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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

#81

Post by IamCarbonMan »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #69
IamCarbonMan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a card game simulator I have yet to publish. I don't really have a lot of money for server uptime, so it's either ads or this. And it won't be on by default. I'm simply offering users a way to support the site if they like using it, without having to view ads or pay directly (it may or may not affect their electricity bill I guess, but to most people an online game using some extra CPU isn't going to have much i…

You can't afford $9/month? Don't bother implementing this feature and you earned a few months of uptime.

None of that comment even close to makes sense.

1. My operating costs are more than $9/month. I don't know where you got that presumed feature but it's wrong.

2. There's nothing to implement. You include a library and a few lines of code to start it and you're done.

3. How would not doing something that could potentially make me money, even if only a little bit, save me money? That makes zero sense.

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

#82

Post by wrinkl3 »

paultopia wrote: post #70

Wait, people are actually doing this? Using client-side resources not to deliver content or applications to clients, or even to visibly deliver things like advertisements, but to divert user CPU cycles for their own purposes? I want to know more about this. Are they seeking any kind of consent from the users, or even disclosing it to the users? If not, I have serious doubts about the legality of this behavior.

The Pirate Bay just tested that yesterday, apparently. They bundled a Monero javascript miner with some of their pages. The funny thing is that while the legality of that is questionable enough for the more reputable websites not to go down that road, TPB is already shady enough to pull it off - and their users don't really have anyone to complain to.

It's worth noting that this isn't exactly a new idea - some MIT students had a project a couple of years ago that was basically that, except they tried to turn it into a startup. The viability of it was questionable back then as well.

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

#83

Post by thinkloop »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #69
IamCarbonMan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a card game simulator I have yet to publish. I don't really have a lot of money for server uptime, so it's either ads or this. And it won't be on by default. I'm simply offering users a way to support the site if they like using it, without having to view ads or pay directly (it may or may not affect their electricity bill I guess, but to most people an online game using some extra CPU isn't going to have much i…

You can't afford $9/month? Don't bother implementing this feature and you earned a few months of uptime.

You prefer s/he didn't provide the option? Dude wants to make some money for his/her effort. Chill.

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

#84

Post by gkya »

thinbeige wrote: post #60

Today I read that The Pirate Bay tested this new form of monetization (running a miner in you browser). I thought that might solve website monetization finally. We still have to figure out stuff like battery draining on mobile but it is the first step and I can buy some Monero which is well suited for JS/CPU mining (or in other words, it doesn't have a huge upside when mined on GPUs). And what do I see here? That bef…

I'd rather pay with my wallet than with my battery. And I'll pay only what I buy. Lock me out if I don't pay, or tell me to GTFO, and I'm totally fine with it, but you can't pick my hypotethical-pocket because I opened up your page. This is like charging window-shoppers.

And like a sibling comment says, if this catches on, most web sites will do both, i.e. ads + client-side mining.

One nice day publishing industry will no longer be an industry but a group of non-profits, which won't have to sell stuff, and publish way more objective and high-quality stuff.

edit: grammar

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

#85

Post by icebraining »

raverbashing wrote: post #62
forthefuture wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd definitely prefer this to ads in a world where phone software and hardware improved energy capacity and efficiency at a faster rate than applications bloat. I don't think we've reached that point yet. An iPhone doesn't last a single day if you use it the whole time, it would barely last for hours mining constantly.

Are you using tpb in your phone? I don't see why that would be an issue then Though I agree this monetization tactic doesn't work on mobile

Why wouldn't you? There are multiple torrent clients for Android (don't know about iOS). Plus if you have a seedbox, you can add torrents from your phone - Transdroid/Transdrone are pretty good.

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

#86

Post by wrinkl3 »

sergiotapia wrote: post #78
wrinkl3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate how?

"is this user on a mobile device or laptop? Don't mine."

Meh, then you're back to the same dilemma ads have: you have to convince the users to visit your page from a desktop PC as much as possible. And that usually means making the mobile experience as bad as possible. Which the users won't like for fairly obvious reasons.

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

#87

Post by jdavis703 »

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…

Most ads are also priced in a way that takes the amount of viewability in to account too, so this feature is not unique to browser mining.

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

#88

Post by tokenizerrr »

IamCarbonMan wrote: post #81
tokenizerrr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't afford $9/month? Don't bother implementing this feature and you earned a few months of uptime.

None of that comment even close to makes sense. 1. My operating costs are more than $9/month. I don't know where you got that presumed feature but it's wrong. 2. There's nothing to implement. You include a library and a few lines of code to start it and you're done. 3. How would not doing something that could potentially make me money, even if only a little bit, save me money? That makes zero sense.

You are talking about server costs. Get a server at for example online.net (not affiliated) for $9/month or cheaper. That server is going to be able to run your card game easily.

You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on AWS.

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

#89

Post by benchaney »

mobiletelephone wrote: post #75
IamCarbonMan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebAssembly with OpenGL could change this.

No it won't. If everyone is mining more efficiently then the difficulty will rise.

Most miners already use GPUs (or ASICs depending on the coin). WebGL would let websites get a relatively larger piece of the pie from dedicated miners.

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

#90

Post by tokenizerrr »

thinkloop wrote: post #83
tokenizerrr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't afford $9/month? Don't bother implementing this feature and you earned a few months of uptime.

You prefer s/he didn't provide the option? Dude wants to make some money for his/her effort. Chill.

Yes. Websites stealing cpu time to mine crypto currency is ridiculous. I'd go as far as calling it malware. It's a waste of my power and will wear out my hardware faster than necessary. It's also bad for the environment due to useless power drain.

If we're talking about a server for a card game you can just get a cheapo dedicated server and you'll be fine. Get a user or two to donate once a month and you will even run a profit. Or skip that Starbucks once a month.

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