Avira Free Antivirus

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2022: Avira Free Antivirus with built-in cryptocurrency miner

January 10, 2022 it became known that after the Norton 360 antivirus Avira start. mine cryptocurrency

By, information SecurityLab the antivirus product Norton 360 is now shipped with a program that allows users to mine cryptocurrency on themselves. computers However, Norton 360 is not one such "strange" - Avira antivirus, which, according to SecurityLab, is used by 500 million people around the world, recently acquired a company NortonLifeLock that owns Norton 360, and introduced the Avira Crypto service to its customers.

Illustration: securitylab.ru

Like Norton 360, Avira now comes with a built-in cryptocurrency miner, but users must turn it on manually. On the page of the most frequently asked questions about the Avira cryptomaining service, there is quite little information. For example, the size of the NortonLifeLock fee is not specified (in the case of Norton Crypto, the company receives 15% of any generated cryptocurrency).

According to journalist Brian Krebs, it seems that Avira uses the same crypto liner code as Norton Crypto. NortonLifeLock introduced Avira Crypto in October 2021, but other antiviruses began to mark the Avira installer as malicious or unsafe due to the built-in cryptomainer on September 9.

Many regular Norton users express on the forums NortonLifeLock concerns about the consequences of embedding mining software into antivirus, even if disabled by default. Some believe that a cryptomainer will lead to an increase in electricity bills, and the cryptocurrency generated by it will not be able to cover them. Moreover, when transferring the generated Norton or Avira Crypto air to a wallet from which it can then be withdrawn, a fee is charged, and many users do not understand that to withdraw cryptocurrency, its amount should exceed the commission fee.

In August 2021, NortonLifeLock announced its intention to purchase Avast, another well-known free antivirus product with about 500 million users. It is possible that soon the world will be presented with another cryptomaining service - Avast Crypto.

By adding a cryptomainer to antivirus solutions, NortonLifeLock involves hundreds of millions of technically unguided users in the cryptocurrency world with its own security and privacy problems, which can be very difficult for them to cope with.^[1]

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