I have a PAID Norton Family Premier subscription that continues to be riddled with bugs and does not function as advertised.
It has never worked reliably since we installed it. Support on the product is a joke.
Here are some of the highlights of my experience with Norton Family:
On one childs' laptop, the Norton Family app is easily disabled even though the child is not a local admin nor does she know the Norton Family password. Notification that the app was disabled did not work, even though the setting was enabled.
Another child's Windows 7 computer continues to allow her to exceed the preset time limits on use even though Norton Family is showing as running and active in the task bar. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program numerous times as well as clicked on "update house rules" many times without effect. Time monitoring on the web-based control panel shows "0" ZERO hours of use on the computer for the last month. FAIL
Another child's iphone 5 device is not working correctly as well despite many frustrating "support" calls to Norton. I spent 20 minutes arguing with one "support" technician about the need to disable or uninstall other browsers such as Safari or Google Chrome so that Internet activity would be monitored and filtered properly. I was told I didn't need to do that. When I pointed out that the installation instructions clearly stated that ALL other browsers must be disabled, the technician didn't know what to do. FAIL
Messaging monitoring and Social Media monitoring has NEVER worked on the iphone despite installing and re-installing and updating the application on the iphone numerous times. FAIL
Calling technical support for this product is a joke as every "technician" claims they know about the software when asked,, but when I ask a specific question I am told to "hold on for 2 minutes while I look into your request" (Translation: "I don't know what I'm doing but I will Google my knowledgebase and see if I can find something for you to try.") FAIL AGAIN!
The best experience so far has to be the "second level" technician that called me back finally after a week to try to resolve the messaging monitoring issue on the iphone. He asked me to "check the Norton App on the iphone to see if there are any options in the software to turn on or off the messaging monitoring feature." Ummm... Shouldn't a 2nd level support technician KNOW the features of their own software instead of making me, the paid user, randomly search for buttons in the software??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? TOTAL FAIL.
Let's not forget the random times when the Norton site goes down and is inaccessible to login. Which is fine, I can wait to check the console, but it also prevents the Norton app from being turned off, or time extended, (when those features actually did work) since it can't authenticate to the Norton Family host. One time my account had to be magically "re-activated" by a support person for login to work again... WHAT???? FAIL.
The concept of this multi-platform monitoring and web protection software is great. However, the implementation of this by Norton is fundamentally flawed and does not work across any of the allegedly-supported platforms.
Don't waste your time installing this bug-riddled software. Use Kidtrol instead, it actually works.
I want a FULL REFUND.