Symantec Norton Identity Safe - Review 2022

Losing control of your secure accounts considering yous used a lame password similar "countersign" tin exist even more dissentious than getting hit with a Trojan or a botnet infestation. A number of security vendors, Symantec among them, include a password manager every bit a component in a broader security suite. Symantec Norton Password Managing director is likewise bachelor as a free, standalone utility. It'due south a distinct improvement over the old Norton Identity Safe, which it replaces, just its enhanced and added features are notwithstanding shaking out beyond supported platforms and browsers.

Y'all can install Norton Password Manager on all your Windows, Android, and iOS devices. On Windows, information technology installs equally an extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. As is typical, it appears on mobile devices as an app. Your passwords sync across all devices, and you can log in and admission your passwords from any browser, if you so want.

Easy Setup and Installation

Getting started with Norton Password Manager should be a snap. Just download information technology from the Norton Password Manager website, launch the installer, and click the big Concord & Install push. However, at the time of this writing the Norton Password Director page only includes download links for Android and iOS, non Windows. My Symantec contacts tell me that "this page is going through a revamp, which volition help guide users to the availability on all the supported platforms." At the moment, Windows users can get Norton Password Manager equally office of Symantec Norton AntiVirus Basic or one of the Norton suites.

In one case you lot've managed to download the app, the next step is to enter your e-mail address to sign in or create a new Norton business relationship. You use the Norton business relationship to manage all your installed Norton products, not just the password manager. Note that the Norton account countersign is distinct from the master countersign for Norton Password Manager.

As with LastPass, LogMeOnce, and most other password managers, Norton Password Director relies on one master countersign to protect all your other passwords. This is the one password you must memorize, and it needs to exist both complex and non hands guessed. The program won't accept your choice of a primary password unless it's at to the lowest degree viii characters long and contains at least one of each character type.

Shortly after installation you'll get a prompt from the program to install its Chrome add-on. You'll take the Cyberspace Explorer add together-on the next fourth dimension y'all launch that browser. The product should likewise install an extension for Firefox. However, in testing I plant that one time the Norton Rubber Web extension got installed, Norton Password Managing director assumed incorrectly that the password manager was installed every bit well. My Symantec contacts confirmed the problem, noting that "you installed the Safe Spider web Extension instead which is why the product detected that Firefox has an extension installed."

Import and Export

One great thing about costless countersign managers is that it costs zip to kick their tires and give each production a endeavour. One thing that really eases that kind of experimentation is the ability to import and consign your countersign collection, so you don't accept to echo the setup procedure in each plan. LastPass can import from two dozen competing products, and KeePass handles three dozen.

Enhanced with this release, Norton Password Manager tin can import passwords stored insecurely in Chrome and 32-bit Firefox. It can also import passwords exported from Dashlane($0.00 at Dashlane), LastPass, and 1Password. I had no trouble importing a subset of my LastPass password collection.

Password Capture and Replay

Similar most password managers, Norton Password Manager automatically captures your username and countersign as you log in to any secure site. It pops up a notification from which yous can ostend saving the information or choose to skip doing so. There'southward no longer an option to add tags or give the entry a friendly proper name at capture time. If you already have credentials recorded for the site, Norton Password Manager asks whether to replace the existing data or create a new tape.

When yous revisit a site for which the program has saved credentials, information technology offers to fill them in. If at that place are multiple sets of credentials, it offers a menu for your selection.

Yous can also click the toolbar button for quick admission. The list of saved logins tin can go rather long, and the Tags characteristic found in Identity Safety is no longer present. Fortunately, there's a search box that narrows the list with each character you type, just showing items that friction match what you've typed so far.

Editing and Arrangement

From the browser-button bill of fare yous tin can too click the Vault link, which launches the full Norton Password Managing director programme. Here y'all tin can view a list of all your saved passwords, with the friendly name, the username, and a password field whose data is masked until you lot click the adjacent push button.

Equally noted, tags are on the way out, though they still appear in a few situations. And you can't choose a friendly name at capture fourth dimension. But you can edit any saved set of credentials to change that championship, for example, "Personal Gmail" instead of "accounts.google.com." LastPass and LogMeOnce Countersign Direction Suite Premium both let assigning newly captured credentials to groups (their equivalent to tags).

Password Generator

Now that you're using Norton Countersign Manager to manage your passwords, you can use long, random passwords, ones that you lot'd never be able to call up without assistance. Like nigh countersign managers, Norton Password Manager includes a countersign generator. 1U Password Manager and oneID are among the few that don't.

Previously, the password generator was a separate service residing totally online. With the current Norton Password Manager, it's built right in. By default, Norton generates twenty-character passwords using all graphic symbol types, the aforementioned as KeePass. That's good; since yous don't have to remember the passwords they can be plenty long.

Myki Countersign Director & Authenticator takes the long password prize, with a default of xxx characters. With Norton, you can choose a length from 4 (bad thought!) to 64 characters. Withal, the password generator doesn't remember changes to the defaults, so if you want a length other than the default 20 characters you'll have to select it every fourth dimension.

Safety Dashboard and Auto Alter

Getting all your passwords stored in the password manager is simply the first step. You aren't finished until yous've replaced all weak and duplicate passwords with strong, unique ones. The new Safety Dashboard feature offers a roadmap to password perfection, much like the similar reports in LastPass and LogMeOnce.

When yous click to view the dashboard, you get an overall strength percentage and a list of sites with weak passwords. You can also view duplicate passwords, passwords that oasis't been changed in a long time, or a listing of all your passwords with a strength rating for each.

For selected popular websites, Norton can automatically update and save a new, strong password. You'll know which ones are supported by the presence of an Autochange now link; those that tin can't be automated just display Modify now. LastPass and LogMeOnce are the only other free password managers I've seen that offer automated password change.

