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Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

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Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#21

Post by Keeeeeeeks »

amriksohata wrote: post #16

Can anyone explain to me like I'm a five year old why would anyone need to block coin miners on their browser and why they would be mining there in the first place?

According to ComputerGuru's post below, TPB is switching from ads to coin mining in the background.

Without disclosure/client choice it could slow down someone's computer and and be portrayed as malicious ("If they can mine potentially valuable coins while I'm on the site, what else could they be doing while serving my browser content?")

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#22

Post by mikeash »

drxzcl wrote: post #11
eyezick wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPU mining is so unprofitable, but I suppose with thousands of users..

It's not unprofitable if you aren't the one carrying the costs. It's inefficient though, that's for sure.

I recall that for Bitcoin, the profit was something like a billionth of a cent per user-hour. So it would be hard to be profitable even if all you're paying for is a little engineer time to deploy it.

I assumed this whole notion of browser mining as a replacement for ads was just a laugh, but maybe not. Are there coins where it can actually make a noticeable amount of money?

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#23

Post by aembleton »

amriksohata wrote: post #16

Can anyone explain to me like I'm a five year old why would anyone need to block coin miners on their browser and why they would be mining there in the first place?

Mining consumes power. If you're on a mobile device, that power is limited and will result in you having a flat battery sooner than you otherwise would.

They are used because the coins that are mined can be sold and the money used to pay for hosting and food.

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#24

Post by endlessvoid94 »

eyezick wrote: post #3
ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

For context: The Pirate Bay is now launching a javascript-based Monero miner in all visitors' browsers to mine coins for them in the background (possibly as an alternative to ads).

CPU mining is so unprofitable, but I suppose with thousands of users..

What do you mean by unprofitable?

If you have cheap (or free) power, it's absolutely profitable.

EDIT: I see you meant CPU mining, not mining in general. My mistake!

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#25

Post by have_faith »

tombrossman wrote: post #10

Title could be improved - this is for Google Chrome only. Anyone using an ad blocker can simply add... https://coin-hive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js ...to their custom block-list instead, no need for an extension.

What if they self host the code?

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#26

Post by johnhenry »

amriksohata wrote: post #16

Can anyone explain to me like I'm a five year old why would anyone need to block coin miners on their browser and why they would be mining there in the first place?

Some sites are starting to add bitcoin miners to their pages to raise funds instead of, or in addition to advertising. https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-website-runs-a-crypt...

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#28

Post by akx »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #4
eyezick wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPU mining is so unprofitable, but I suppose with thousands of users..

According to the reddit thread on the matter, even at TPB's scale they were looking at only a month . I wonder why CoinHive isn't using WebGL for this.

Quoting CoinHive's site:

> [...] There are solutions to run the Cryptonight algorithm on a GPU instead, but the benefit is about 2x, not 10000x like for other algorithms used by Bitcoin or Ethereum. This makes Cryptonight a nice target for JavaScript and the Browser. [...] Our miner uses WebAssembly and runs with about 65% of the performance of a native Miner. [...]

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#29

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

For context: The Pirate Bay is now launching a javascript-based Monero miner in all visitors' browsers to mine coins for them in the background (possibly as an alternative to ads).

How would one implement this? Couldn't you just rip it off their website?
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