One of the reasons I stuck with Norton for another year, was the promise of the family protection, however there appear to be a number of flaws that render it somewhat redundant.
I have been testing if for a few days across 3 family members on 4 devices.
Doesn't warn when apps are installed
Does want about apps that have not been installed
incomprehensible UI for setting up access (eg I want to block porn, but allow other categories for a 15yo, however it's too hard to be worth it, I could just with them watching them all day...)
the browser extensions keep disabling themselves
cannot rename devices, so have Lenov-CHILD1, and Lenov-CHILD1 for two different lenovo devices.
no way to remove sites from the log
I'm gonna give it a few more days, however after that it has to be working or a refund really, as the time I have to invest vs the results are simply not a good ROI.
User has privileges on the extensions on their computer and cannot be controlled entirely. Norton Family sends out an alert & email when the extension is disabled. However, In the event of the extension is removed or disabled by the child, Norton Family provides second layer of protection to safeguard the child as per the Web Supervision house rules configured. When the second layer of protection is enforced,
children would see browser specific Internet access block message instead of Norton Family block page.
As informed earlier, we will review your query related to 'Monitor' level and take necessary action.
I totally agree about creating meaningful conversations between children and parents around proper online activities. However, the transparency of "this extension is installed" still exists, and the child may choose to disable it, or open incognito window... However, you may find that after the conversation, a warning can drive the child to "use my friends computer", and leave you unaware of activity. Also, why do you actually have a feature that says "these categories are not allowed and we're monitoring only" and then show those categories as allowed. It's one thing to have an objective, and another to have software not do what it says on the tin.
This plus not actually working are still concerns for me about the efficacy of this software for this purpose.
There is no such feature. One of the primary goals of Norton Family is to create meaningful conversations between children and parents around proper online activities. It's the same reason the child is notified when they login that they are being monitored vs. hidden in the background. Transparency between the product and participants.
If you switch to warn mode, the child will see what "may be blocked" but continue forward, however in that same warn screen they can give a reason they believe the site they are trying to visit it what they intended as well as they are told parents will be notified. Again for transparency.
Those large setups based on child age are supposed to help make it easier, in this case the "low" incorrectly set it to "monitor level" which only records all URLs visited. This should have automatically set it to warn level.
There would be no questionable activities because in monitor there is no blocking at all.
The purpose of the warn level is for the parent to see information from the child of why they may visit a "restricted category", the parent then can easily based on the alert add that URL to the white list.
So just to be clear, I think it's fine for 'Low' to mean monitor, but it should not then list it in the web activity as an allowed category, and it should alert me. What this means, is that a Low setting user can browse freely, but if they touch a "dodgy" category, it's logged and notifies the parent. When reviewing the activity, I could click the box "show questionable activities only" and it will then show these categories, NOT mark them as allowed when they are not.
In terms of my other queries, here's the current summary:
#1 no warning when apps installed: I will wait to see if it happens again, until then no action
#2 warns about apps not installed: you are investigating the "installed windows" and "installed printer" messages that were false positives.
#3 general feedback about how hard setting this up is, please suggest to product team that they do some proper UX research.
Thanks for the details. There seems to be a settings issue. When we set it to 'Low' category the level is set as 'Monitor' - which will allow all websites. We will review this to correct.
For now, you can choose 'Warn' Mode. Your child will be warned when they violate allowed category, but they can continue visiting the website if they want to. You will also be notified.
Please let us know if you need any further assistance.
You don’t have to be signed-in to for Norton Family to function properly on your child device.
Moreover, based on your house rules we noticed that the web supervisor is set to Monitor mode. This is set by default based on your child’s age category.
You can change this under Web Supervision settings to Block mode.
Please try this and let us know if you see any other issues.
Yes, for all windows devices (2 shared computers), there are separate windows logins.
I have been logging in as the child and visiting known inappropriate sites to test the features work.
