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Norton Crypto. It's EVEN WORSE than you think.... - YouTube
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- Everyone and their dog
has tried to get into crypto
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or blockchain technology somehow.
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And I think it's now safe to say,
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we have finally jumped the shark.
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Norton, the infamous antivirus company
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is no longer content to
waste just a little bit
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of your computer's resources.
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Several months ago, they said,
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you know what, screw it.
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And injected their own
cryptocurrency mining software
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into Norton 360.
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We gasped. We shouted. We cried.
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And then,
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because it's our job to try these things
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so that you don't have to,
[34]
we resigned ourselves to installing it.
[37]
Leaving, only one question,
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is it as good as my
segue to today's sponsor?
[43]
Thanks to KiwiCo for
sponsoring this video.
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KiwiCo ships out crates that
contained hands-on projects
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for kids to help develop
their creative confidence
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and problem solving skills.
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Learn more at the end of this video
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or at the link down below.
[57]
(upbeat music)
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Right out of the gate, we're
starting out strong here
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because unlike basically
every other mining software,
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you've got to pay to play.
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Norton Crypto, yes that's what
they're actually calling it,
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is only available with a
Norton 360 subscription.
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So I begrudgingly handed over
my credit card to do something
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that we basically tell everyone not to do.
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Install Norton.
[88]
With that bitter pill swallowed,
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we looked for the opt-in prompt,
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the one asking if you
want to make some money
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while your PC is idling, and we thought,
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Hey, seems like a great idea.
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Everybody loves free money and clicked it.
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But how does it work?
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Once it's enabled, after about
a minute of your GPU idling,
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the Norton Crypto miner will turn on,
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adding your graphics cards
power to an Ethereum mining pool
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where it and every other Norton miner goes
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to work digging for ether.
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When a payout happens,
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it gets split equally
amongst those in the pool,
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depending on how much hash
rate they've contributed.
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Now, this isn't anything new.
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The first mining pool,
Slush Pool, came out in 2010
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and consolidated machines to mine Bitcoin
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in order to give the little guy
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an edge over larger operations
by banding together.
[133]
Over the years,
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more and more mining pool
operations have sprung up
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and as long as you have
the computational power,
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you're basically free to join.
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But Norton had some innovative new ideas.
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While most pools and
exchanges take a small one
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or 2% cut of your mining profits to share
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with the pool operator,
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and many mining clients also
have small associated fees.
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Norton figured,
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Hey, we're already charging
you for Norton 360.
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So let's disrupt the status
quo by charging wait,
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15 (beep) percent.
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Excuse me.
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Even ignoring the paid nature
of their software compared
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to basically any other
solution, 15% is outrageous.
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And the worst part, is
we had to go digging
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for this information.
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At no point during the setup
process where we informed
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of this fee. And we
even tried clicking the,
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how does this work button,
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but found only a brief FAQ
with basic explanations
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for things like,
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what is a blockchain?
And, how does mining work?
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The fee was actually hidden
away in a support page
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for Norton Crypto behind a dropdown.
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There's just no respect
for the customer here.
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Just a hidden middle finger
waiting to gouge your wallet.
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I feel like you should spend your money
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on lttstore.com instead.
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Look at these sexy wan sweatpants.
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It's time to put my feelings aside though.
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Not every product is targeted
at enthusiasts like me
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and you. So,
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let's play a little game and say,
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we're already paying for Norton 360
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or it came free with
the purchase of our PC,
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and we would rather trust
a big name we recognize
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like Norton versus spending a
bunch of time doing research.
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I mean, it's a couple of
clicks and who cares about 15%
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if it's all profit anyway, right?
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Why not let your GPU mine while
you're at work or sleeping?
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Okay. So the app itself
is actually kind of okay.
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It shows you the current US
dollar to Ethereum conversion,
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the card that you'll be mining
on, its average hash rate
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and both your daily and
monthly expected return.
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This all seems great for the most part,
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but it ignores some
basics like telling you
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how much wattage your GPU is
pulling or more importantly,
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factoring those power costs
into it's calculations.
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It also doesn't bring up a
client window showing you
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what exactly is going on.
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When you join a pool on your own
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or usually through a third party,
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there's typically a client app involved
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that shows you important stats
like, among other things,
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hash rate, power
consumption, job acceptance
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or network info like
latency or dropped packets
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and it'll kind of scroll by as
your machine does it's thing.
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Maybe that's too scary
for the target audience
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or Norton felt it was unnecessary,
but whatever the case,
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it's just not here.
