Norton Family review: balancing safety with digital freedom for kids

Your family’s online security is of prime concern in the digital age. Threats like hackers, identity theft, cyberbullying, and pornography are ever-present on social media apps and other websites used by kids and teens. These threats necessitate parental control apps that help you monitor your child’s online activity so that you can place reasonable restrictions and notice any danger signs before something terrible happens.

Norton Family is a complete parental control solution that offers a range of attractive features in one affordable package. I tested it with my colleagues in the Cybernews research team to see if it was worth buying. We provide all the details to help you decide if it’s the right choice. Check out our full Norton Family review below.

Quick overview of Norton Family parental control

Norton Family is a comprehensive parental control app designed to help parents monitor and manage their children's online activities. You can install it on unlimited devices, which makes it great for the whole family. Features include web filtering, screen time management, location tracking, and more.

🌐 Web & app filtering	Yes
🕓 Screen time limits	Yes
📍 Location tracking	Yes
🖥️ Supported platforms	Windows, Android, and iOS
📲 Number of devices	Unlimited
✂️ Free plan	None
⌛ Trial period	7-day free trial
💵 Price	$49.99/year

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What is Norton Family parental control?

Norton is a well-established information security brand known for its expertise in protecting users from digital threats. One of its standout products is Norton Family, a trusted parental control solution. It was initially offered as a freemium service, but Norton Family transitioned to a paid model in 2018, significantly enhancing its features and performance.

This shift allowed Norton to improve its robust set of monitoring tools, including web filtering, screen time management, and location tracking. These tools are available across Windows, Android, and iOS. However, they do not work on macOS.

You can bundle Norton Family with other Norton services, such as its antivirus. This makes it a cost-effective, all-in-one solution for protecting your family and their devices.

Expert comment about Norton Family parental control

Norton Family is a comprehensive parental control solution designed to ensure online child safety through its robust features. Its key functionalities include web and app filtering to block inappropriate content, setting time limits to manage screen time, and location tracking to monitor your child’s whereabouts.

Norton Family also provides detailed activity reports, allowing parents to stay informed about their children's online behavior. I especially appreciate the standout features of School Time, which helps manage online learning schedules, and Video Supervision, which tracks the YouTube videos your child watches.

Norton Family offers flexibility for families with multiple children or gadgets with a user-friendly interface and the ability to connect unlimited devices. However, the app does have some limitations. First, if your kids are tech-savvy, they may bypass some of Norton’s restrictions using alternative browsers or VPNs that the app cannot monitor.

Moreover, Norton is incompatible with macOS, and some features, such as app supervision, do not work on iPhones. Additionally, some users have reported subpar customer support experiences.

Norton Family is available as a standalone product or bundled with Norton 360 for a more cost-effective, all-in-one security solution. The pricing is competitive, and Norton offers a 7-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee, which allows you to try the service risk-free.

Despite a few limitations, Norton Family ranks 2nd out of 26 parental control apps we tested, making it a trustworthy choice for parents seeking to protect their children online while managing their digital activity responsibly.

Key features of Norton Family parental control

Norton Family offers comprehensive features to give you complete control over and insights into your children’s online activities and tech usage. Here’s a detailed overview.

Time Supervision

This feature allows you to manage and control your children's time online. You can set specific time limits for each day, helping to create a healthy balance between screen time and other activities. The feature lets you schedule when your child can access their devices, making it easy to block usage during school hours, homework time, or bedtime.

You can monitor how much time your kids spend on their devices and adjust the necessary limits to encourage responsible digital habits. This feature ensures that kids aren't spending excessive time online, promoting a healthier and more structured daily routine.

School Time

The School Time feature helps parents manage their children's online activities during remote learning or homework sessions. It allows parents to restrict access to distracting websites and apps while ensuring that educational sites and resources remain accessible.

This feature helps create a focused online environment, preventing kids from veering off to non-educational content during school hours. You can customize the settings based on your child’s learning schedule, making it easier to maintain productivity and minimize distractions.

Web Supervision

This feature allows you to monitor and manage the websites your kids visit, preventing them from being exposed to harmful or inappropriate content. It provides real-time insights into browsing activity and allows you to block or allow specific websites or categories based on age-appropriate filters.

