It's definitely one of the saddest stories in our industry. Peter Norton's books literally taught me to program as a teenager, and now his name is synonymous with mal/bloatware.
It is sad to again and again be reminded that even the ones we see as heroes earlier in our lives, could do something to kind of "tarnish" our idea of them. I think lately I've gotten better at handling coming across this, as I'm getting better at realizing we're all just humans, and what we see from these public people is often just a small selected slice, we're all flawed in our ways, but we typically don't get to see those unless it's something extreme, one way or another.
Many cases of this happening too, people loved and celebrated for years/decades, then does something that just absolutely tarnishes everything they would have been remembered for. Philippe Pétain comes to mind as an extreme example, one of France's greatest national heroes up until late in his life, he became head of the Vichy regime and collaborated closely with Nazi Germany.
Comparing Norton selling their company (even to a scummy owner like Symantec) to Pétain collaborating with Nazi Germany feels a bit ... extreme ... to me.
Maybe they actually do know their audience, and HN crowd is just... not that audience? I am pretty sure most people have no idea what's wrong with Norton, and the name just sounds vaguely like cybersecurity.
I moved out of the windows world a long time ago. Are virus scanners still a thing? Like, not just a revenue stream, but something you really should run?
Of all the new things in 2026, I wasn't expecting friking Norton coming out with a web browser. Too bad that it's yet another Chromium skin, with integrated AI that no one asked for.
Not that I expected any better from Norton tbh, but it's a shame to see a beloved brand from my childhood days fall so far from grace. Norton Utilities for DOS/Win9x used to be the bomb... NCD, NDD, SPEEDISK etc. My last good memory of it was introducing me to Darude Sandstorm. But now... sigh.
i don't need all this shit, can i have a modern browser that run in 10 mb ram and doesnt multiply the memory with tabs. something like kmelon but works on all sites.
I know that the current state of affairs with the AI labs bros can make the old antivirus villains look like lambs; still, I don't see how anyone would like to have anything to do with those guys.
• Longstanding consumer complaints about aggressive upselling, scare-style scan warnings, auto-renewal, and hard-to-cancel billing
• Product often came preinstalled on PCs; many users treated it as unwanted bloatware
• Mixed reputation: lab detection scores often decent; customer-service and billing scores often poor
• 2011–2016 class action (Symantec and Digital River): alleged hidden “download insurance” / extended download service added at checkout; settled for about $60 million
• Canadian class action over alleged defects in an older Norton “decomposer” component (software sold roughly 2010–2016); later settled for tens of millions
• 2013–2022 Columbia University patent case: jury found willful infringement of malware-related patents and awarded $185 million; case later settled
• False Claims Act / GSA contracting: Symantec accused of hiding extra commercial discounts from the U.S. government; 2023 trial findings plus a 2024 Gen Digital payment of $55.1 million to satisfy the judgment
LifeLock (bought by Symantec in 2016; later NortonLifeLock / Gen Digital)
• 2010 FTC settlement: about $12 million for deceptive identity-theft advertising
• 2015 FTC action: about $100 million after LifeLock violated the 2010 order (weak security program and more false claims)
• Recurring criticism that protection/reimbursement marketing overstated what the service actually did
• 2022–2023 credential-stuffing attacks on Norton Password Manager / LifeLock logins using reused passwords from other breaches; company said its own systems were not hacked; thousands of accounts had some personal data accessed and hundreds of thousands of logins were targeted
NortonLifeLock / Gen Digital
• 2021–2022 Norton Crypto: Ethereum miner bundled with Norton 360; company said it was opt-in and took a cut; users and researchers criticized it as inappropriate in a security product; later dropped
• Ongoing complaints about subscription renewals, refunds, and support after the Symantec → NortonLifeLock
→ Gen Digital rebrands
• Privacy/tracking investigations (alleged sharing of site/app data with third-party analytics such as Quantum Metric); not a final court finding
• Separate consumer suits alleging LifeLock failed to alert users or honor “dollar-for-dollar” identity-theft reimbursement promises
I wouldn’t use an immortality serum if it came with Norton branding. How come it is still a thing?
If they were not using actual Norton trademarks I would have thought this was a parody.
Why would anyone use Norton? It's just malware.
It's definitely one of the saddest stories in our industry. Peter Norton's books literally taught me to program as a teenager, and now his name is synonymous with mal/bloatware.
It is sad to again and again be reminded that even the ones we see as heroes earlier in our lives, could do something to kind of "tarnish" our idea of them. I think lately I've gotten better at handling coming across this, as I'm getting better at realizing we're all just humans, and what we see from these public people is often just a small selected slice, we're all flawed in our ways, but we typically don't get to see those unless it's something extreme, one way or another.
Many cases of this happening too, people loved and celebrated for years/decades, then does something that just absolutely tarnishes everything they would have been remembered for. Philippe Pétain comes to mind as an extreme example, one of France's greatest national heroes up until late in his life, he became head of the Vichy regime and collaborated closely with Nazi Germany.
