Norton Zone beta: Symantec’s Dropbox killer file-sharing service launched
Security vendor Symantec finally took the wraps off a secret project we weren’t allowed to report from June’s Next@Norton event. A secure file-sharing service that takes Dropbox head-on, Symantec’s Norton Zone allows users to safely access, sync and share content on several devices through the cloud.
Norton Zone from Symantec lets you share and sync photos, videos and document files from any Windows PC, Apple iMac or MacBook, Android and iOS device. At the beta launch of the file-sharing service, Symantec claimed that Norton Zone protects all files during and after transfer to its cloud servers through an SSL connection to ensure your shared files remain safe all the time.
Norton Zone features
Apart from merely letting you share content securely across devices (through the Internet), Norton Zone offers some interesting features.
Norton Zone users’ shared files are also backed up remotely on Symantec’s servers to always have a copy of the file, in case a device is lost or breaks down. You can recover that data from Norton Zone’s cloud backup any time. At the time of writing this article, Symantec didn’t mention how much cloud storage space is allocated for each user account.
All the files shared through a Norton Zone account are scanned for viruses and malware through its own antivirus engine, claims Symantec. This ensures that all files shared through Norton Zone are clean and safe to work with at any given time.
Symantec also claims that Norton Zone lets you share links of your photos and videos on Facebook – and disable it any time. Norton Zone users can also control how long or how many times a shared file can be accessed via a secure link. Symantec didn’t share details of how this works exactly, but it’s a nice feature for people who are concerned about posting on Facebook.
Norton Zone also allows files to be shared between its users, and ensures that files worked on collaboratively are kept up-to-date in all these user accounts, across all devices. The free beta version of Norton Zone keeps track of all file versions for a span of 90 days, according to Symantec.
Norton Zone is accessible as a free, limited public beta secure file-sharing service by visiting www.nortonzone.com and registering for a free account. The fully featured version of Norton Zone is slated for release next year.