News Norton Added Ethereum Mining Capabilities to Its Antivirus Software

[Admin]

Norton has invited members of its early adopter program to mine Ethereum with its upcoming Norton Crypto feature.

Norton Added Ethereum Mining Capabilities to Its Antivirus Software : Read more

 

[Phaaze88]

*hysterical laughing ensues

Oh, this one's JUICY.

 

[spongiemaster]

Agreed, I actually laughed at this one.

Just a public service announcement to those that think crypto is going away anytime soon.

 

[zodiacfml]

What a copy of poor value Nicehash software. These two mining software is terrible for mining. Inefficient and reduces the reliability of the graphics card

 

[Rookie_MIB]

First - we already know Norton slows down your system horribly with just the AV software. How well is it going to be able to actually mine?!?

Second - we wonder why (and see) legit mining software get flagged as infections even when we install it deliberately. Does anyone see this getting better or worse when they have competing mining software?

Norton is a joke, and needs to die like Adobe Flash.

 

[dysangel]

I would assume this is more about delegated staking than mining. If it's actual mining that is super weird

 

[King_V]

checks calendar... notes that it is not April 1...

 

[velocityg4]

Wonder how many are going to be mining with Intel HD graphics?

 

[Filippo_P]

I suppose the antivirus wasn't heavy and overbloated enough.

Can't get viruses if you can't use the computer after all...

 

[mdd1963]

As many of our clients/customers get infected with mining malware anyway , we thought we'd simply incorporate it right into our AV as an option!

 

[derekullo]

First - we already know Norton slows down your system horribly with just the AV software. How well is it going to be able to actually mine?!?

Second - we wonder why (and see) legit mining software get flagged as infections even when we install it deliberately. Does anyone see this getting better or worse when they have competing mining software?

Norton is a joke, and needs to die like Adobe Flash.

I had always assumed Norton was mining crypto in the background.

No other reason for it to make computers that slow.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

They probably figured they couldn’t make it any crappier so why not

 

[Co BIY]

I now predict that the cypto non-sense will not collapse until after the US Federal Reserve and the US IRS have both released their own crypto mining apps.

But at this rate that could be pretty soon ...


Fun contest for the group - Who else needs to put out a crypto mining app ? More points awarded for sources that will actually undermine the viability of the system ?

(in keeping with the theme points awarded will inexplicably grow in value exponentially with each new additional entry in the contest and I have already awarded myself 500 "founders points " just to get things going )

 

[PassMark]

Worst case: CPU only hashing with expensive electricity, 24/7 mining. (0.5 MHash/sec & $0.3kW/h).
Monthly profit: negative ~$42. So a loss of $500 annually.

Good case: High end GPU with cheap electricity (50 MHash/sec & $0.2kW/h).
Monthly profit: Positive ~$26. So a profit of $312 annually.
So if your high end PC cost $2500 it would be break even after 96 months. Assuming no hardware failures & Ethereum price doesn't change, etc.....

In a cool climate where you were going to run a heater to keep your house warm anyway, this might make sense. As you could also save on the heating costs. In a hot climate where you needed to run the A/C harder to cool the room, then it probably wouldn't make sense.

Best case: If you already had excess solar power that you couldn't sell to the grid at a fair price, it would make more sense. Maybe profit ~$35 / Month, depending on how sunny it was. So $420 annually. Payback on your PC in 71 months.

 

[cushgod_09]

First - we already know Norton slows down your system horribly with just the AV software. How well is it going to be able to actually mine?!?

Second - we wonder why (and see) legit mining software get flagged as infections even when we install it deliberately. Does anyone see this getting better or worse when they have competing mining software?

Norton is a joke, and needs to die like Adobe Flash.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"to Infinity and beyond !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

[PassMark]

We already know Norton slows down your system horribly with just the AV software. How well is it going to be able to actually mine

AV software, in general, doesn't slow down the CPU (or GPU) much. AV software does most of it's work when files on disk are initially opened, when content is accessed from the Internet or when new processes are launched. Of course there are short periods of heavy load, like when the user requests a full disk scan, or when virus definitions are updated. Most people have also forgotten that Window's defender is now built into Windows doing the same type of AV scans. So in some cases 3rd party AV could, at least in theory, speed up the PC, as they disable Defender. So I would think mining hash rates wouldn't be effected much by any AV software.

 

[greatmaharg]

Theory: Norton is using this as a stepping stone to mining crypto silently in the background for their own benefit. Users won't think much about it since antivirus software is already known to be resource-heavy.

Alternate theory: They were already doing that, and now want to commercialize it.

 

[SirStephenH]

So instead of fixing their broken program, which requires people to uninstall or completely disable it in order to mine instead of being able to simply trust a miner like you can every other type of program, they embed an inefficient miner in their program which they likely profit off of. 😒

 

[SirStephenH]

I had always assumed Norton was mining crypto in the background.

No other reason for it to make computers that slow.

It's pretty much impossible to get a miner running with Norton even if you wanted to in the first place. This is their alternative to fixing it.