You can also review a detailed history of the sites your child has accessed. This history keeps you informed and helps to enforce safer internet practices. It promotes a secure online experience by effectively filtering and supervising web content.

App Supervision

This feature enables you to monitor and control your kids' apps on their Android devices. It provides a list of installed apps and allows parents to block access to specific ones that may be inappropriate or distracting.

Parents can ensure that their children are engaging with safe and suitable apps for their age by reviewing app usage and setting restrictions. However, note that this feature is not available for iOS devices.

Search Supervision

As the name suggests, this feature allows you to monitor your children's search queries on popular search engines.

It provides insight into the topics and keywords kids look up, helping parents prevent exposure to inappropriate or harmful content.

This feature also encourages safer search habits by alerting parents to any concerning queries while offering tools to guide their children's internet behavior in a safer direction. It gives parents greater control over their children's online experiences by tracking search activity and promoting responsible internet use.

Video Supervision

I especially love this feature because video consumption can be hard to monitor. With video supervision, you can monitor the YouTube videos your kids watch. It provides detailed insights into the titles and content of videos viewed on the YouTube website and mobile app, helping parents ensure their kids consume appropriate material.

This feature doesn't block videos but gives parents visibility into their children's viewing habits, offering a way to guide them toward safer and more educational content. It’s a valuable tool for tracking video consumption and promoting responsible media use.

Location Supervision

There’s nothing quite as daunting as not knowing where your child is. With Norton Family's Location Supervision, you can rest assured that you know your children are safe by tracking their real-time GPS location on their devices.

Parents can also set up geofencing alerts, which notify them when their child enters or leaves predefined areas, such as home, school, or friends' houses. This capability fosters a sense of security for parents and children, promoting responsible movement while keeping families connected.

Additional Features

In addition to its core features, Norton Family offers several other valuable functionalities. One notable feature is Email Supervision, which allows parents to monitor their children's email communications, helping to track potentially harmful or inappropriate interactions.

Furthermore, activity reports are useful for obtaining detailed summaries of children's online behavior, including browsing history, app usage, and time spent on various activities. This feature helps parents identify trends and address any concerns promptly.

Norton Family also includes support for unlimited devices, which makes it beneficial for large families using multiple devices. The app’s dashboard offers a user-friendly interface for parents to access and manage all monitoring features in one place, making it easy to stay informed about all children's online activities to ensure a safer digital environment.

Norton Family plans & pricing

Norton Family offers affordable plans to keep your children safe online while securing all your devices. With unlimited device connections, it’s perfect for large families. The standalone plan costs $49.99 per year, which works out to just $4.16 per month. So, it’s an affordable way to have comprehensive parental controls, including web and app filtering, time limits, location tracking, and activity reports.

Norton Family can also be bundled with Norton 360 Deluxe or Premium for even greater value. This all-in-one solution safeguards your children’s online activity and your family’s overall digital safety. It also offers additional security features like malware protection, a VPN, dark web monitoring, and password management.

With flexible payment options and a 60-day money-back guarantee, Norton Family is an excellent choice if you want peace of mind about your family’s online safety.

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Norton Family app user experience and setup process

Installation & Setup

1. To begin, go to the Norton Family website and click the “Buy Now” button.
2. Enter your email address to create your Norton account. Then, complete your payment or enter your payment details to start your free trial.
3. Once you’ve finished setting up your Norton account, go to the Parental Controls tile and click Set up Family.
4. Read the Terms of Service and other policies, and then click Agree & Continue to set up your family.
5. In the Child Name box, type your child's name.
6. Select the appropriate restriction level based on your child's age.
7. Click Next.
8. You can now add more children to your account.

After this, you can use the link to the Norton Family download and set it up on your child’s device. Complete instructions on how to set it up on Windows, Android, and iOS are available on the Norton Family website.

You can also set it up on your phone to receive instant alerts about your children’s online activities.

Ease of use

Norton Family is quite user-friendly and intuitive. Its interface is good, and its design is consistent across desktop, iOS, and Android apps, as explained below.

Desktop

The desktop app has a well-organized dashboard that makes managing multiple devices and monitoring children's activities straightforward. The interface is easy to navigate, with easily accessible tabs for features like web filtering, screen time management, and activity reports.

