Buying

Licences, seats and subscriptions explained

The vocabulary of paying for security software, and the Australian consumer rights that sit behind it. Most complaints in this category are not about detection — they are about renewal, device counts and refunds.

A security product is sold under two documents that people rarely read together: a licence, which says what you may do with the software, and a subscription, which says what you pay and when. Confusing them is the root of several common surprises, so it is worth separating them before anything else.

Licence and subscription are not the same thing

The licence

Permission to use the software, on stated terms: how many devices, whether use is personal or commercial, and what you may not do. It is a grant of permission, not ownership of the software.

The subscription

The commercial arrangement that keeps that permission alive: a term, a price, and a renewal mechanism. When it lapses, the licence normally lapses with it, and the software usually continues to launch while ceasing to receive definition updates — which is the state in which it is least useful and easiest not to notice.

The seat

One device covered under that licence. A "five device" subscription is five seats. Seat counts are usually enforced by the vendor's account system: installing on a sixth device generally means signing out of one of the first five rather than being silently allowed or silently blocked.

Counting seats before, not after

Count the devices that will actually be covered, including those belonging to household members who will never think about the subscription again. Then check two details that seat counts alone do not settle.

The first is whether platforms are interchangeable. Some subscriptions allow any mix of Windows, macOS, Android and iOS devices up to the seat count; others allocate seats by platform. The second is what happens to a device that is replaced. Removing an old device from the account is usually a manual step, and a household that has replaced two phones without doing it can find its seats exhausted while the devices actually in use appear unprotected.

Automatic renewal

Nearly every subscription in this category renews automatically. The arrangement is not objectionable in itself — it prevents protection lapsing unnoticed — but three details decide whether it is a problem later, and all three are worth finding before purchase.

1. The renewal price. Introductory pricing is standard, and the renewal figure is frequently higher and stated in the subscription terms rather than beside the advertised price.
2. The renewal date and notice. When the charge falls, and whether the vendor sends advance notice. An email address that has gone stale is a common reason the notice is never seen.
3. The cancellation route. Whether it is a switch in the account area or a request to support, and whether cancelling stops the next charge or ends access immediately.

Where a subscription is paid through an app store rather than directly to the vendor, cancellation happens in the store's subscription settings, and the vendor cannot cancel it for you. Where it was bought directly, the vendor's account area is the place. Knowing which of the two applies is worth establishing at the time of purchase.

Australian consumer guarantees

Software bought in Australia is covered by the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law. These apply automatically, and a vendor's terms cannot remove them — a term purporting to exclude them does not take effect merely because it was agreed to.

In outline, goods and services supplied to consumers must match their description, be fit for any purpose made known to the supplier, and be supplied with due care and skill. What follows when a guarantee is not met depends on how serious the failure is, and remedies range from a repair or replacement to a refund. The ACCC sets this out in its guidance on consumer rights and guarantees, which is the authoritative description and worth reading directly rather than through anyone's summary.

Two limits are worth stating honestly, because overstating consumer rights helps nobody. The guarantees do not cover simply changing your mind about a purchase; any cooling-off or satisfaction period beyond them is a vendor's own policy, which is why it is worth checking what that policy says before subscribing. And a product performing as described but not as you hoped is a different situation from a product failing to do what it was sold as doing.

What to keep

• The order confirmation, with the price and the term stated.
• The subscription terms as they were at the time of purchase, saved rather than bookmarked.
• The renewal date, in whatever calendar you actually use.
• Which account or app store the subscription sits under.
• The address the vendor sends notices to, checked against an address you still read.

What lapsing actually means

When a subscription ends, the usual outcome is that the software stops receiving definition and program updates while continuing to run. A scanner in that state still matches everything it knew on the day it stopped updating, and knows nothing after it — which is close to the least useful configuration available, and is easy to leave in place for months because nothing visibly breaks.

On Windows, the built-in protection generally reactivates when a third-party product is removed or expires, though the timing is not always immediate and is worth confirming in the security settings rather than assuming. A device left with an expired third-party product installed and the built-in protection still disabled is the case worth checking for.

How this applies to the product covered here

Norton AntiVirus Plus is the product Paramount Works has a commercial relationship with. The affiliate listing this site works from states the product name, the antivirus category, and the device types covered — mobile, desktop and tablet. It states nothing about seat counts, term lengths, renewal pricing in Australian dollars, or cancellation. Those are exactly the items this page recommends establishing before purchase, and the vendor's own subscription terms are the only current source for them.

Visit the Norton AntiVirus Plus website

Advertising link: if you subscribe after following it, the vendor's affiliate programme pays CleanSmov spol. s.r.o. a commission. The price you pay is the vendor's price either way. See the affiliate disclosure.

For the technical vocabulary that appears alongside these commercial terms, see the glossary; for deciding whether to subscribe at all, see choosing antivirus software in Australia.