Norton Toolbar Disappeared: A Step by Step Guide to Fix It

I often rely on the articles here on Bright Hub, which can help me fix Norton products and learn more about their anti-virus suites, such as Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security and Norton 360. One of the top questions often received at Bright Hub is what you should do if the Norton toolbar disappeared?

Some of us may not even realize where any toolbar appears on our screen, let alone the Norton toolbar. If you look at the screenshot below, you will see an Internet Explorer toolbar. This is what you see at the top of your computer screen once connected to the Internet, no matter what browser you use (click on the image to enlarge).

Getting the Norton Toolbar Back: From IE Toolbar

In the screenshot below, you’ll see what the Norton toolbar looks like. From the Norton toolbar you can do just about anything your Norton version offers, but what if the Norton toolbar has disappeared?

Instead of hitting, “start” and then searching through the “all programs” to find the Symantec Norton program on your computer, you can easily do the following:

1. Place your mouse cursor on the grey toolbar (anywhere will do) as shown in the screenshot below.
2. Right-click anywhere on the toolbar. A menu appears that includes options such as menu bars, toolbars, etc. If you have installed Norton on your computer, the words “Norton toolbar” will appear here and all you need to do is click on those words and the toolbar will reappear.

Getting the Norton Toolbar Back: System Tray

Often, instead of using options on the top toolbar when Internet Explorer is open, you can also do a quick fix if your Norton toolbar disappeared from the system tray if you are not connected to the Internet. The system tray is on the bottom right of your computer screen where the current time appears. You can also retrieve your Norton toolbar from here:

• Right click on the system tray.
• The top choice should be “toolbars.”
• Click on “toolbars” to see if you can reset your Norton toolbar in from your system tray.
• If you can’t, click on “new toolbar.”
• A new toolbar window will open up and you can choose the Symantec Norton program to re-enable your Norton toolbar.

If either of these don’t work, you can also browse your program files for Norton, find the “Options” or “Settings” folder and enable the Norton toolbar.

Getting the Norton Toolbar Back: Firefox Problems

Many people have complained that the Norton toolbar disappeared after installing 2010 updates in Firefox. If this occurs, Norton has provided the following steps to reinstall the Norton toolbar (click on the screenshot to enlarge).

There are many ways to reinstall the Norton toolbar if it has disappeared. If any of these fixes don’t work, you can browse help topics in the Norton Community or find out the features of Norton 2010, right here on Bright Hub including how to install Norton along with some other Norton fixes such as how to close down the Norton Protection Center.

Screenshots by author courtesy of (Symantec)