You can quickly set up and adjust rules, view browsing history, and receive alerts about potential risks. I appreciate the comprehensive reports in an easy-to-read format. While generally intuitive, some advanced features may require a bit of learning for less tech-savvy users, though the provided tutorials help guide them through the process.

Mobile and tablets

Norton Family’s mobile apps make it simple for parents to navigate features like web filtering, time limits, and location tracking. The mobile app layout is clean, with clear icons and well-organized menus, making it easy to monitor and adjust settings or device permissions on the go.

Additionally, notifications and reports are easy to access from any device. However, some advanced features may take some time to configure, especially for first-time users unfamiliar with parental control apps.

Customer support

Norton Family offers 24/7 customer support through live chat, phone, social media, and an active forum, ensuring parents can seek help anytime. Further, its online support library is comprehensive, featuring setup tutorials, troubleshooting guides, and video resources to assist users in resolving issues independently.

However, I noticed some areas that need improvement. While the support channels are accessible, in my experience, the representatives provided generic responses that lacked the in-depth knowledge necessary to resolve complex problems. The live chat process can be time-consuming, while phone support quality could be more consistent. Despite these challenges, the forum is efficient, often providing helpful advice and swift solutions from knowledgeable users.

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Norton Family vs Competitors

Here’s a quick comparison of Norton with some of the best parental control apps in the industry.

Aura

Like Norton, Aura offers internet safety solutions for individuals, couples, families, and kids. Its Parental Control features include content filtering and screen time limits on unlimited devices. It focuses on gaming safety with in-game voice and text monitoring and weekly gaming activity reports. However, it's more expensive than Norton Family and lacks advanced features like geo-fencing or location tracking.

You might want to choose Aura over Norton Family if you primarily need web filtering and game monitoring without additional location tracking or time management features.

Bark

Bark takes a different approach than Norton Family, focusing on kids’ mental health and safety. It utilizes advanced algorithms to monitor children’s online activities across various platforms, including social media, text messages, and email. Its primary aim is to detect signs of potential issues such as bullying, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.

Bark alerts parents when it identifies concerning behavior, allowing them to intervene promptly and support their children. This proactive approach emphasizes mental well-being, offering resources and guidance for families facing these challenges. While Norton Family provides comprehensive web filtering and monitoring features, Bark's emphasis on emotional safety and mental health through its machine learning early detection sets it apart, catering to parents seeking a solution that addresses online safety and their children's psychological needs.

Qustodio

Qustodio is a budget-friendly parental control software with a free version that offers basic web filtering, app monitoring, and screen time management features. This free version allows parents to access fundamental protections without cost. For families seeking more advanced functionalities, such as location tracking, detailed activity reports, and social media monitoring, Qustodio provides the option to upgrade to a premium plan.

This flexibility makes Qustodio an attractive choice for parents who want to explore parental control solutions without a significant up-front financial commitment. You can start with the free version to assess its effectiveness and decide later whether to invest in additional features. In contrast to Norton Family, which has a more comprehensive offering for a fixed price, Qustodio allows users to customize their experience based on their needs and budget.

Conclusion

Overall, I found Norton Family quite a powerful parental control app that offers comprehensive features like web filtering, time management, and location tracking across multiple devices.

I think its user-friendly design, unlimited device coverage, and affordable pricing make it an excellent choice for large families looking to safeguard their children's online activities.

However, limitations such as its lack of compatibility with macOS and inconsistent customer support may be drawbacks for some users. Overall, Norton Family provides solid value and effective tools for parents committed to protecting their kids in the digital world.

Pros of using Norton Family

• Suitable for large families with unlimited device usage
• Comprehensive parental control features, including web and app filtering, time limits, and location tracking
• Comprehensive security features like School Time, Search Supervision, Video Supervision, and more
• Strong integration with other Norton products, including antivirus and VPN
• Generous 60-day money-back guarantee

Cons of using Norton Family

• Limited social media monitoring capabilities
• Lack of compatibility with macOS and Chromebook devices
• Tech-savvy kids can partially bypass controls with VPNs
• Lack of app supervision on iOS devices, requiring manual restrictions.

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