. Much of the functionality of the web console is available in the mobile app's Parent mode.

Web Interface

The user-friendly yet appealing online interface of Norton Family arranges functionality and options while leaving enough of white space. You may access subscription and account settings, your parent profile including a contextual Help button for Norton Family in the upper-right corner. Other family members can also be added to your account. Anyone you add will have full access to your account settings as well as all of your children's activities, so only invite someone you totally trust.

One annoyance with the UI is that the dashboard automatically locks you out after only a few minutes of keeping the system idle, and there's no option to change this. Automatic logouts are generally beneficial for security, but you should be able to customize them. For your account, you can enable multifactor authentication, which is a security feature we love to see. Security codes can be received by a mobile authenticator app, SMS, or a security key plugged into your device's USB port. We were able to effectively use Norton's multifactor authentication with Google Authenticator in our tests.

There is an Alerts tab on the main page, as well as one for each Child profile you create. The Alerts tab (which you may filter by child) displays a series of notifications relating to your child's behavior, such as if they attempted to access a prohibited website. You can adjust rules based on these warnings, for example, if your child attempts to access a restricted site and you wish to allow it, you can do so by clicking the item's choice menu (i.e vertical ellipsis at the far left).

You may see an overview of a child's behavior across each of the six supervision areas if you select a child and an associated device: Location, Web, Time, Search, and Mobile App, Video. You can enable or disable any of the monitoring categories (including broad supervision) from here, but you must click the View Details link within that category to change the rules (called House Rules). Activities and House Rules are the two tabs that separate the many categories. From the main page, you may add or change a child's profile, as well as add another device.

Web Filtering

The web content filter, which prevents youngsters from viewing problematic websites by accident (or on purpose), is a key feature of most parental control systems. The content filter in Norton Family allows for some adjustments, such as the ability to limit and allow specific websites. Kids can also request access to restricted websites, which the Editors' Choice winner Qustodio does not offer.

To get started, go to the main dashboard and select the Web area. To begin, select a restriction level based on the age range of the child. Norton Family's behavior and the categories available to your child when they try to access a site in that category are determined by these predefined configurations: Monitor (Low), Warn (Medium), and Block (High) (High). You can tweak any of the settings to suit your needs, or you can select to monitor, warn, or block specific websites. Monitor disables web blocking, Warn issues a warning but allows the child to view the page, and Block disables web blocking entirely.

Alcohol, Drugs, Cult, Mature Content, File Sharing, Online Chat, Pornography, Social Networking, Sex Education, and Web Proxies are among the 40+ content categories offered by Norton Family. You can see a child's most favorite categories as well as every website they visit from the Activities tab. Because the list can be lengthy, Norton Family allows you to limit the display to dubious activities or to filter it by category, device, or time period. When you click the Show More button next to an item in the list, you'll see additional information including a thumbnail of the website, categories associated to the site, and the number of views. You may also decide to dispute the categorization, as well as allow or prohibit the site or category, from the detailed display. It's a lot more than just a report.

On desktop browsers, you must enable a Norton Family extension. By default, the extensions are not enabled by default, however they can easily be disabled or uninstalled. If the extension is not available in the browser store, you must delete and reinstall the Norton Family software on the PC. Without the addons, the Norton Family desktop app still blocks forbidden websites, but video surveillance and search filtering are not available. Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all have browser extensions available. Although there are no browser plugins for Opera, the desktop client does block forbidden sites.

We used Google Chrome in Incognito Mode and found that blacklisted URLs were still blocked by the Norton Family desktop program. When browsing via InCognito was activated, we also got an alert. The Norton Family browsers, as well as Firefox and Tor, were successful in filtering blacklisted websites.

Activating Search Norton Family has been instructed by supervision to force Safe Search on Bing, Google and Yahoo. In the Search tab on the Activity page, you can see a list of what students are looking for. We tested this feature in Chrome and discovered that it performs as expected. For this to work, kids should have the Norton Family Extension installed on their PC browsers. The YouTube search limits imposed by Norton Family are only applicable to the Norton Family browser, which is available exclusively for mobile devices; they do not apply to the site's desktop versions. DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine, is unaffected by such restrictions.

