Norton 360 'anti' virus installs cryptominer

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https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/05/norton-360-antivirus-installs-a-crypto-miner-on-pcs/

Over the past month or so, we have seen a rise of bloatware added to Microsoft Edge. If you thought that was bad, wait till you hear this. Norton 360 is installing a crypto miner on users computers, it's called Norton Crypto

I thought antivirus was supposed to be against bloatware adware and other unwanted software, not come bundled with it.
This would be bad even if we disregarded that cryptomining is unsustainable.

They have the gall topresent this as a feature even. The ultimate scam, install a crypto miner silently on millions of unsuspecting PCs, and then take a chunk of the proceeds.
 
To be frank, anybody who still installs Norton's "security" suite in this day and age deserve what they get.

Yeah, I mean, Norton's best days have been long behind it for quite some years (like 15+?) but this is a new low.

I think the only people who use it today are older folks who remember the name and trust it from the 80's and 90's not realizing that the company is a shell of its former self.
 
Yeah, I mean, Norton's best days have been long behind it for quite some years (like 15+?) but this is a new low.

I think the only people who use it today are older folks who remember the name and trust it from the 80's and 90's not realizing that the company is a shell of its former self.
Or people who buy laptops and pre-builts that come with it installed and an introductory subscription. Normies think that they need to keep it to stay protected from malware.
 
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/05/norton-360-antivirus-installs-a-crypto-miner-on-pcs/



I thought antivirus was supposed to be against bloatware adware and other unwanted software, not come bundled with it.
This would be bad even if we disregarded that cryptomining is unsustainable.

They have the gall topresent this as a feature even. The ultimate scam, install a crypto miner silently on millions of unsuspecting PCs, and then take a chunk of the proceeds.
Requirements: GPU with 6GB card.
So it's mining Ethereum or something like it.
Need to rebrand to "Norton 360 virus."

Haven't used AV software ever, because it ends up slowing down the PC nearly as much as an actual virus. Offline and/or open-source anti-malware programs only thing anyone should use.
Also, who wants to have a program scan and document every file on your computer? Anyone with Windows 10+ non-pro, I guess.
 
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Get ready for more software to use compute power without the user knowing. It'll happen as crypto goes mainstream, which will normalize the practice and make it more enticing for OEMs and integrators to bundle into prebuilts (I imagine prebuilts & laptops are the only reason Norton still exists).
 
They had to find something to do since their lawsuits against Microsoft have gotten them nowhere, I am not at all surprised to hear that their bloat is now 100% intentional would not be surprised to see a class action pop up around this one. I struggle to remember a time when Norton actually did a good job, if I wasn't convinced that their "researchers" are the ones releasing half the bad crap out there into the wild before, I sure as shit would be now, especially if they are getting into this sort of crap.

Norton's bread and butter customers are those too old to know better and remember when Norton was the go-to for computer security, at this stage they wouldn't notice it working in the background, likely wouldn't know how to detect it, and at best would be able to call their grandkids on how to fix it, to only reply with "But I just paid for it" when they tell them to remove it.
 
Get ready for more software to use compute power without the user knowing. It'll happen as crypto goes mainstream, which will normalize the practice and make it more enticing for OEMs and integrators to bundle into prebuilts (I imagine prebuilts & laptops are the only reason Norton still exists).

Man, the sooner Crypto just dies all together, the better.

It literally has no redeeming qualities, and only creates problems.
 
People still use anti-virus software? They cause more problems than anything else.

Tons of companies still rock huge subscriptions to Norton and McAfee. I remember talking about this with one of my old company's IT people and the dumb things users do would astound you. McAfee at least kept random users from tanking the entire system. That's not to say that the built-in/free Windows Defender might not do the same thing, though.
 
Tanking system resources wasn't enough with just the anti-virus? The systems with this would be unusable. Say what you want Apple but they are the only system manufacturer that doesn't allow this crap on their systems.
 
Tanking system resources wasn't enough with just the anti-virus? The systems with this would be unusable. Say what you want Apple but they are the only system manufacturer that doesn't allow this crap on their systems.

Its the age old tradeoff between freedom and control.

Control can accomplish some impressive things, and freedom can be messy, but wouldn't you rather have freedom?
 
Just think about how much extra power is used from a billion devices running auto protect keeping CPU cores out of low power state to do what's the equivalent of washing windows over and over again. (the ones you look through not the popular OS hehe!)
 
I think the word "Norton" left my psyche in 1999. I was an Avast user up until a few years ago when we found out the shady stuff they were getting involved in. Now I just use the Windows built in anti-virus software, which honestly seems to be pretty good from what I've been able to tell. No need for the extra overhead.
 
Corona says no
Well, I don't want to make this thread political, but a free society can impose measures of control through democratic means without being dictatorial.

I don't think most people would consider short term measures in response to a crisis to be a failure of freedom. Freedom is great, but the devil is in the details, and absolutes of any kind are usually problematic.

The key to a free society is to allow its citizens through political expression to find the right balance. That level of self governance is the key. It also means you don't always get exactly what you want, because you have to work with other people, but it is still a free society compared to - say - Stalinist Russia.
 
Everyone has a different idea where that line should be drawn.
 
