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So did I read correctly that Avira, Norton and Avast have been/will be bought by the same company (Symantec, but rebranded), with the sole intention of getting

So did I read correctly that Avira, Norton and Avast have been/will be bought by the same company (Symantec, but rebranded), with the sole intention of getting their existing userbases to mine crypto for Symantec? This is absolutely bonkers. Most users are unlikely to even make back their electricity cost (arguments for space heating can be made, but not in summer), and paying out the minuscule sums is impossible due to transaction fees. Hoping that somebody will sue this endeavor into oblivion.

waffle_maniac 5y ago
If the home is powered by nuclear power and heated by gas then the extra heat generated from the computer could decrease the usage of gas. It would be a small net positive.
- low_tech_love 5y ago
  You mean the computer would work as an auxiliary heater? Is it reasonable to expect that to work? How much would the processor have to heat for that to be feasible, how fast would it go to the trash bin after that, and where should one even locate the pc for that to work?
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    If your PC consumes 500 W, it's gonna heat the room it is in exactly as much as a 500 W space heater. That's what I alluded to with the "space heater" parenthetical. There are people who reduce their overall bills by mining for both cryptocurrency and heating with the waste heat (instead of only one or the other). But it needs specific circumstances for that to be worth it, and I'm very sure Symantec is not advertising this concept in the first place.
    - rhinoceraptor 5y ago
      And if you spent that same 500 W on running a heat pump, you would get the equivalent of about 1000 to 2000 W of resistive heat.
      - MauranKilom 5y ago
        Agreed with your point, but that requires significantly more setup than plugging something into a wall (and significantly more effort than installing a software update). And heat pumps work worst when you need them the most. None of this justifies making tech-illiterate people mine bitcoin for your own gain, of course.
    - Breazy 5y ago
  - hermitdev 5y ago
    When I let my current computer run Seti@Home unthrottled with the original hardware (overclocked 6 core i7, 64 GB RAM, 4x Geforce 690s), the temperature in my airconditioned home office would quickly rise from the 72 on the thermostat in the living room, to around 90 in my office. I had to throttle Seti@Home to about 25% max resources to avoid destroying my AC bill. This was in a relatively large 1 Bed + Den apartment. As for longevity? Well, I don't run it at full capacity like that normally. The CPU is still going strong, 8 years in. I replaced the original 690s with a newer card because, better graphics, not that the cards went bad or anything. I have had issues with thermal shutdown due to bad liquid coolers, but no damage to the chips. But, replacing the cooler gets everything back and running again. I'm on my 3rd cooler. Most of the heat isn't coming out of the CPU itself, but the power supply & the graphics card(s).
    - MauranKilom 5y ago
      > Most of the heat isn't coming out of the CPU itself, but the power supply & the graphics card(s). Wow, the power supply wastes that much electricity on its own? That seems very inefficient...
  - mwattsun 5y ago
    If you live in a cold country with cheap electricity they have you covered. But I think you're right - that can't be good for a computer The electric heater that earns you money https://heatbit.com/ https://heatbit.com/
  - sjtindell 5y ago
    You’re talking about a standard PC but my roommate and many others who mined crypto with crates of gpus literally used them instead of heaters. My roommate had to setup fans to push hot air out and bring cold air in it was so hot.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  That's two if's right there. I don't even know if I could switch to a provider that uses nuclear energy even if I wanted to.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
I think its an excellent idea, because some of their products are free so this is a way for them to get paid for their free products and the user doesn't have to have privacy intrusive profiled advertising thrust in their face when using a free product. Crypto is also a hedge against local currencies as various country's, even the greatest nations can become unstable govt's very quickly. Edit. It makes me wonder as the above has been downvoted, if this is why US cpu/gpu manufacturers are now disabling things that make mining crypto harder like Intel's AVX-512 and nVidia's changes to prevent GPU crypto mining, whilst using global warming as a straw puppet.
- f6v 5y ago
  I guess it’s downvoted because same as with data collection, average user doesn’t understand what costs are associated with the mining.
mywacaday 5y ago
If this is what a antivirus giant like Symantec has to do increase profits it sounds like a good time to start thinking shorting some stock. Being facetious but not by much, it sounds like some kind of bad joke.
justgrepit 5y ago
Outrage nonsense alert. What you wrote, who bought who and why, is 100% incorrect. Even company relationships are wrong. Sole intention part...this is simply made up, conspiracy style. Where do you keep pulling this from? Get facts first, opinions second, or based on your logic, ideally never.
- junon 5y ago
  Okay, so what's the truth, then? Since you seem to be much better informed.
- commoner 5y ago
  NortonLifeLock (the name of what used to be Symantec's consumer security divison) acquired Avira in December 2020.[1] NortonLifeLock merged with Avast PLC in August 2021, with the combined company retaining the NortonLifeLock name.[2] The Verge tried out Norton Crypto and found its 15% fee to be much higher than the 1-2% fee typically taken by mining pool operators. The tester broke even after (off-peak) electricity expenses, with NortonLifeLock capturing all of the profits.[3] [1] https://investor.nortonlifelock.com/About/Investors/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/NortonLifeLock-to-Acquire-Avira/default.aspx https://investor.nortonlifelock.com/About/Investors/press-re... [2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/nortonlifelock-and-avast-plc-to-merge-in-8-billion-all-stock-transaction/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/nortonlifelock-and-avast-plc-t... [3] https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/7/22869528/norton-crypto-miner-security-software-reaction https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/7/22869528/norton-crypto-min...
mrjin 5y ago
Why bother suing them? Simply uninstall and reboot, problem solved once for all and you will have a much more responsive system as a bonus. I stopped using AV software over a decade ago, haven't really encounter a malware so far.
- moreira 5y ago
  Saying you haven't encountered malware seems like a weak argument; a tech-savvy person (which you are, since you're here) will know not to download dodgy stuff and not to click dodgy links on emails or porn websites. A less technically-inclined person won't know, and will definitely end up exposed to malware. That's just reality for Windows users. The key argument is that Windows's built-in antivirus is quite solid now. I don't know if (and I don't think that) a modern antivirus provides any -significant- additional protection over what comes with Windows by default.
  - lillecarl 5y ago
    For enterprises they provide additional compliance and reporting functionality and since people aren't admins on their machines infecting machines can be quite hard, probably limited in time to one user session.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

