Norton Safe Web (sometimes abbreviated NSW) is a service developed by

Symantec Corporation Gen Digital Inc. (formerly Symantec Corporation and NortonLifeLock Inc.) is a multinational software company co-headquartered in both Prague, Czech Republic ( EU) and Tempe, Arizona ( USA). The company provides cybersecurity software and servi ...

that is designed to help users identify malicious websites. Safe Web delivers information about websites based on automated analysis and user feedback. The software debuted as a public beta in 2008, and is now included in current versions of

Norton Internet Security Norton Internet Security, developed by NortonLifeLock, Symantec Corporation, is a discontinued computer program that provides malware protection and removal during a subscription period. It uses Antivirus software#Signature-based detection, signa ...

and

Norton 360 Norton 360 is an "all-in-one" Internet security#Security suites, security suite developed by Gen Digital, formerly Symantec and later NortonLifeLock. The current suite was released in 2019 as a replacement for Norton Security, which had itself re ...

. A limited, standalone version of Safe Web, known as Safe Web Lite, is available as a

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

. Safe Web operates as a

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

plugin, and requires

Internet Explorer 6 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is a web browser developed by Microsoft for Windows operating systems. Released on August 24, 2001, it is the sixth, and by now discontinued, version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer ...

Firefox 3 Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is a version of the Firefox web browser released on June 17, 2008, by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox 3.0 uses version 1.9 of the Gecko (layout engine), Gecko layout engine for displaying web pages. This version fixes many b ...

or later. The 2012 release of Safe Web Lite added

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...

support.

Function

In addition to actively crawling and analyzing web sites, Norton Safe Web relies on feedback from users and ''Norton Community'' participants. When a

drive-by download In computer security, a drive-by download is the unintended download of software, typically Malware, malicious software. The term "drive-by download" usually refers to a download which was authorized by a user without understanding what is being ...

occurs at a web site, the suspicious URL is automatically reported to Norton Safe Web for analysis. The reported site is rated as unsafe if the analysis confirms that the download is malicious. To ensure that its site rating accurately reflects the current state of a site, Norton Safe Web performs frequent re-analysis of Web sites. Norton Safe Web employs a site rating aging algorithm which estimates how often the safety of a particular Web site will change. Some of the factors used in this analysis include the site's rating history, the site's reputation and associations, the number and types of threats detected on the site, the number of submissions received from Norton clients, and site traffic. In other words, unsafe sites that are more likely to have been cleaned up are re-analyzed often while those that might take longer to remove detected threats are re-analyzed less frequently. User reviews are also accepted, with contributors ranked by reputation. Should a site owner dispute the ranking of their site, they can submit a request for re-evaluation after completing a validation process.

Critics

Norton Safe Web is complained about by many users/web administrators as websites will be classified as "unsafe" incorrectly. Even if reevaluation request is submitted, the site will still be listed as "unsafe" and no reevaluation action is taken place indeed. There have been reported instances of bloggers criticizing the quality of Norton Safe Web who have since been blacklisted by the tool.

Incorporation

Safe Web is installed alongside

Norton Internet Security 2009 Norton Internet Security, developed by Symantec Corporation, is a discontinued computer program that provides malware protection and removal during a subscription period. It uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features inclu ...

and

version 3.0 as a browser toolbar. It color codes search results returned by

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

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, and

Bing Search Microsoft Bing (also known simply as Bing) is a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service traces its roots back to Microsoft's earlier search engines, including MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search. Bing offers a ...

using green, yellow, or red. Hovering over a pop-up summary will bring up a summary of the findings, and include a link to the full report of the site. Safe Web will also prompt or interrupt access to malicious sites users try to access directly via the

address bar In a web browser, the address bar (also location bar or URL bar) is the element that shows the current URL. The user can type a URL into it to navigate to a chosen website. In most modern browsers, non-URLs are automatically sent to a search eng ...

Reception

Safe Web blocks

phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticate ...

sites, overlapping in functionality with Norton Internet Security and Norton 360. Using Norton 360 v3, ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

'' found discrepancies between Safe Web and Norton 360's built-in phishing protection. Symantec stated that phishing sites change rapidly, and one Norton service may be using older definitions than the other. Norton Safe Web has drawn some ire among Windows Live! Plus users as it shows that the Windows Live! Plus website contains malware.Rubenking, Neil J
"Blocking Bad Web Sites"
''

'', March 13, 2009, accessed July 15, 2009 Also, Norton Safe Web blocks numerous sites with third party extensions such as

Mailgun Mailgun Technologies Inc is an email delivery service for sending, receiving, and tracking emails. History Mailgun Technologies Inc was founded in 2010 by Ev Kontsevoy and Taylor Wakefield. In 2011, Mailgun Technologies, Inc. was selected for ...

and

New Relic New Relic, Inc. is an American web tracking and analytics company based in San Francisco. The company's cloud-based software allows websites and mobile apps to track user interactions and service operators' software and hardware performance. In ...

. The verification of site ownership keeps failing so site owners can't fix the issue.

Norton Safe Web Lite

A free version of the software, Safe Web Lite, is available free of charge. The primary difference between the version of Safe Web bundled with

and

and Safe Web Lite is that Safe Web Lite does not block malicious websites. However, Norton AntiVirus updates it with Norton SafeWeb Statics when Norton SafeWeb Lite is installed on your computer. Green means safe. Yellow/Orange means caution. Red means warning.

References