Norton VPN's latest fleet of upgrades gives users more control and faster connections

Norton has long been known for its antivirus support, with its VPN offering less widely recognized. However, Norton VPN has spent 2025 putting in the work to stop this from being the case, and is capping off the year by adding a fleet of new features to its VPN.

From new server additions and improved P2P support to two new OpenVPN protocols and a first-ever third-party audit of its Mimic protocol, Norton VPN is pushing forward in its quest to rival some of the best VPNs on the market.

The VPN service has already made many significant changes to its service this year, many of which we commended in our Norton VPN review. These latest upgrades aim to give users better control over their VPN connection, as well as offering more servers, stronger protocols, and verified privacy tools.

Expanding and upgrading its network

One of the biggest signs a VPN is dedicated to improving is regular additions to its server network.

Norton VPN already had a fairly impressive collection of servers and locations, but this latest rollout has imporved it futher thanks to:

• New 25 Gbps servers in New York (US), Chicago (US), Ashburn (US), London (UK), Frankfurt (DE), Tokyo (JP) and Sydney (AUS).
• 5 new P2P-optimised cities – New York (US), San Jose (US), Madrid (SP), Tokyo (JP), and Sydney (AUS).
• 1 new virtual location in India. It’s worth noting that since a change of law in 2022, VPN operators with physical servers in India are required to log and store customer data such as IP addresses, names, and usage duration for at least 5 years. Of course, all the most secure VPNs, including Norton VPN, have therefore decided to move out of the country and offer a virtual server instead.
• 1 new server location in Berlin, Germany.

It’s worth noting that although Norton VPN’s 3,400+ servers in 106 locations across 67 countries don’t quite rival the likes of CyberGhost (8,000+ servers across 168 locations in 129 countries), Surfshark (4,500+ servers across 142 locations in 100 countries), or ExpressVPN (3,000+ servers across 188 locations in 108 countries), it still gives you plenty of options everywhere in the world, from the Americas and Europe to Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.

More control and faster connections

Encryption protocols form the backbone of any VPN service, with ideally a variety of them needed to offer users the flexibility to tune their VPN experience as per their needs – and that’s exactly what Norton VPN has worked on.

The provider has rolled out two new OpenVPN encryption protocols: OpenVPN User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and OpenVPN Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

UDP is a connectionless protocol that sends packets without waiting for confirmation, so it increases speed and reduces latency. This makes it ideal for instances where you want to prioritize speed over the reliability of TCP, such as gaming, streaming, and VoIP.

TCP, on the other hand, checks every packet and delivers data in the correct order, making the connection more reliable. This extra overhead, though, comes at the cost of speed, making it ideal for situations when you’re looking for stability over speed, such as web browsing, email, file transfers, and downloads.

Mimic protocol completes first third-party audit

Mimic, Norton VPN’s proprietary VPN protocol, has undergone its first independent third-party audit, and has passed it with flying colors.

The audit was undertaken by VerSprite, who found that the overall technical risk and privacy impact was “none,” meaning Mimic has no weaknesses or exploitable vulnerabilities. Plus, they didn’t find any logging behaviors, so you can rest assured Mimic doesn’t store or share any private data.

Additionally, Mimic’s latest version now supports quantum-resistant ciphersuites, making Norton VPN a go-to choice if you want to stay protected against Q-day – the day when quantum computers become advanced enough to break regular encryption methods such as RSA and AES-256.

Finally, Norton VPN has also made improvements to its VPN obfuscation, reducing the likelihood of VPN detection. This makes it ideal for use in regions such as China or Russia, where VPN usage is highly regulated or blocked.