waffle_maniac 5y ago

If the home is powered by nuclear power and heated by gas then the extra heat generated from the computer could decrease the usage of gas. It would be a small net positive.

low_tech_love 5y ago
You mean the computer would work as an auxiliary heater? Is it reasonable to expect that to work? How much would the processor have to heat for that to be feasible, how fast would it go to the trash bin after that, and where should one even locate the pc for that to work?
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  If your PC consumes 500 W, it's gonna heat the room it is in exactly as much as a 500 W space heater. That's what I alluded to with the "space heater" parenthetical. There are people who reduce their overall bills by mining for both cryptocurrency and heating with the waste heat (instead of only one or the other). But it needs specific circumstances for that to be worth it, and I'm very sure Symantec is not advertising this concept in the first place.
  - rhinoceraptor 5y ago
    And if you spent that same 500 W on running a heat pump, you would get the equivalent of about 1000 to 2000 W of resistive heat.
    - MauranKilom 5y ago
      Agreed with your point, but that requires significantly more setup than plugging something into a wall (and significantly more effort than installing a software update). And heat pumps work worst when you need them the most. None of this justifies making tech-illiterate people mine bitcoin for your own gain, of course.
  - Breazy 5y ago
- hermitdev 5y ago
  When I let my current computer run Seti@Home unthrottled with the original hardware (overclocked 6 core i7, 64 GB RAM, 4x Geforce 690s), the temperature in my airconditioned home office would quickly rise from the 72 on the thermostat in the living room, to around 90 in my office. I had to throttle Seti@Home to about 25% max resources to avoid destroying my AC bill. This was in a relatively large 1 Bed + Den apartment. As for longevity? Well, I don't run it at full capacity like that normally. The CPU is still going strong, 8 years in. I replaced the original 690s with a newer card because, better graphics, not that the cards went bad or anything. I have had issues with thermal shutdown due to bad liquid coolers, but no damage to the chips. But, replacing the cooler gets everything back and running again. I'm on my 3rd cooler. Most of the heat isn't coming out of the CPU itself, but the power supply & the graphics card(s).
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    > Most of the heat isn't coming out of the CPU itself, but the power supply & the graphics card(s). Wow, the power supply wastes that much electricity on its own? That seems very inefficient...
- mwattsun 5y ago
  If you live in a cold country with cheap electricity they have you covered. But I think you're right - that can't be good for a computer The electric heater that earns you money https://heatbit.com/ https://heatbit.com/
- sjtindell 5y ago
  You’re talking about a standard PC but my roommate and many others who mined crypto with crates of gpus literally used them instead of heaters. My roommate had to setup fans to push hot air out and bring cold air in it was so hot.
selfhoster11 5y ago
That's two if's right there. I don't even know if I could switch to a provider that uses nuclear energy even if I wanted to.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