Although Norton Family is compatible with a VPN, it does prevent access to VPN download sites. We tested how good web filtering was while connected to a server in the USA using Proton VPN, which was already installed on the desktop. All of the forbidden websites we attempted to visit were successfully blocked by Norton Family.

Time Supervision on Norton Family Plan

Norton Family assists parents in keeping track of when their children use their computers. Net Nanny restricts how much time a youngster can spend on the internet without restricting their hardware. Parents can use Qustodio to plan hardware and internet usage, as well as limit the amount of time spent on specific programs. Parents can opt to stop access when the timer runs out, alert the child when they've reached their limit, or completely disconnect the device from the internet using Kaspersky Safe Kids. Norton Family's time management app is available for Android, iOS, and Windows.

Time supervision, like content filtering, is set up automatically based on the child's age. The preset age categories have no bearing on how much time or hours a child can use their smartphone, but they do alter the hours during which it can be used. If you want to adjust the timetable or daily restriction, you can do so on an interactive timeline in half-hour increments. Many rival solutions employ a grid-style schedule, so with a single mouse drag, it is simple to block off a time range on every day of the week .

Once a youngster reaches their limit, they are unable to use any apps except the phone app (unless you block that specifically). If your child tries to launch an app, Norton Family will send them a message with the choice to unlock the device with a PIN or contact an emergency contact.

Norton Family tracks time on a device-by-device basis, whilst others track time across all devices. In some circumstances, we prefer the latter, so a child on an iPad who runs out of internet time won't be able to move to the PC and continue surfing. You can pick between an overall time limit and individual settings in Qustodio. We favor Qustodio's more adaptable approach.

Parents can check a chart and study how many hours a child utilized with how many they were given under the Activity tab of the Settings page. Each phone, tablet, and computer is tracked independently, and you may look back up to 30 days of activity.

Location Tracking on Norton Family Plan

In addition to keeping your children safe online, Norton Family can assist you in ensuring that they are in a secure location offline. Geofencing is now add to the latest version of Norton Family.

You may see a map with pins for recent destinations and a timeline that shows when each pin was dropped on the Activities tab in the Location section. The address of a pin can be found by clicking on it. When we went to a restaurant for supper, Norton Family successfully monitored our test device. The location history of a child can be filtered by date and time.

When your youngster strays too far outside of a defined limit with a radius of up to 10500 feet, you can receive a notification. The geofencing border of Locategy is just 150 feet long, but Boomerang allows you to set custom boundaries around an area. The Norton Family Android Child App also has a Check-In feature that allows kids to give their parents a location alert.

Apps and Messaging on Norton Family Plan

On PCs, Norton Family cannot block certain games or apps, but it can on Android and iOS devices. In the Child Profile area, Norton removed the Personal Information part. This feature prohibited youngsters from revealing personal data such as SSNs, phone numbers, email addresses, and other identifying information via chat and social media sites such as Facebook. Norton no longer keeps track of your Facebook activity. If you're concerned regarding your child's behavior on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok, you can use the apps' built-in parental controls.

Video Monitoring

Norton Family can keep track of what your child views on Hulu and YouTube websites, but not on their applications. In the Video section, you can see a complete list of all the videos your child has ever watched. Each item comprises the video's category, as well as the time and date of viewing. When you click on an item, you'll see the complete description, a link to watch the clip as well as a thumbnail image. In our testing, this feature worked perfectly, where our activity of watching a video on YouTube's mobile site was correctly recorded. Hulu watching activity is also recorded by the software. We wish this feature was available on other video streaming providers such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.

Norton Family Plan for iOS

The parent or supervisor must go to the Screen Time section of the iOS Settings menu and activate Content & Privacy Restrictions after downloading the iOS app and installing MDM profile and a VPN on the child's phone. The parent should then make a number of adjustments to the settings, including deactivating Safari and any other browsers which are installed, preventing app deletion, and enabling a 12+ age restriction to stop new browsers from being downloaded.

