Hands On With Norton One

Symantec plans to release an all-encompassing security subscription called Norton One last September. Details were hazy initially, but Symantec promised it would cover PCs, Macs, and smartphones – all managed through a central online console, with built-in premium support. This week, Symantec began a pilot program, releasing the subscription to around 2,000 invited testers.

Other Approaches
Since that announcement last fall quite a few other vendors have come out with similar multi-device subscriptions. covers all devices belonging to an individual for $99.95/year or for a household of up to five individuals for $149.95. For $99.95/year, protects all devices belonging to a household of up to three people. comes in three-, five-, and 10-license packs that can be applied to any combination of devices. Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security Premium Edition actually pre-dates Symantec's announcement, but it's specifically a bundle of licenses for three PCs, three Macs, and three Android devices, plus 50GB of online backup.

Symantec's approach to licensing isn't quite the same as any of these. A $149.99/year membership to Norton One protects up to five PCs, Macs, or Android devices in a household. Symantec cites a study indicating the average household includes 4.5 such devices. Those high-tech households that go beyond the average can add more devices to the membership for an incremental cost. The exact price to add a device hasn't been determined, but the ability to add devices one by one makes it more flexible than Kaspersky or Trend Micro.

Membership Has Its Privileges
Jody Gibney, senior manager of product management for Norton One, points out that Norton One users get a membership, not a subscription or license. Individuals polled in focus groups and studies felt more positive overall about membership than subscription. The concept suggested one-on-one connections, personal relationships, and exclusive benefits.

Gibney cited a goal to "make customers ridiculously happy." To that end, access to personalized tech support is built into the product at every level. If you have the slightest problem, you can email tech support, engage in live chat and remote assistance, or have support call you. Installation of the individual products is designed to be extremely simple, but if you prefer, tech support will handle the installation for you.

Norton One includes Virus Protection Assurance, which means that if you have the slightest worry, if you think anything is wrong, you can contact tech support and have them investigate and solve any problem. According to Gibney, the dedicated tech support agents are trained to go beyond the fast fix and interact with the customer to see if there's any other help they can give. Symantec's aim is to have support available within two minutes at absolutely any time.

Hands On With Support
To get a feel for Norton One I activated the test membership Symantec supplied. Right away I had to log in to my Norton Account. That's no surprise; all current Norton products connect with the online Norton Account. If you don't already have one, you can create it at this step. After that login I supplied the special registration key supplied in the invitation email message.

The next step should have been an automatic download of the Norton One client, but it just didn't work. I saw this as a marvelous opportunity to test the premium support system. I requested support via live chat and got an agent in less than a minute. He had me try a few things and then offered to take over and fix the problem via remote assistance.

In theory, I should've been able to pour a tropical cocktail and retire to my hammock while the support agent fixed the problem. In practice, I had to stick around and re-enter my Norton Account credentials a half-dozen times. Apparently Norton One isn't fully associated with the Norton Account until that initial installation completes. Going forward I shouldn't have to re-enter any credentials.

As it turned out, there was nothing to fix at my end. It just happened that Symantec gave me the very first Norton One key outside of the company, and the servers weren't actually ready at the time I tried to activate it. Nobody else should run into this problem.

Streamlined and Automatic
As soon as the installed Norton One client launched, it began installing default protection for my test PC. In this case that meant a full installation of . The installation was totally hands-off. I didn't have to enter a license key, or connect this installation with my Norton Account. Norton One did everything.

Next I checked my Norton One account online. The My Devices page showed my new installation, as well as all other products associated with my Norton Account. A clear and simple indicator showed one install used and four remaining, with a big button to add another device.

Adding a device proved totally easy. Had I wanted to install on the computer from which I logged in, I could launch setup immediately. For any other device, I could choose Windows, Mac, or Android and then send an email with a setup link. Clicking that link in the email on the target device would initiate a similar streamlines setup process.

A Good First Impression
I don't actually have any Macintosh or Android test systems on hand, so I stopped at that point. Overall I'm impressed with Norton One. It makes installing protection almost effortless, and the support system seems to work well. Yes, there was a server-side glitch on this very first day of testing, but I can't worry about that. I look forward to the opportunity for a full review of Norton One.

Until then, check out the slideshow above.