Norton WiFi Privacy 2017 product reviews

Some of my favourite shows over the last few years involved cyber-cops catching black-hats by tracking their tech. Characters such as the US CyberComn team in "CSI: Cyber", Alec Hardison in "Leverage" and Triple P in "NCIS: New Orleans" all use some powerful tools to track mobiles, tablets etc. What's frightening is the knowledge that they are often many steps BEHIND the real crooks, who use far more advanced software packages and hardware gadgets to cause no end of mischief to good folks who just want to go about their daily lives in peace. The "sheep" of the world.

So, my phone is often hamstrung, because I turn off EVERYTHING I can without actually powering down the phone. No Bluetooth, WiFi is only connected to trusted hotspots that I have already vetted, it's never plugged into an unknown USB socket without using a wee device I bought called a "USB Condom" which basically allows the "power" plugs to connect but breaks the circuits for data transfer, and other such policies and processes to try and keep my phone away from all the nasties. A lot of this was brought about by knowing many blackhats and grayhats in my Uni days, when the tech was a lot more primitive and dial-up modems were the norm. I saw what was happening, and I heard a lot of their plans as the new technologies came into public play.

So here we are, public WiFi hotspots are commonplace - there's one on top of nearly every public phonebox in the major cities, and almost every cafe and supermarket offers you free WiFi access... if you just agree to download their personalised little spyware package, or give them permission to access your device's storage area. Norton's WiFi Privacy app gives you so much protection against those invasive options, plugging your device into a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that runs all the data your device accesses through their malware filters, and alerting you whenever you go near, or come under the eyes of, anything nasty lurking around the corner.

I was impressed by how well it reacted when I attempted to connect to a local WiFi hotspot that has long been suspected of being "a little dodgy" - I was greeted by an alert message telling me this site was doing odd things and asking me if I wanted to disconnect or continue at my own risk. Naturally, disconnection was my choice and my phone immediately flipped to a secure mobile broadband connection again. Even my WiFi at the office was insecure, but acting politely, so I was offered a VPN connection instead, which I activated. Sudden;y, I had teleported to Melbourne apparently... which was a hoot. I'm wondering if this will finally unlock Netflix US as a form of "Global Mode"... -hmmm-

AT $50/yr, this may seem like a big wad of cash to hand over to do, basically, the same as you normally do online via smartphone, but the hazards of public WiFi are numerous, and even a quick Google search will throw back thousands of pages of hazards awaiting the unwary and uninformed. Malware injections, fake hotspots that have names that are familiar at first glance, but does that name really contain the lower-case 'L', or is it really a capital 'I' or a '1', designed to fool you into opening your device to attack? Is that "free USB charger port" at the airport safe to use, or is there a little device behind that faceplate that will inject malware onto your phone, or leech your data off it? These are not dreamt-up scenarios, these are things that have actually happened, some of them to people I know personally.

Norton WiFi Privacy can help protect you against that, and more, so the price is actually quite low when you think about the alternative - Ransomware that encrypts your phone and won't unlock it unless you pay up $500 or more... and there's NOTHING to stop them locking it again next week, demanding another payment, and another, and another... so $50/yr vs potentially thousands a month. It's a no-brainer really.

Overall, this app is very simple to use, quick to install (but do make sure you follow the instructions - trying to be clever and jumping steps had me frustrated for over a week until I gave up, uninstalled the app and did it properly.) and highly effective. As part of the larger Security Suite, it's even better!