The parent or supervisor must go to the Screen Time section of the iOS Settings menu and enable Content & Privacy Restrictions after downloading the iOS app and installing a VPN and MDM profile on the child's phone. The parent must then make a number of adjustments to the settings, including deactivating Safari and any other installed browsers, preventing app deletion, and enabling a 12+ age restriction to stop new browsers from being downloaded.

The parent app's primary screen displays a list of your monitored children, as well as a School Time toggle and an Instant Lock toggle. When selected, the School Time option limits your child's access to websites in the educational, health, kids, searches, sports, technology, and webmail categories for a set amount of time each day. You can review the 33 default approved sites to see which ones are appropriate for your youngster and restrict access as needed. On the child's phone, changes made in the iOS Parent app took effect immediately.

Norton Browser is the default browser on the Child device. It successfully blocked pornographic websites throughout testing. The three hash marks in the upper right corner of the browser screen offer a menu where your child can check in, request a screen time extension, examine the House Rules, and see Bookmarks, History, and Settings. The House Rules inform the youngster that certain websites are restricted, that their searches, videos watched, and location are tracked, and that there are time limits on the gadget.

Installed apps like Google Chrome and YouTube were completely unreachable on the Child device while testing. Other apps, such as the Instagram and PBS Video apps, prompted Norton Family's Website Blocked notifications, but they were still usable. It was also possible to download new apps. We downloaded Snapchat and logged on, but all we got was a Website Blocked message. Instead of preventing a child from accessing forbidden apps, the notice will annoy them. In testing, background apps such as Gmail also produced a Website Blocked message.

On the Child iOS device, the Device Lock function disables all apps and activities except calling, messaging, photos, and notes. Accessing forbidden apps did not trigger any notifications when the device was opened, which is problematic, but certain programs, such as web browsers, remained blocked. Keep in mind that the Device Lock option also rearranges the app order on the child's device.

You can keep track of where your child's device is by using the location tracking option. The Parent app's location component is a wrapper for the Norton Family website rather than being part of the app itself. You can immediately identify the gadget on a map, but unlike the web version, you can't create alerts to notify you if and when your child leaves a specific region. The iOS Parent app does not support geofencing.

Norton Family is a victim of Apple's reforms, which have made it difficult for third-party parental control apps to remain relevant on Apple's platforms. For parents with children who use iOS, iPadOS, or MacOS devices, Screen Time offers a free and well-functioning option.

Norton Family Plan for Android

The software displays tabs for Alerts, Activity, and Rules at the top, with specific settings organized under each section, once you select a monitored child on your Android. Whether you configure the rules and activity tracking on the desktop or in Android's parent mode, everything works fine. App blocking is a Norton Family function that is only available on Android.

The Norton Family app simply launches the Norton Family Browser in Child Mode. It also has a left-hand menu where the child can access the House Rules. While the device is in Child mode, your child can download and use new apps, but the adult will receive an alert on their device. One option to restrict the child from downloading new apps is to ban Google Play itself.

If a device is set up in Child mode, parents can sign in and make adjustments from this menu as well. Before handing it back to your child, make sure you turn it back to Child Mode!

Norton Family Plan - PROS

• Affordable
• Exceptional web dashboard
• There is no limit to the number of devices that can be monitored.
• Simple configurations and setups
• Geofencing tools that are second to none

Norton Family Plan - CONS

• It is not compatible with Macs. It's simple to turn off browser addons.
• On PCs, you can't restrict certain apps or games.
• Monitoring alarms are disabled when an iOS device is unlocked.
• There will be no social media monitoring.

Final Verdict

Norton provides excellent antivirus protection, which is why they are one of the most well-known companies. While their entry towards parental control makes sense, it feels like they're only putting their toes in the water. They understand what parents want, but they're too focused on safeguarding equipment to provide the level of safety that parents require. Norton may be a better product with a few adjustments, such as allowing it to run in stealth mode (after all, kids know how to bypass the Norton Family from their smartphone).

Recommended reading:
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Does Norton Family Monitor Text Messages? 
How Does Norton Family Work?