Posted on 01/11/2022 5:23:29 AM PST by ShadowAce
Norton has an interesting feature tucked inside its Norton 360 antivirus subscription—a cryptocurrency miner. It’s not turned on by default, but it is installed as part of your antivirus package whether you want it or not.
The crypto-miner actually rolled out in July 2021 to some users, but the company has started a wider rollout recently. Some users are upset because the mining software is installed automatically as part of Norton 360, and the software pushes mining on users through a prompt that says, “Turn your PC’s idle time into cash,” as shown in the image above.
Thankfully, you have to turn the feature on and meet Norton’s strict system requirements (an NVIDIA graphics card with a minimum of 6GB memory will be the main sticking point for most). However, there doesn’t appear to be a way to completely uninstall the crypto mining software, which has upset some users.
NortonNorton says it made its crypto mining software because it “allows the customers to mine for Ethereum, a popular cryptocurrency, more safely during their PC’s idle time. They will operate within a “pool” of Norton Crypto miners, delivering greater efficiencies and enabling all users to share in the rewards.” Essentially, Norton believes this is a safer way to mine Ethereum than other methods.
Of course, Norton isn’t offering this mining service out of the kindness of its heart. The company charges a high 15% fee off the top and an additional fee to transfer your currency to another wallet, so the company stands to make decent money off of its mining tool.
There’s nothing malicious happening here, but users are never thrilled when they get a piece of software to do one thing (in this case, protect their PCs), and it adds something else without their permission. With that said, as long as it’s not turned on by default and Norton is upfront about it, the company isn’t technically doing anything wrong.
Update, 1/7/22 11:22 am Eastern: A Norton spokesperson reached out to us with clarification regarding the ability to remove the feature and how the fees work:Norton Crypto is an opt-in feature only and is not enabled without user permission. If users have turned on Norton Crypto but no longer wish to use the feature, it can be disabled through Norton 360 by temporarily shutting off “tamper protection” (which allows users to modify the Norton installation) and deleting NCrypt.exe from your computer.
There is a coin mining fee to use Norton Crypto, but we do not charge users transaction fees once the cryptocurrency is mined. The transaction fee that users may see is the traditional Etherium network fee that is associated with digital currency movement, and not paid to NortonLifeLock.
I did the same thing for my wife. Not Manjaro, though.
My laptop came with Linux already installed.
Good for you! Very few have the courage to do that. Take a brand new out of the box PC and wipe it and install Linux. I do and have done it several times now. And was absolutely happy to put my trust in Linux because it just works and removes all the MS issues from the get go. I think most are worried about the warranty, but I have no clue why they continue to drag around that MS ball and chain after the warranty is up...
“My laptop came with Linux already installed.”
Do you mind sharing there you sourced that Ace?
Cool! Thank you so much sir! Sounds like they need some more business thrown their way! :)
How do you like the default Pop OS? Just ubuntu under the hood right? Curios question? Can you right click the tool panel and move it to the bottom if you like?
Pop!_OS is OK. It is a variant of Ubuntu, like you mentioned. I installed KDE, though, and use that as my DE. I find it easier to use.
Thank you! :)
If you are interested in it, it will run under a VM. Just DL it from their website. That way, you can try it before you buy the hardware.
Yes... Absolutely, was looking at that. I will install it to an external portable full OS drive and test drive it. :)
I would like more information on this. I use Discord as an Internet radio broadcast platform. I have suspected shenanigans for a little while.
Norton hasn’t made anything worth paying for since Peter Norton left in search of greener pastures.
I will PM you with what happened to me and how I found it.
It has always been hard to fully uninstall Norton to begin with. Now you are making them money using your electricity.
That would be very much appreciated.👍 Thanks!
Norton Utilities was the BEST (and most powerful) you could get back in the DOS days.
It went off a cliff when Peter Norton sold him company :P
I haven’t used it since.
**him=his**... DOH!
I thought you prefer Fedora..?!
Any DE NOT KDE irritates the heck out of me :P
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.