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Another missing feature
is any sort of optimizer.
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Often when you're first
setting up a new minor,
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you can run through an
optimization feature
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that will try a number
of power, core clock
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and memory clock settings
to get the best results
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for your specific hardware.
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It then saves a config file somewhere
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that the miner can read
whenever it's booted up.
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And if Norton is doing this
in the background somewhere,
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it isn't very good.
[326]
You know what else probably
won't be very good?
[328]
Water cooling gear from wish.com.
[330]
Get subscribed so you
don't miss that video.
[332]
Now I know that a lot
of you consider NiceHash
[335]
to be controversial.
[336]
So we don't work with them in
a sponsored capacity anymore
[338]
and we're not promoting their use here.
[341]
But we needed a control
that we know is easy to use.
[343]
So we fired it up on our test bench,
[345]
which will have affiliate
links for down below,
[347]
first using NiceHash's QuickMiner
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then for another hour with Norton Crypto.
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And here's the thing, it's
normal for your return
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to fluctuate somehow throughout the day,
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but the results were staggering.
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With Norton Crypto, our 20 80 super
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on an open air test bench, hit 65 degrees,
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pulled about, 160 watts
and saw a maximum hash rate
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of 37.2 mega hashes per second.
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With the QuickMiner,
after running OC tune,
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we pulled about a hundred to 105 Watts,
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hovered around 50 degrees Celsius
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and had a higher hash
rate averaging closer
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to 40 or even 45 mega hashes per second.
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Now obviously the winner here
doesn't surprise us much.
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Do we trust the experts or the newcomers?
[395]
But I did not expect a performance gap
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the size of the Grand Canyon.
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65 degrees might seem fine overall
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but we anticipate a lot
of users to be on laptops
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with hot components in a
more enclosed environment.
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That 65 could easily turn into 80 degrees
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or higher in the right
or wrong environment.
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And don't forget that power is expensive
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in some parts of the world.
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So that 30 or $40 of monthly income
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could come with a hefty power bill.
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And you'll also be paying Gas Fees,
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a small or sometimes not small fee
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when you want to exchange your Ethereum.
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And the best part
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is that if the sucky
performance isn't enough
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to keep you away,
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there are even more problems
with one of the biggest being
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how hard it is to remove Norton Crypto
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from the rest of Norton 360.
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Now actually enabling
the software is optional
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but installing it isn't, and
to get rid of it, you need
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to temporarily turn off Norton's
tamper protection feature,
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then delete the encrypt executable.
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Now some other users have
also mentioned things
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just not working from time to time
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or suddenly empty wallets,
both of which are frustrating
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but, at least you can usually
find an answer from Norton
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in the comments. So far,
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it looks like they only have
plans to mine in Ethereum,
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although they will look
at potentially adding
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other currencies in the future.
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In case you didn't know,
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Ethereum is supposed to
go from proof-of-work,
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which is what's currently happening
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when you joined the mining
pool, to proof-of-stake,
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which instead uses staked to Ethereum
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to validate blockchains
and add new blocks.
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It's meant to be much
more energy efficient,
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but to be a staker, you need 32 ether,
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about a hundred thousand us dollars worth.
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Fear not though, staking
pools are already a thing.
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So the little guy isn't
completely shut out
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and the full transition has actually
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been pushed back a number of times
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but once it happens,
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there's no telling what
Norton Crypto will do next.
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Whatever it is,
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I expect that it'll reflect
their obvious attitude over
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there which is;
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Hey, you're already stupid
enough to waste your money
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on our software, you're
probably stupid enough
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to share a disproportionate
amount of your mining profits
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with us.
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Perhaps the worst part of all of this,
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is the obvious conflict
of interest that exists.
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Norton has a clearly inferior product.
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It performs worse and costs more,
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but they can use their position
as a trusted malware blocker
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to allow their product to
work while scaring users away
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from better competing products.
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But what they be so brazen as
to do that, the answer is yes.
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So I have no doubt that this endeavor
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will be insanely profitable for Norton.
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They get 15% of your ether and
you pay for both the hardware
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and the abnormally high power consumption.
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I just can't figure out anyone
else who is benefiting here.
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Except maybe our sponsor.
[568]
Thanks KiwiCo for
sponsoring today's video.
[570]
KiwiCo is a monthly subscription service
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Thanks for watching guys.
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If you enjoyed this video and
you want to get into mining
[632]
at home, maybe check out
our mining adventure series
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where we show you a much,
much smarter way to do it.
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