AdGuard vs Norton

AdGuard filters ads and trackers locally on your device so it never sees your browsing history, stores only an email address and password hash for account creation, keeps all personal data in its own data center in Frankfurt, names only payment processors as third-party recipients, and commits to emailing users before material policy changes — the main caveats are Cyprus jurisdiction, vague data retention periods, and a main policy that defers heavily to separate per-product privacy notices for the specifics of each platform.

Norton (Gen Digital) collects some of the most sensitive personal data of any consumer service — Social Security numbers, bank account details, driver's licence numbers, and mother's maiden name for LifeLock identity monitoring — while simultaneously running a targeted advertising business that shares user, device, and website data with advertising partners; network traffic and screen activity are monitored for security purposes; and data flows broadly across Gen Digital's corporate group, distributors, resellers, marketing partners, and analytics providers, all retained for vaguely defined periods.