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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

#31

Post by Yoric »

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.

Can you actually use WebGL for this? I mean, don't you need a user-visible graphics context? That's a serious question, I have used WebGL only once in my life and that was years ago.

On the other hand, WebGPU looks exactly like the kind of technology that would make web-based GPU-enabled bitcoin mining realistic.

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

#32

Post by detaro »

slg wrote: post #6
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).

As long as there is disclosure of it and the mining is relatively efficient, that is a very interesting business model. The site collects revenue relative to the amount of time users spend on the site and not the number of page/ad views. It is also a pretty seamless way to integrate micropayments from users into a site. Handing over a credit card number or similar is a big barrier to overcome while this requires no s…

Paying 50 cents requires you to keep their mining browser tab open for around a week with your CPU churning. Somehow I don't think that's the solution.

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

#33

Post by keraf »

detaro wrote: post #5

Why is this an extension and not a filter list for existing adblockers?

Because it is different than ads. On a site, you might want to leave ads blocked for privacy reasons but just enable the miner to pass the coin-hive Captcha for example.

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

#34

Post by Houshalter »

mikeash wrote: post #22
drxzcl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Bitcoin quickly moved to GPUs and then ASICs, making mining them with CPUs pointless. Some coins are designed to be very difficult to mine with GPUs or ASICs, so a Browser based miner isn't so ridiculous. Wasm also makes it a bit faster.

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

#35

Post by richdougherty »

keraf wrote: post #33
detaro wrote: post #5

Why is this an extension and not a filter list for existing adblockers?

Because it is different than ads. On a site, you might want to leave ads blocked for privacy reasons but just enable the miner to pass the coin-hive Captcha for example.

In uBlock you can just click the big off button and then click it on again. I see that No Coin has a 'disable for 1 minute' button, which is slightly different, but probably not worth a separate extension for most people.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/How-to-whitelist-a-we...

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

#37

Post by IamCarbonMan »

detaro wrote: post #32
slg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as there is disclosure of it and the mining is relatively efficient, that is a very interesting business model. The site collects revenue relative to the amount of time users spend on the site and not the number of page/ad views. It is also a pretty seamless way to integrate micropayments from users into a site. Handing over a credit card number or similar is a big barrier to overcome while this requires no s…

Paying 50 cents requires you to keep their mining browser tab open for around a week with your CPU churning. Somehow I don't think that's the solution.

WebAssembly with OpenGL could change this.

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

#38

Post by rodorgas »

richdougherty wrote: post #35
keraf wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is different than ads. On a site, you might want to leave ads blocked for privacy reasons but just enable the miner to pass the coin-hive Captcha for example.

In uBlock you can just click the big off button and then click it on again. I see that No Coin has a 'disable for 1 minute' button, which is slightly different, but probably not worth a separate extension for most people. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/How-to-whitelist-a-we...

OTOH I'm ok with ads, but not ok with miners. So wouldn't make sense have an ad blocker that doesn't block ads.

People seems allergic to browser extensions this days. I also get the "why is this an extension and not a filter?" on a non ad-related extension.

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

#39

Post by wyc »

For those wondering how it works, it seems to be a blacklist. Here's the crux of it:

    chrome.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(details => {
        // ...

        // Is domain white listed
        if (isDomainWhitelisted(domains[details.tabId])) {
            return { cancel: false };
        }
        return { cancel: true };
    }, { urls: blacklistedUrls }, ['blocking']);
It's kind of sad how much boilerplate is required to write a simple extension. I wonder if there's a framework for saving labor while building cross-compatible browser extensions. Then again, maybe the world doesn't need yet another JavaScript framework.
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