Norton Password Manager Review: Pros & Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more

Most password managers may have a limited free product or a free trial, but you’ll eventually have to pay to get to the best features – but that’s not the case with Norton Password Manager, which is a totally free security product.

It might not cost you a cent, but you’ll still find biometric login, robust security protocols, and cross-platform functionality here from the company best known for its antivirus software. On paper, the Norton app could be a top-notch, affordable alternative to many of the big-brand paid password manager options.

After we’ve deduced whether or not Norton Password Manager is worth the free download, check out our conclusions about the best password managers. 

Norton Password Manager: Plans and pricing

Norton Password Manager is a free tool, but when you log in, the site lists your subscription status as Trial. This could concern those looking for a free-for-life product, as Norton software such as Norton AntiVirus Basic and Norton Security were initially available as trials only to be removed later.

Though Norton Password Manager is free, the Norton website gently pushes you to purchase it as part of a security suite package with a subscription. A bewildering number of options are presented, as Norton offers at least 20 unique products and just as many ways to pay for them.

The flagship product is Norton 360, a subscription-based security suite that includes antivirus protection, a firewall, cloud backup, a VPN, and password management. More services become available with a few additional tiers, including additional cloud storage, support for more devices, identity theft monitoring, credit card activity alerts, and court record scanning. In some cases, you can also get certain insurance bundled in.

Pricing varies depending on where you are, because each country has its own set of services. In the US, for example, you can expect to pay between $114.99 and $349.99 per year for your choice of four tiers, with the first year eligible for a hefty discount to attract new customers. 

British customers only get three plans to choose from, costing between £24.99 and £149.99 per year from the second year onward, while those in Australia can pick from a slightly different quarter of plans to American customers. They can expect to pay between AUD$75.99 and AUD$194.99 per year after the first year.

Ultimately, though, Norton’s Password Manager remains a free standalone product for now.

Norton Password Manager: Setup

Getting started with Norton Password Manager is simple, as the product is largely web-based. You create a Norton user account and set a unique password for your password vault – an extra-secure area for your most important data.

Most users will also install the browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari. These extensions offer to save and fill in website passwords automatically. Norton Password Manager apps for iOS and Android are available from the respective app stores.

There’s a downloadable Norton Password Manager application specifically for importing passwords from Chrome and Firefox. You can also import passwords from Dashlane, LastPass, and 1Password files, making transferring everything to Norton Password Manager easy.

Norton Password Manager: Interface and performance

We liked Norton Password Manager’s interface, which runs in the form of a browser extension. It’s organized cleanly, with sites itemized in a grid or list format. Separate sections for logins, wallet, addresses, and notes keep all your personal details organized.

A safety dashboard feature gives you an overview of your passwords and their relative strengths. There’s a password generator to help create unique passwords. It’s one of the easiest password managers to use and its interface is straightforward, so it’s an ideal option for people who aren’t particularly tech-savvy.

Despite Norton being one of the oldest names in cybersecurity, it’s a pleasure to see that it continues to be willing to invest in modernizing its expansive fleet of software and services, and that they haven’t been left behind compared to more modern rivals. Even though Norton has a much broader portfolio than companies like Dashlane, its password manager can keep up with the best (within the limitations of what the free service offers).

When you enter user credentials on a new website, Norton Password Manager will ask whether to store the details in the protected vault or in its usual password database. It’s also possible to generate a new, secure password when you’re creating a new entry in Norton Password Manager.

Besides storing your passwords, Norton Password Manager gives you some basic metrics on them, listing weak, duplicate, and old passwords that you should change. However, there’s no information available on whether the email addresses and passwords you’ve used have been a part of a data breach. Still, for many Internet users who find themselves repeatedly using the same handful of passwords on rotation, having them pointed out can make identifying weak credentials a lot more efficient.

Autochange is an interesting feature that lets you update the password stored on a site with just one click. It automatically goes through all the steps you’d normally have to perform to change the password. Unfortunately, it only worked about half of the time in our testing, returning an error for the rest. In reality, that’s probably just as much down to each individual website’s architecture as it is down to Norton, and the few other password managers that can handle changes for you share similar experiences.

This app is easy to use and has good core features, but there’s no denying that Norton Password Manager’s free status means it’s lacking some more advanced capabilities. If you pay for apps elsewhere you’ll find dark web monitoring, more support for different browsers and operating systems, and dedicated desktop clients rather than browser extensions. Other apps have more options for organizing and categorizing your passwords and more robust search functionality.

Because Norton Password Manager is just one very small subsection in the company’s broad range of offerings, there’s not a whole lot of information about what it offers and any updates it has been subject to. While finding this information can be troublesome, it appears on the surface to be a strong contender in the realms of basic, free password managers. 

We could not find any indication that Norton is committed to bringing passkey support to its product. Given that it’s purely a consumer-focused product (there are no business plans, or even family plans for that matter), we would like to see support for the new method of passwordless authentication that’s slowly gaining traction, with more sites beginning to add support and both Android and iOS opening up better third-party support during 2023.

Some other companies bundle in VPN services with their paid plans, but Norton instead offers this as a separate proposition. If you don’t want to pay for the entire Norton 360 package, you can subscribe to the VPN for $49.99 / £39.99 / AUD$84.99 per year for one device, $79.99 / £59.99 per year for up to five devices, or $99.99 / £79.99 per year for up to 10 devices, which is reasonably priced in comparison to others. Strangely, Australian customers wanting access for more than one device can only choose between three (AUD$109.99) or five (AUD$129.99), but not ten. You’ll also unlock a significant discount for your first year, as with other Norton subscriptions.

Norton Password Manager: Security

Norton Password Manager has robust security features that put it on par with the best password managers. Your data is stored in the cloud using 256-bit AES encryption.

All connections from the browser to the cloud vault are made through TLS secure connections. The only way to unlock your vault data is with the vault password, which is never stored or sent anywhere. Even better, two-factor authentication is available if you install the Norton Password Manager app on your mobile device.

This is a robust set of security features, but if you look at paid apps you’ll find software with more versatile cloud options, a broader array of authentication options, and custom encryption algorithms.

Norton Password Manager: Support

Norton has an extensive support site, but very little of it is dedicated to Norton Password Manager. There are a basic FAQ and some documents that take you through some features, but these mostly lack screenshots and only occasionally have videos. Searching for help on topics often returns results about other products.

There is a support forum with a few posts per day, but Norton Password Manager shares this forum with Norton Safe Web and Norton Safe Search, making finding solutions for problems difficult. Most user problems go unsolved.

We tested the 24/7 live chat by asking the support agent a few simple questions about the product. Although the live chat was responsive, the agent didn’t seem trained on the product and couldn’t answer our basic queries. Overall, it feels like the password manager is a minor and frankly overlooked product.

Norton Password Manager: The competition

LastPass offers a free account with more features than Norton Password Manager, such as one-to-one sharing of passwords, audit reports, and a better password generator. If you’re willing to pay for a premium account, LastPass adds features like priority tech support, advanced multi-factor options, and one-to-many sharing of passwords.

Another security-focused option comes from Proton Pass, which has both free and paid plans available.

Norton Password Manager: Final verdict

Norton Password Manager works quite well as a basic password manager, but it doesn’t feel that the free software is a priority to Norton. The Autochange feature is neat when it works, and we have little doubt our passwords are secure with Norton, but there’s nothing here that other free password managers don’t do better. 

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