I installed Norton Family to protect myself only. But Norton Family is falsely claiming to non-monitored users of this shared PC that they are also being monitored.

Norton Family | Parental Control
1

Dear sir/madam:

I'm running Norton Family 3.2.1.34 on a shared computer running the home version of Windows 8.1.  I want to prevent myself from viewing pornography.

There are two accounts on the PC:  the shared account, and my private account.  Each one is an Administrator account.

When another Windows user — a non-monitored user — logs into the PC, Norton Family tells them an untruth.  It claims to them that their activity is being monitored.  In fact, Norton Family is configured not to monitor their Windows user account, and their activity is actually not being monitored.

This is a potential source of great embarrassment to me.  My teenage years are already past.  I'm expected to have developed a good sense of self-control by now.  I definitely do not want my parents or family members to know that I've installed a pornography filter to protect myself.

Here is a set of steps you can take in order to see the problem for yourself.

  1. Create two Windows user accounts on one PC.
  2. Install Norton Family.
  3. Use Norton Family to set one of the Windows user accounts to be monitored.  Leave the other account as not monitored.
  4. Use the Windows "switch user" feature to switch from the non-monitored account to the monitored account.  (You need not log out beforehand; you can use "fast user switching" to save time.)
  5. Use the Windows "switch user" feature to switch back from the monitored account to the non-monitored account.  (You need not log out beforehand; you can use "fast user switching" to save time.)
  6. Norton Family will pop up a notice in the bottom-right corner of the screen saying:  "Norton Family is running on this computer and is currently supervising activity associated with this Windows account."
    • In fact, this notice is untruthful.  Norton Family is actually not supervising any of the non-monitored account's activity.  If you want proof, simply hover your mouse pointer over the Norton Family icon in the notification area ("system tray").  You will see a tooltip which shows you the truth:  "Norton Family:  This account is not monitored."

Note that, in order to experience the problem, you must do a true user switch.  You must switch from Account 1 to Account 2 or vice versa.  If you switch from Account 1 to the Welcome screen and then right back to Account 1, that is not a true user switch, and you will not experience the problem.

I don't mind the fact that Norton Family shows its icon to non-monitored users in their notification area ("system tray").  But I do mind the false pop-up claim.

I wonder if you could please fix this issue in the Norton Family source code, in order so that a fix will reach users when the next version of Norton Family will be released?

P.S.  Thank you for maintaining Norton Family and for making a free version available to the public.