Norton Antivirus Is Installing A Cryptominer On PCs And Users Are Furious

Cybersecurity firm Norton is under fire from users for bundling a cryptocurrency miner with its antivirus suite. Norton is one of the oldest surviving PC antivirus developers, having launched its first product as far back as 1991. In its heyday, the company held a large share of the AV market in the U.S. and around the world, but persistent complaints about bloatware add-ons and sluggish performance led to it ceding ground to the likes of Kaspersky, TrendMicro, BitDefender, and a slew of free AV suites.

Cryptocurrencies have seen a massive boom over the past couple of years not only in terms of their market value, but also in terms of their steady acceptance in mainstream society. Increased crypto mining activities have also resulted in a massive paucity in GPU supply, which is preventing gamers and DIY PC builders from accessing graphics cards for their rigs.

Norton customers are taking to social media to complain about the company’s decision to bundle a crypto miner with the security app. Many are also furious that the ‘feature’ is being installed without their permission. Norton, however, denied that allegation in a statement to The Register, saying that Norton Crypto is an ‘opt-in’ feature that is only being installed if users are explicitly consenting to its installation. Users are also complaining that the crypto miner is far more difficult to uninstall than it should be, although Norton refutes that allegation as well, saying that users can easily get rid of the crypto feature by first disabling the app’s built-in anti-tamper function.

Norton Claims The Crypto Miner Is Easy To Uninstall

With an increasing number of people training their guns on Norton for its crypto mining bloat, the company issued a statement denying allegations of improper and unethical behavior. According to the company, Norton Crypto is an opt-in feature that can be disabled through the Norton 360 app “by temporarily shutting off ‘tamper protection’ … and deleting NCrypt.exe from your computer.” While that sounds easy enough for the tech-savvy, it is understandable why so many regular users are finding it hard to do.

The crypto mining feature was added to Norton’s cybersecurity app in June 2021, allowing users to mine Ether on their PCs without much technical know-how. The company was roundly criticized for the move, with many users, observers, and commentators lambasting Norton for adding bloat to an already resource-heavy program. Many also criticized it as an opportunistic move to capitalize on the crypto boom. There have also been criticisms about the company charging 15% of any crypto generated through the Norton crypto miner, which is much more than what other legitimate crypto miners charge.

Source: The Register