Norton 360 & Avira add Cryptomining Feature

andrewlen

andrewlen

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I first learned of this at another forum and decided to check it out for myself.

Norton 360 Antivirus Now Mines Cryptocurrency

Avira Adds Crypto Mining Software to Cybersecurity Solution

"Two NortonLifeLock antivirus products now include cryptocurrency mining software that skims 15% off the top."
Click to expand...

Norton 360 does not appear to offer a free trial, (must first be purchased and then refunded) so I've been unable to test that suite.

Avira on the other hand does so I installed their full security suite on one of my Windows 10 Test VPNs.

I was unable to find a crypto mining activating option in Avira and am unsure if that's because I installed it to a virtual machine or not, or because I hadn't purchased it yet. The latter case would be even more disturbing to me.

I personally dislike any software bundling and consider it a bad idea as a rule, (particularly driver updaters etc) but the idea of any cyber security product bundling crypto mining software is (to me anyway) outrageous.

What are your thoughts?

Does anyone here have any more info about this latest development that they can share links to?

Best, Andrew
 
Just confirms what I suspect most of us already expected ...... this is a rip off ...... period.
 
Oh yes, agreed in spades Gary.

I was already aware of the exorbitant 15% fee involved in using it, but the revelations about its poor performance were particularly eye-opening for me. That, along with the product continuing to default to blocking other (more efficient) crypto mining solutions while only allowing its own, was also very interesting.

I'm curious if the Avira product will be the same, but with no means of testing it without a purchase, I can only assume it's likely to be the same story because that, too, is also owned by Nortons.

I've never been a big fan of Norton solutions and have removed even the AV from countless computers over the years because of the negative performance hit they caused. This, though, takes it to a whole new level.

I can't even begin to fathom the additional damage Nortons have done to their already poor reputation by introducing this latest so-called 'feature'.

Amazing!
 
I too have long had the habit of recommending to people that they remove Norton's products from their machines, and this latest venture of theirs only convinces me even more that I was right to do so.

Avast are another company whose products I recommend people to uninstall, but nor for as long. Until fairly recently they weren't as resource hogging, and as unreliable as they now appear to be, and you can only assume that it's the fact that they're now owned by the same people as Norton, and that it is that which has caused this deterioration.

As has been said already by others, as it is legal, offering people the option to Crypto Mine, though wasteful of power, and to my mind of no real value to the world, is not a problem, so long as the installation and running of the mining software is 100% user's choice, which in the case of both Norton and Avast it is not.

In any case, the full ramifications of running such software should be explained in detail, so that users make their decisions based on fact, and not the fiction that they're currently being fed.
 

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