Well I didn't see this coming, but I do not think this is good for consumers overall. I am not sure what Norton is after, they probably want to make more money via crypto mining....funny how AV's are turning into the things they are suppose to protect us from.
While it seems that Avira still has their free version available, there's no guarantee that it will be there for ever. Same goes of AVG/Avast if this goes through. After all, Norton Lifelock wants to make money, so if they do continue with the free versions, I guarantee there will be more ads that you cannot get rid of, with the possibility of significantly more data mining.
I hope more companies do not continue to get bought up, as it's going to significantly reduce competition, which seems to have happened already unfortunately. All of these companies got complacent, they really haven't developed very much in terms of new ground breaking tech when it comes to security. They really didn't see MS coming around and making MD as good as it is today. They've constantly and still do rely on fear tactics to keep customers. They force auto renewals hoping that you forget to cancel. Heck Norton is the worst offender IMHO. They force you to add your credit card info when installing a copy of Norton that you bought at a big box store like Best Buy. You already paid for it, but no you have to put your credit info in, or else it won't install...It's really sad.
They are spending their money in the wrong places (ie: developing useless features that no one needs/wants and buying up companies) instead of putting that money into actual R&D to make their products better from a security stand point. The really sad part in all of this, MD (while not perfect...no product is) actually is showing them what they need to do to get better and attract customers. It's called develop better security feature that actually mean something, stop with the scare tactics, stop with the in your face reports trying to prove how you are keeping me safe...etc. I like MD not only because security wise it's very capable, but most importantly it does it's thing without annoying you. It also doesn't do hacky things to make some feature work causing more issues (ie: HTTPS scanning).
They have tried the FUD mud slinging approach, trying everything they can to put MD in a bad light, because they knew what was coming. So far it hasn't worked, many people are starting to realize their lies and more and more people are switching to MD. ADs, data mining, crypto mining and buying up each other is their new game now. I know not everyone may agree, but TBH I am done with 3rd party AVs (exception with Eset and Emsisoft), unless they get bought out by Norton
It's been very evident over the last number of years that they do not care about security, they do not care about the user....they care about one thing and one thing only...MONEY. If they truly CARED about security, they would actually applaud some of the things MS is doing, but no, they don't, they only see it as an attack on their business, so therefore they are the enemy.
www.theregister.com
