Norton 360 Now Comes With a Cryptominer
Norton 360, one of the most popular antivirus products on the market today, has installed a cryptocurrency mining program on its customers’ computers. Norton’s parent firm says the cloud-based service that activates the program and allows customers to profit from the scheme — in which the company keeps 15 percent of any currencies mined — is “opt-in,” meaning users have to agree to enable it. But many Norton users complain the mining program is difficult to remove, and reactions from longtime customers have ranged from unease and disbelief to, “Dude, where’s my crypto?”
Yes, really. My guess is that with most GPUs and electricity providers this would not even be profitable for the user.
See also: Bruce Schneier.
Previously:
- Calendar 2 App Could Mine Crypto-Currency in Lieu of IAP
- Avast Anti-Virus False Positives for Apps That Use Swift
- The Ridiculous Amount of Energy It Takes to Run Bitcoin
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> My guess is that with most GPUs and electricity providers this would not even be profitable for the user.
This. But the users that are going to enable are also the users least likely to understand this fact.
Everyone realizes eventually that it's time to give up on Norton products. Hopefully, this will cause a /lot/ of people to get the idea.
Antivirus companies have found a way to make their product wastefully drain your battery even faster than before - film at 11.
All the more reason to just use Microsoft's built in antivirus (on windows). I feel pity for windows users who have been gulled into using anything else.
