Norton VPN Not Honoring App Exclusion List

This was working fine till sometime over yhe last few weeks. I have Chrome added as an exclusion, yet its no longer excluded.

I tried repairing, reinstalling and restarting windows to no avail. It’s an important feature to me that some apps can bypass the VPN.

I’m using prog ver: 24.7.9311.860
Ui ver: 1.09

OS details: Windows 11 Pro, 23H2

Are you using the standalone Norton Secure VPN or the VPN feature of Norton 360?

It’s Norton Secure VPN

Do you also have Norton 360 installed? Having both might cause strange behaviour like you are seeing. If you do, it is suggested to uninstall the standalone VPN and use the VPN feature in 360.
Another suggestion would be to ensure you have the same settings set up for the VPN feature in 360 as you do in the standalone VPN app. Then test again to see if you still see the issue.

I don’t use Norton 360, it’s a standalone Norton Secure VPN. I’ve tried blocking Chrome and Firefox it does not honor the exclusion list.

You say you have version 24.x.x. of the secure VPN. Had you set up the Split Tunnel feature on the previous VPN version? If so, try deleting the apps from the Split Tunnel feature. Restart your computer and then add the apps back to the Split Tunnel and test.

I tried what you suggested, it did not work. I’d like to rollback to the previous version but I can’t find any download links and it’s not possible (with chrome/edge/firefox) to initiate their “live chat” click submit and it does nothing. Peter can you confirm that app exclusion works/doesn’t work for you on the latest version?

Once a new version is pushed out, you can no longer revert to an older version.

I am not able to download ver 24 yet. So I cannot confirm your findings. So if no one else with ver 24 can chime in, I would suggest contacting Norton Support to see if they can confirm what you are seeing. Contact Norton™Support - Norton Phone Number, and Chat Support . If using chat, as soon as you can enter information enter “agent please”. That will get you connected to a real human.

I finally managed to contact a person via chat, he remoted in - it was not pretty. 30+ min of doing nothing then randomly restarted my machine without warning and tanked the connection.
I’d like to know if it’s broken for everyone or is it specific to my env. I have uninstalled/reinstalled to no avail.

Note: Android version 4.1.240716079 works on my Android 14 phone

I tried removing all traces of the program via RevoUninstaller, it looked fresh and all settings were default but it still does not work. Looks like this version on Windows is broken and does not honor App Exclusions.

Program Details:
Name: Norton Secure VPN
Operation: Uninstall
Size: 748 MB
Version: 24.8.9372.888
Publisher: Gen Digital Inc.
Date: 8/24/2024 8:06:09 AM
Install Location: C:\Program Files\Norton\Suite
Uninstall String: “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Norton\Icarus\norton-suite\icarus.exe” /manual_update /uninstall:norton-suite /package:-suite

Operation Summary:
Successfully deleted Files: 2
Successfully deleted Folders: 3
Set for deletion on reboot: 5
Successfully deleted Registry values: 4

File and Folder operations:
Successfully deleted Files
C:\ProgramData\Norton\Persistent Data\Suite\Logs\AvEmUpdate.log
C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\SPRINGTOOLSUITE4.EXE-6A72490F.pf
Successfully deleted Folders
C:\ProgramData\Norton\Persistent Data\Suite
C:\ProgramData\Norton\Persistent Data\Suite\Logs
C:\ProgramData\Norton\Persistent Data
Set for deletion on reboot
c:\program files\norton\suite
c:\program files\norton\suite\ashShell.dll.to_delete
c:\program files\norton\suite\aswAMSI.dll.to_delete
c:\program files\norton\suite\x86
c:\program files\norton\suite\x86\aswAMSI.dll.to_delete

Registry operations:
Successfully deleted Registry values
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Compatibility Assistant\Store: C:\Program Files\Norton\Suite\Vpn.exe
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Compatibility Assistant\Store: C:\Program Files\Norton\Suite\NortonUI.exe
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache: C:\Program Files\Norton\Suite\Vpn.exe.FriendlyAppName
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache: C:\Program Files\Norton\Suite\Vpn.exe.ApplicationCompany

I have escalated this thread so it is sent to the VPN team.

Totally different code bases due to the device OS’s.

Yea, not surprised. Sometimes there’s reuse but probably not here, thanks for the escalation! This feature is important to me or I wouldn’t persist, I was about ready to jump tbh.

If you want to float some improvement ideas in the future, it would be great if you could whitelist only those that need to be protected in addition to blacklisting those who should be unprotected. Really, I don’t want VPN on anything except one particular browser that I use for browsing the internet. I don’t want the VPN on all other connections but I appreciate the secure scope of doing things that way.

You can always post your suggestions in the Product Suggestions forum board here. Product Suggestions - Norton

Update 08/31/2024: Confirmed Exclude Apps is still not working ;-(

  • Version: 24.8.9372.864
  • UI Version: 1.0.12

Still not fixed. Requesting a refund

Norton Community does not have access to your Norton account, subscription nor payment profile.

Are you within 60 days of purchase date?
Have you cancelled Norton recurring subscription service?
Have you removed your payment profile?

Norton Community urges users that do not want automatic renewal to cancel recurring subscription service and also remove their payment profile.

I just got off the phone with customer service, they said that I was not within the 60 day window. So they refuse to refund any amount although I have over 8+ months left.

It’s ridiculous, Norton pushed out a Secure VPN update that broke the main functionality that I need. Without app-exclusion, I waste 5+ minutes out of my life daily. They refused to allow me to roll back to the old version, then convinced me to hang on because they made the developers aware of the problem as if they were going to fix it yet never did.

I’m not asking for a full refund, I want what I haven’t used refunded. It should be illegal to do what they are doing. Norton is an inept and dishonest company in my opinion. Horrible product and horrible customer service. I will never buy another Norton product or intentionally deal with Norton again.

Hello @Adam_Danischewski
We’ll try to call attention: No promises. No timeline.