Norton Neo

When people think of antivirus suites , Norton is one of the first things that comes to mind. But Norton isn't just about keeping dangerous malware out of your system. Instead, it's made a big push into the browser world with Norton Neo, a Chromium-based browser that comes with AI features.

 

Neo actually has some advantages that might make you consider choosing it over another AI browser.

Things People Like About Norton Neo

Let's start with the pros, because Neo has some useful features that many people love to use.

Magic Box

 

First up is the landing page, which Neo calls the workspace. It's clean and focused right down to the central search and control area, which Norton calls the Magic Box. The Magic Box is an 'AI command center' that combines search, AI chatbots, and more into a single search bar. It automatically contextualizes your requests (most of the time) and delivers appropriate responses.

Smart tab groups keep things organized

Norton Neo's smart tab grouping feature is also a plus. It's reminiscent of Opera's Tab Islands feature, which automatically groups similar tabs together to keep the browser organized. This isn't the normal way some people work, which means losing tabs they thought they had open. Neo has done a good job of organizing them. The smart tab grouping feature is easy to turn off if you don't like it.

Peek and Summary is an improvement

Peek and Summary gives you an overview of a link in two ways: As a preview before opening the link, or in Neo's contextual chat bar.

The idea is pretty cool. When you use anchors to filter through a series of results, it means you can quickly process information and skip unnecessary links that don't find the desired results or vice versa. It simplifies searching the internet, which we all agree is a good thing.

Fast and secure

Norton Neo is fast. It feels snappy when moving between tabs, smart tab management is quick and responsive, and the browser feels good to use. It feels very different from the last time you tried Norton Antivirus, that's for sure.

It scored 24.1 on Browser Bench's Speedometer 3.0 test, which is pretty good. A freshly installed Firefox scored 21, and Neo's score is only a few notches below the ultra-lightweight browser we tested, Helium.

 

It also doesn't eat up as much memory as you'd expect, at least compared to any other Chromium-based browser. Chrome is known to be a real "monster" when it comes to memory consumption, but you won't have any such issues on Neo.

Disadvantages of Norton Neo browser

These features are why you probably won't use Neo anymore.

While Neo's Magic Box is useful, it's just a Generative AI chatbot , no different than using ChatGPT or Claude in the browser. It's not as polished or integrated as Perplexity's Comet, and has to worry about Opera's fully interactive AI browser, Neon.

On this point, it also fails one of the most basic AI prompts that can be used to test AI chatbots. The first is the classic circle sorting problem, which it incorrectly gives as Emily.

Alan, Bob, Colin, Dave and Emily are standing in a circle. Alan is to the left of Bob. Bob is to the left of Colin. Colin is to the left of Dave. Dave is to the left of Emily. Who is to the right of Alan?

 

But then it correctly answered the classic Russian roulette probability problem.

You are playing Russian roulette with a six-shot revolver. Your opponent loads five bullets, spins the cylinder, and shoots himself. Pulls the trigger—misses. He gives you a choice: Spin before firing, or don't. What do you choose?

The issue is clearly illusory and completely fake information. The author asked Norton Neo to find some specific information on MakeUseOf so that it could highlight one of the features in the previous section (preview and overlay). Instead, it responded with no information from the MUO articles and generated a URL as a reference.

Neo isn't alone in doing this. AI illusion is a big problem, although other chatbots have made great strides in ensuring these basic queries are answered without issue. But seeing Neo do this with such a basic query makes many people nervous about using it for anything else.

This brings up another issue many people have with Neo: Why not disclose the AI ​​model being used so we can better understand its capabilities? It could be one of the mainstream open source models like Llama or Mistral, but some clearer indication of the AI ​​model would be helpful. It's also not an Agentic AI browser, which is something most browser developers are pushing for automation and productivity, which is also something acafn considers. This isn't necessarily a downside, as Agentic AI browsers are still a niche application compared to the general use of AI in browsers.

Norton Neo better than expected

Norton Neo unfortunately launched at the same time as Perplexity's Comet browser , which for most people is the current gold standard for AI browsers. It's fully integrated with its own search engine, has tons of customization, and is incredibly easy to navigate. At the time of writing, the company has just announced that its browser is now free for everyone.

From the title and introduction, you can also see that there are serious concerns about Norton Neo. You are not the only one who is skeptical about Norton building an AI-based browser.

But it's worth admitting that things are slowly getting back to normal, as Neo is generally pretty good. Over time, its built-in AI will continue to improve, and current useful features like browser tabs and Peek will improve as well.