That's cool, as long as you can disable the feature I don't see what's wrong with exposing your grandparents to Crypto. Hopefully you guys are buying as much Crypto on the current downtrend as you can afford. ;)
 
That's cool, as long as you can disable the feature I don't see what's wrong with exposing your grandparents to Crypto. Hopefully you guys are buying as much Crypto on the current downtrend as you can afford. ;)
I don't think an anti-virus program should be a mining platform as well. If anything it should be an option in the install menu so people can choose not to install it.
 
That's cool, as long as you can disable the feature I don't see what's wrong with exposing your grandparents to Crypto. Hopefully you guys are buying as much Crypto on the current downtrend as you can afford. ;)

I'd argue it is dangerous to expose old people who barely understand computers to something as violently unstable as crypto.

And no. I own no crypto. Not now, haven't ever, and never will. I hope it dies in a fire.

I've been watching SEC vs. Ripple closely, and I hope SEC crushes them. Even if they don't, you bet SEC won't stop pushing until they can regulate all of crypto as securities. It is only a matter of time.
 
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I'd argue it is dangerous to expose old people who barely understand computers to something as violently unstable as crypto.
My immediate thought was "oh, so these dodgy old machines with vents almost completely blocked are now going to run full tilt instead of mostly low power modes."

I see no way this could go wrong.
 
Two things. It's pure evil.
Second, why am I getting a Mandela effect here? I swear I've read this before (years back) and it was also regarding one of the more retarded AV products.
And as far as AV goes, the problem is now much, much worse and we're beyond AV.
 
That's cool, as long as you can disable the feature I don't see what's wrong with exposing your grandparents to Crypto. Hopefully you guys are buying as much Crypto on the current downtrend as you can afford. ;)
I never owned any cryptocurrency and never will, crypto is the ultimate form of technological suicide a civilization can commit. Musk and the likes fearmonger about AI, but the real danger is blockchain as it uses so much resources for self perpetuation that it is a doomsday weapon. The more crypto and nfts become mainstream the more resources it will use and less will remain for producing actual goods. The entire idea should've been squashed in its infancy.
 
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Yeah, I mean, Norton's best days have been long behind it for quite some years (like 15+?) but this is a new low.

I think the only people who use it today are older folks who remember the name and trust it from the 80's and 90's not realizing that the company is a shell of its former self.
On the consumer side, Norton Anti-Virus has basically been malware since the late 1990's.
 
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On the consumer side, Norton Anti-Virus has basically been malware since the late 1990's.

Yeah, I was being generous. I never used Norton AV but I did use Norton Commander and Norton Utilities (Disk Doctor, Speed Disk, etc.) in the late 80's and early 90's during my DOS days. I probably stopped that in the mid to late 90's some time. I didn't realize they went to shit right away after that.
 
People still use anti-virus software? They cause more problems than anything else.
Windows Defender doesn’t do jack for ransomware, and although you can turn on ransomware protection manually in Windows, it is a huge PITA. Although Defender is way better than it used to be, it’s not quite good enough by itself.

As for Norton, it’s always been a steaming pile. I remember helping someone because their printer wouldn’t print. Turns out Norton kept flagging the print spooler as a virus. Removed Norton and all was well.
 
Windows Defender doesn’t do jack for ransomware, and although you can turn on ransomware protection manually in Windows, it is a huge PITA. Although Defender is way better than it used to be, it’s not quite good enough by itself.

As for Norton, it’s always been a steaming pile. I remember helping someone because their printer wouldn’t print. Turns out Norton kept flagging the print spooler as a virus. Removed Norton and all was well.

I don't really do any browsing on Windows anymore. All of that is in Linux for me.

I'll usually give something a Defender scan, and if it is unusually sketchy (like a download from a site that is not an official company site) I may even check it on VirusTotal, but that's about it for me.

On occasion I'll run a scan of my Windows drives using ClamAV from Linux, but that is about it.
 
Standard Crypto M.O. parting fools from their money while claiming to solve a non-problem.
 
Yeah, I was being generous. I never used Norton AV but I did use Norton Commander and Norton Utilities (Disk Doctor, Speed Disk, etc.) in the late 80's and early 90's during my DOS days. I probably stopped that in the mid to late 90's some time. I didn't realize they went to shit right away after that.
The utilities were still decent for a time after that. However, the anti-virus was trash on the consumer side by around 1996-1997. I was working at as a computer technician in those days and had to fix tons of machines that were screwed up because of Norton AV. In the IT world, I've dealt with issues almost as long although, it's a far better product on the commercial side and remains so to this day. I'm not saying its good or that its better than anything else. Far from it, SEP/DCS has caused me issues for years. All I'm saying is that it isn't the complete waste of disk space that the consumer stuff is.
 
Flashback time. Wow, I really don't miss the days where norton disk doctor was something which was actually very useful, because DOS/FAT.

Also, secretly miss those days in a cathartic way. My lowmem was a thing to behold.
Norton Disk Doctor was probably the single utility that remained useful for the longest out of that pack. Also, I used Norton Ghost for quite some time after that. Separate utility, and I'm not talking about the windows crap but rather the bootable disc utility. It was fantastic
 
Norton Disk Doctor was probably the single utility that remained useful for the longest out of that pack. Also, I used Norton Ghost for quite some time after that. Separate utility, and I'm not talking about the windows crap but rather the bootable disc utility. It was fantastic

I used Ghost for a little bit after that as well, but I quickly switched to Clonezilla, but I don't even use that anymore. These days I just boot from an Ubuntu or Mint live image, resize partitions in Gparted, and make and write images using dd. it winds up just being easier than any special purpose stuff.
 
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