Blessed innovation or a threat?

Norton Crypto automatically installs mining software on their users’ computers. How does this affect the mining community?

The crypto world is growing and expanding its borders every single day. Still, many people look upon the crypto industry as a bit shady and suspicious. Antiviruses blocking mining software as potential malware definitely does not help the situation. At least the reason behind these “security measures” is gradually getting more clear.

Norton, one of the most popular antivirus products, now installs a cryptocurrency mining program on its customers’ computers. Flagging other developers’ mining software as malicious in order to push your own service — what a wonderful marketing idea! Nevertheless, the market is the market and there is nothing wrong in attempting to introduce your products in the best way possible, right? Mmm… Right?

Norton Crypto sounds like a really great idea, especially if you consider how large and trustworthy the company is. This could be an amazing opportunity to make a difference in so many different ways, like introducing crypto to a large number of people, making a significant shift in common view regarding crypto, helping our society to recognize crypto as a legitimate industry, and making blockchains stronger…

In other words, Norton Crypto looks like a very promising project… Except it’s not.

The final result is not only the opposite, but much, much worse than that.

First of all, there is a very high possibility that people who were introduced to crypto by Norton, will never try to have anything to do with mining again.

Their way of “mining crypto” feels like a trap (with no user control whatsoever), looks and sounds like a scam and mostly works only in their favor.

All the above is said not to criticize Norton or to advertise better options, but merely to point out that this kind of product will inevitably hurt the crypto community in general and should be fought against.

If you are a beginner in crypto and you are considering making Norton Crypto your first mining experience, you should keep in mind that the way Norton introduces mining has nothing to do with how real mining operates and all the possible negative experiences shouldn’t be taken as your impression of crypto in general.

There is no need to purposely look for negative sides of the product or compare it with more successful brands to give some basis to all that is said above.

Going to their official website and reading the FAQ section should be enough to make a life saving decision to not approach this ‘genius solution’ under any circumstance.

So, let’s dive in and check out what Norton is saying about their own product.

Well, it would be cool to mine some English Grammar books first, and then tell your customers that even though they can turn the feature off, they won’t be able to delete your software from their computers.

Personally, I have never seen computers running… Anyway, this paragraph is basically telling you that you can only use more computers / build a rig if you pay for more packages (as if paying for the plan is not already ridiculous enough)

Norton doesn’t give you any control over the mining process, which is not only unethical but also incredibly dangerous as with no control over your own fans you do not control your GPU temperatures which in its turn places you at risk of setting fire to the whole neighborhood.

Norton supports Ethereum only, which is limited compared to other algorithm switching software out there.

Norton ‘creates a secure wallet for you and only you have access to the wallet’, but this is contradicted by the fact that you do not own the keys. Please always remember: not your keys = not your crypto.

This is a good one. A joke on its own, almost made my day. Even if you are new to crypto, you probably know that Coinbase has certain issues with their customer support. But nevertheless, Norton doesn’t give us any other option but this one.

Here we go, the best part, the cherry on the cake, the truth about your future “passive income”.

Now let’s break it down a bit..

1) I pay for the package (trying not to think about other brands with their awesome free mining software)

2) I pay a devastating 15% of everything my computer mines to Norton (trying not to think about 1%-3% fees that other companies usually take)

3) Finally, when I want to withdraw my crypto, it is me who is paying the notorious ETH gas fees, which means I need to mine a rather significant amount before I can try and withdraw anything at all.

Now it’s time to remember that I can only withdraw to Coinbase — the worst option available — and all this ‘gift’ is only valid until ETH goes Proof of Stake… And after that.. I won’t even be able to delete this stuff from my PC? I probably should think twice before getting any closer to the idea of using it, but no, I would prefer not to think about it at all!

The conclusion is short and clear.

The feature is not only useless but harmful, serves no one but Norton and can be potentially dangerous.

NiceHash considers market competition to be a good thing. We respect our competitors (whether or not they managed to lift up to our level of service quality) and welcome collaboration. However in this particular case we had no choice but to share our opinion to protect the mining community and crypto industry reputation in general.