You can see below that there were visits to a site marked as porn, yet it clearly states "allowed category list".
However when I look at the house rules, Porn is not allowed.
Regarding the Norton accounts, when I first install Norton, it shows a few options, and then says "sign in to access all features".
I then have to sign in with my Norton account, in order to have family available on child login. They can then access all the settings for Norton, as an "admin" of the Norton account in effect, which I don't think seems right.
I see you are running a windows machine, do you have separate logins for yourself and your child? If you are logged in as yourself, you will not be tracked and the category blocking (for pornography) will not work. You have to login as the child. When you do it will block the categories you have set.
You stated you have to be logged into Norton 360? I don't believe that to be the case. Your windows account should be an "administrator" account and your child should not have an "administrator" account.
for help on creating accounts see this: https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/v91580726
Regarding #2 I also now got "installedinkjet printer/scanner/fax extended survey program" which was not something we actually did.
#1 I installed a new app (Spotify) on that device and it did alert me to it, I will see if I can recall which app was not alerted. Does it have to make a registry change to trigger the alert? Or is it based on the list of programmes in "add/remove programmes"?
Family is running, and I notice that the child needs to be logged in as me in Norton 360, which effectively gives them "admin" rights, which I don't think is very good...
#3 you didn't really cover, it was about a blocked category not actually being blocked, and not even showing up as a warning...
#4 I have tried again, and sometimes the extension is enabled, and other times not. There are no other extensions installed.
#5 thanks, found it now. I guess it's a bit confusing having a "device" button, and a "profile" button, and renaming devices under profile section...
Talking of confusing, just installed on mobile devices, and it's really painful. I have to go through a captcha process which involves 3 sets of images, twice per app on phone, and twice on computer, and then also enter the long/secure password I have each time, so that's about 14 times to do the captcha and 6 password entries. Per child....
#1/#2, We are checking on the issue on why it is reporting Microsoft Windows Operating System as a new App. Apart from this, could you please try installing any new App on that device and check whether it is being reported. Please make sure that Norton Family is running on the device (You can check this from System Tray Icon).
#3, #4 This could be because of the extension being disabled. We haven't seen extension being disabled automatically. Could you please check if there are any other extensions blocking/disabling Norton Family extension? If there is a need we can take a look at it remotely.
#5 You can also rename the device from family dashboard, select the child and click on "View Profile", it will list all the associated devices for that child, you can rename from there as well.
#1/#2, I see an alert about an app that was not installed. I see no alert for the app that was installed.
#3 under house rules, pornography is not an allowed category. Yet it can be visited, and shows up as "Website visited from allowed category list: https://www.pornhub.com(Pornography)"
Filtering by questionable activity doesn't highlight these sites either.
#4 there are no different profiles on the browsers/devices in question.
#5 I have found thanks, you should really be able to link to this from the family dashboard though.
The browser extensions self-disabling (#4) is clearly the biggest concern, but also #3 that any site can be visited - this means having to review ALL sites visited by a child, which is not practical.
For #1, #2 - Based on the backend data, we noticed that the installed Apps are captured from the device and it should be listed under App Supervision settings. Moreover, we noticed an alert for one of the devices for new app install. Please check the App supervision settings and see if it is getting listed there and let us know.
#3 - You can block/allow categories as necessary under Web Supervision house rules settings. Please check the attached screenshot for reference.
#4 - Could you please check if there are different profiles available in the browser, if so please enable NF browser extension for all the available profiles (including the default one).
#5 - Please login to https://my.norton.com/extspa/devices/ . You can choose the device and rename them by using the context menu (...).
#6 - Currently we don't have an option to delete the log, however any logs will be automatically deleted after 30 days.
Hope the above details answers your queries, Please reach out to us for any further clarifications.
Also, activate extension on edge, close computer, get warning that extension was disabled by child, log back in to computer, extension is disabled, so... extension doesn't work, which AFAICS is the only actual browser safety feature...