I think its an excellent idea, because some of their products are free so this is a way for them to get paid for their free products and the user doesn't have to have privacy intrusive profiled advertising thrust in their face when using a free product. Crypto is also a hedge against local currencies as various country's, even the greatest nations can become unstable govt's very quickly. Edit. It makes me wonder as the above has been downvoted, if this is why US cpu/gpu manufacturers are now disabling things that make mining crypto harder like Intel's AVX-512 and nVidia's changes to prevent GPU crypto mining, whilst using global warming as a straw puppet.

f6v 5y ago
I guess it’s downvoted because same as with data collection, average user doesn’t understand what costs are associated with the mining.

mywacaday 5y ago

If this is what a antivirus giant like Symantec has to do increase profits it sounds like a good time to start thinking shorting some stock. Being facetious but not by much, it sounds like some kind of bad joke.

justgrepit 5y ago

Outrage nonsense alert. What you wrote, who bought who and why, is 100% incorrect. Even company relationships are wrong. Sole intention part...this is simply made up, conspiracy style. Where do you keep pulling this from? Get facts first, opinions second, or based on your logic, ideally never.

junon 5y ago
Okay, so what's the truth, then? Since you seem to be much better informed.
commoner 5y ago
NortonLifeLock (the name of what used to be Symantec's consumer security divison) acquired Avira in December 2020.[1] NortonLifeLock merged with Avast PLC in August 2021, with the combined company retaining the NortonLifeLock name.[2] The Verge tried out Norton Crypto and found its 15% fee to be much higher than the 1-2% fee typically taken by mining pool operators. The tester broke even after (off-peak) electricity expenses, with NortonLifeLock capturing all of the profits.[3] [1] https://investor.nortonlifelock.com/About/Investors/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/NortonLifeLock-to-Acquire-Avira/default.aspx https://investor.nortonlifelock.com/About/Investors/press-re... [2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/nortonlifelock-and-avast-plc-to-merge-in-8-billion-all-stock-transaction/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/nortonlifelock-and-avast-plc-t... [3] https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/7/22869528/norton-crypto-miner-security-software-reaction https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/7/22869528/norton-crypto-min...

mrjin 5y ago

Why bother suing them? Simply uninstall and reboot, problem solved once for all and you will have a much more responsive system as a bonus. I stopped using AV software over a decade ago, haven't really encounter a malware so far.

moreira 5y ago
Saying you haven't encountered malware seems like a weak argument; a tech-savvy person (which you are, since you're here) will know not to download dodgy stuff and not to click dodgy links on emails or porn websites. A less technically-inclined person won't know, and will definitely end up exposed to malware. That's just reality for Windows users. The key argument is that Windows's built-in antivirus is quite solid now. I don't know if (and I don't think that) a modern antivirus provides any -significant- additional protection over what comes with Windows by default.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  For enterprises they provide additional compliance and reporting functionality and since people aren't admins on their machines infecting machines can be quite hard, probably limited in time to one user session.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]