We are due to renew our internet security, have read the reviews but are none the wiser. There is little information as to who owns the security suites. Further investigation found Norton is owned by Huawei, a chinese company, Kaspersky a Russian company, bitdefender a Romanian company, MacAfee is owned by Intel which is owned by ?. We find this information highly relevant particularly in regard to cyber security.
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Hello @whatnow and welcome.
You run Windows?
Throw the lot out, uninstall if you can, and just use the built in Windows security which prior to version 10 was known as Windows defender. It’s free, and it is very good.
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New contributors are always welcome.
Do you mind me asking. What is your source for saying Norton Personal Internet Security products (previous listed owner Symantec) is owned by Huawei?
We live in a world where there is a great deal of misinformation, accidental or poorly informed. If you can share your source others might like to comment on the reliability of the source and content.
As far as I recollect Norton Internet Security is owned by an American company based in California, or is it now Arizona?
McAfee is no longer owned by Intel.
Choice reviewed a wide range of internet security products last year (some of the content is restricted to members), https://www.choice.com.au/electronics-and-technology/computers/computer-software/review-and-compare/antivirus-software
The reviews included Microsoft’s built in defender product for Windows 10. It may perform better with the latest improvements built into Windows 11?
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A web search indicates that these companies get gobbled up and change hands fairly regularly. The most authoritative resource I found was Microsoft’s Win7 compendium whereby one needs to click through each product to see where their head office is located and some are far more transparent than others, and increasing consolidation is obvious.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-antivirus-software-providers#avtabs=win7
As an example, Norton changed name to NortonLifelock and now owns AVAST/AVG and AVIRA.
With the moving target this may or may not be current, but the right most columns have relevant info although not the current ownerships, just their origins, and it is incomplete.
This short page reinforces country of origin is no longer reflected in country/corporation of ownership.
At the end of the day it is a who do you trust, if anyone, and why.
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That is incorrect. Norton, or more correctly NortonLifeLock, is owned by Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc are
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One needs to ‘click through’ to Avago Technologies to remove a layer of the onion 
Avago (Singaporean) bought Broadcom and changed its name to Broadcom, and moved to the US for business reasons. How this was is and can be described is for each individual, but Broadcom is once again a US company.
It is all just business at the end of the day as business goes. Re the directors, I am not so sure the nationalities of the directors are as relevant as they would have been a few decades ago whereby their allegiance is increasingly selling ‘the company’ to the top bidder. Hence the nested buyouts (sellouts?) to ‘maximise investor value’, yet there are various national rules in place, from place to place to make companies ‘domestic’.
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It is a publically listed US company…
https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=AVGO&subView=institutional
The above website shows the 10 top shareholders. It isn’t a company owned by the Chinese Company Huawei. Broadcom Inc had technology development partnership with Huawei, which was squashed by the Trump administration. This should not be confused with ownership.
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My resource did not suggest it was, but thanks for clarifying it for the OP. Business is business, and companies can be domesticated in multiple ways. None of this is to suggest Broadcom is sus in its own rights.
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Yes, it is as @PhilT illustrated not that straight forward a task to distinguish the ownership, interested parties, or potential state actors for a product. It’s all clear as …… ‘the yellow brown flood waters flowing through the back yard this morning’? Not to worry, but the absence of the ducks today suggest it’s too much even for them.
A further observation re Norton consumer products.
My read of the history was Symantec rebranded to NortonLifeLock when splitting off the ‘Enterprise’ security side and Symantec business name to Broadcom. The personal internet security products were not included in the sale. NortonLifeLock is independent of Broadcom.
Per the Wikipedia link @phb provided, Wikipedia needs a clarification or reference to the split up of Symantec, to avoid confusion.
Symantec enterprise security(Editing Broadcom Inc. - Wikipedia)
Broadcom operates its enterprise security business under the Symantec brand; Broadcom purchased this business from NortonLifeLock (formerly known as Symantec) in 2019.[50]This includes various more specifically named products and services such as Symantec Security Response.
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It is a bit confusing and there is inconsistent information online (and some conspiracy type websites providing even more ‘reliable’ disinformation).
Say it is still part of the Independent Lifelock Inc company, this again is a US listed company (Fortune 500 and a US publicly listed company) and not owned by the Chinese or Huawei.
Edit: looking at licence agreements, it confirms it is part of Lifelock. Lifelock has no relationship with Huawei or is owned by the Chinese. Symantec the original owner of Norton, has been acquired by Broadcom and is removed from/ independent of any Norton AV product.
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Who cares about who owns what with these various security products?
The free versions simply do not protect your computer properly, burrow into the operating system and run in privileged mode that only the OS kernel should be allowed to do, usually detect each other as security threats, and run as ‘pesterware’ continuously bugging you to upgrade to a paid version that you have to keep on renewing.
I have thrown them all out, and just use what comes built into Windows OS with Windows Security.
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I need a new internet security company. For years used Kaspersky, but am getting too many adverts for sex aids, sex brides, etc and fed up.
Any suggestions please?
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Paid subscription or free?
Assume it’s for Windows?
Choice has a review,
We’ve multiple windows devices and use a multi license version of Norton 360. All run Windows 8.1 except one stuck on 7. The automated backups are useful when not all of us are that interested in the maintenance or care of our PC’s. The later versions of Windows come with a reasonable set of tools and protections as others have/will suggest. Possibly a little more hands on than an all in one suite.
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Via email? While surfing the web? In social media?
On a smartphone? On a desktop / laptop?
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