Limited Web Form Filling

Filling Spider web forms with your personal data is a feature that's common in commercial password managers, not then much in gratis products. LastPass, LogMeOnce, and Norton Password Managing director are the only ones I've seen that include this feature.

You lot can create whatever number of what Norton Password Manager calls Addresses. Each Accost includes a total name, birthdate, gender, and concrete address, as well every bit an email accost and several phone numbers. LastPass collects a very similar set of personal data. In addition to personal information, y'all tin can save whatsoever number of credit cards or banking concern accounts in your online Wallet. RoboForm Everywhere 7 can make full vastly more fields, but then, it'southward not free.

I tested this feature using a handful of popular shopping sites. Norton Password Director did identify an icon in each class's information fields, but clicking it did nothing. My Symantec contacts confirmed that this characteristic is merely partially agile at nowadays. They noted that the new compages "meliorate supports all platforms," but that filling address information isn't currently working. Address autofill is "on the roadmap equally we upgrade across platforms, but it is not currently active."

Norton Safe Web

To install Norton Password Manager, you must too install the Norton Safe Web extension. It's a requirement. That'south fine, because the extension is quite handy. Yet, you'll likewise exist prompted to Norton-ize your abode page and default search engine; y'all may or may not want that.

The toolbar displays Norton Safe Web's rating of the current website and marks up search results in popular search engines. Dark-green ways the site has been scanned and is rubber, orange means it may be risky, and ruby-red ways it'southward actively dangerous. Untested sites become a grey icon, and super-secure sites rated for online transactions go an oversized OK icon. If Safe Web rates a site as dangerous or iffy, you tin can click through for a full report on just what dangers are present, along with a community rating and any comments from other users.

One large take chances to password security is phishing, which is the practice of attempting to steal passwords by putting upward fake sites masquerading as, say, PayPal, or a bank. Enter your credentials into 1 of those and you've handed your account to the fraudsters. Safety Web aims to protect users by steering them abroad from such sites. And if yous open up your sensitive sites straight from Norton Password Manager, there's no run a risk you'll accidentally go to a false site.

Norton Password Manager on Mobile Devices

A password director tin can be extremely useful on a mobile device. No more trying to type passwords like 57esahe$tiswoqa&iCr0 on that tiny keypad! Like LogMeOnce and 1U, Norton Countersign Director offers both Android and iOS apps. Enpass Countersign Manager five is unusual in that yous must pay a one-time fee of $nine.99 for its mobile apps. LastPass supports iOS and Android smartphones and tablets.

Norton Password Director on a mobile device has all the same features, just its interface is nicely reshaped to match the platform. On any mobile device it offers to let you log in using a PIN code as an culling to your master countersign; you can also log in with your fingerprint on devices that support it.

There are some differences between the mobile editions and the Windows version. The password generator defaults to eight-character passwords, but at least it uses all character types by default. And if yous change the settings, it remembers. At that place'due south no full-on form-filling on mobile, though it can capture credit bill of fare information using the photographic camera and fill in full credit carte du jour details in Web forms (provided that yous're surfing via the app'due south built-in browser). On iOS devices, you can configure Safari to let Norton Password Manager make full in passwords. Android's accessibility feature lets Norton Countersign Managing director fill credentials in Chrome and in some apps.

What'due south Norton Password Manager Doesn't Offer

Norton Password Director includes all the basic functions you'd expect, such as countersign capture, replay, and generation, every bit well as form filling. With the latest edition, it goes a bit beyond the basics, adding an actionable password strength report, automated password updates, and enhanced countersign importing. Still, the competition offers some avant-garde features you won't find in Norton.

LastPass, LogMeOnce, and Enpass, for example, let you lot securely share login credentials with other users. LastPass and LogMeOnce fifty-fifty provide for inheritance of your passwords in the event of your demise. KeePass, oneID, 1U Password Manager, LogMeOnce, and LastPass let you add some course of two-factor authentication to protect your sensitive passwords. I don't count Norton Password Managing director's support of Affect ID every bit full-fledged two-factor, since it's platform-specific.

Withal Improving

If you take Norton Password Director because information technology'south part of Norton Antivirus or one of the suites, you might every bit well utilise it. It does perform all the bones tasks we expect of it, and it integrates well with the Norton toolbar. This latest edition is a articulate comeback over the one-time Identity Safe. However, it still exhibits some growing pains. For example, the improved grade-filling feature temporarily doesn't support filling addresses. Now, information technology'south not piece of cake to install the free product on Windows. And the feature set up on dissimilar platforms and browsers isn't quite in sync. When these initial bug shake out, Norton Password Director should be a improve choice.

For now, though, if yous're not already committed to Norton, consider our Editors' Choice, LastPass instead. It's so skirt-full of features that information technology challenges all but the very best commercial password managers. Why settle for less?

Best Password Manager Picks

• The Best Countersign Managers for 2022
• The Best Gratis Password Managers for 2022
• Simple Tricks to Remember Insanely Secure Passwords
• '12345' Is Really Bad: Your Ultimate Guide to Password Security
• More than Password Manager Reviews

Further Reading

• Feds Seize WeLeakInfo.com for Selling Access to Stolen Data
• Salvage 25 Percent on a Top Password Manager
• Microsoft Seizes 99 Domains Used in Iranian Phishing Attacks
• The Head of Verizon Media's Reddish Team Has 1 Simple Security Tip
• Facebook Stored Up to 600M User Passwords in Plain Text

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/security/1044/symantec-norton-identity-safe

Posted by: dotsonposelver.blogspot.com

Share this post