Comparing Norton selling their company (even to a scummy owner like Symantec) to Pétain collaborating with Nazi Germany feels a bit ... extreme ... to me.
it's also John McAfee innit
I associate him more with MDPV-derived psychosis, personally.
I'm similarly lost here.
If this is Norton, why wouldn't they be aware of how people see the very name "Norton", and avoid slapping it on any new products?
If this is NOT Norton, same applies, why would you include a term that almost causes gag-reflexes among large parts of your supposed audience?
Maybe they actually do know their audience, and HN crowd is just... not that audience? I am pretty sure most people have no idea what's wrong with Norton, and the name just sounds vaguely like cybersecurity.
100%. Anything with the name "Norton" is burned for me. This goes back to uninstallable Software around Windows XP era.
The only good Norton is Norton Commander!
Were the motorbikes bad?
Don't forget privacy policy.
Norton is owned by Avast owner which sold data for ads.
We've come a long way if people are being warned off Norton on account of its association with Avast.
(in my day we were warning people off Avast on account of its similarities to Norton)
The parent company is Gen Digital now, and its product line is: Norton / Avast / AVG / Avira / CCleaner
I have no idea why anyone would install and use their browser.
I moved out of the windows world a long time ago. Are virus scanners still a thing? Like, not just a revenue stream, but something you really should run?
AVAST VIRUS DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED.
Blasting out my PC speakers at 2am...
Hard to find a site this less interesting, for a product this less interesting from a company that i would never trust
The only useful norton software was the Norton Ghost
Doesn’t Brave offer most of those features?
Chromium based, not open source.
yeah, I think I can vibecode it under a week.
Given the reputation, who the hell is the audience for this crap?
Of all the new things in 2026, I wasn't expecting friking Norton coming out with a web browser. Too bad that it's yet another Chromium skin, with integrated AI that no one asked for.
Not that I expected any better from Norton tbh, but it's a shame to see a beloved brand from my childhood days fall so far from grace. Norton Utilities for DOS/Win9x used to be the bomb... NCD, NDD, SPEEDISK etc. My last good memory of it was introducing me to Darude Sandstorm. But now... sigh.
i don't need all this shit, can i have a modern browser that run in 10 mb ram and doesnt multiply the memory with tabs. something like kmelon but works on all sites.
So everyone is upvoting this post to shit on Norton?
I guess it’s good to warn about bad actors early and throughly!
So this is from Symantec?
Quite a lot in their privacy policy for a “private” browser
I know that the current state of affairs with the AI labs bros can make the old antivirus villains look like lambs; still, I don't see how anyone would like to have anything to do with those guys.
Would you trust this company?
Symantec / Norton:
• Longstanding consumer complaints about aggressive upselling, scare-style scan warnings, auto-renewal, and hard-to-cancel billing
• Product often came preinstalled on PCs; many users treated it as unwanted bloatware
• Mixed reputation: lab detection scores often decent; customer-service and billing scores often poor
• 2011–2016 class action (Symantec and Digital River): alleged hidden “download insurance” / extended download service added at checkout; settled for about $60 million
• Canadian class action over alleged defects in an older Norton “decomposer” component (software sold roughly 2010–2016); later settled for tens of millions
• 2013–2022 Columbia University patent case: jury found willful infringement of malware-related patents and awarded $185 million; case later settled
• False Claims Act / GSA contracting: Symantec accused of hiding extra commercial discounts from the U.S. government; 2023 trial findings plus a 2024 Gen Digital payment of $55.1 million to satisfy the judgment LifeLock (bought by Symantec in 2016; later NortonLifeLock / Gen Digital)
• 2010 FTC settlement: about $12 million for deceptive identity-theft advertising
• 2015 FTC action: about $100 million after LifeLock violated the 2010 order (weak security program and more false claims)
• Recurring criticism that protection/reimbursement marketing overstated what the service actually did
• 2022–2023 credential-stuffing attacks on Norton Password Manager / LifeLock logins using reused passwords from other breaches; company said its own systems were not hacked; thousands of accounts had some personal data accessed and hundreds of thousands of logins were targeted
NortonLifeLock / Gen Digital
• 2021–2022 Norton Crypto: Ethereum miner bundled with Norton 360; company said it was opt-in and took a cut; users and researchers criticized it as inappropriate in a security product; later dropped
• Ongoing complaints about subscription renewals, refunds, and support after the Symantec → NortonLifeLock → Gen Digital rebrands
• Privacy/tracking investigations (alleged sharing of site/app data with third-party analytics such as Quantum Metric); not a final court finding
• Separate consumer suits alleging LifeLock failed to alert users or honor “dollar-for-dollar” identity-theft reimbursement promises
This was dead. Not sure why, but vouched, it's relevant.