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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

#161

Post by doguozkan »

IamCarbonMan wrote: post #48
mattnewton wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what they would have to be mining to make cpu's or integrated GPU's make sense, certainly not bitcoin where even if you pay nothing for electricity to are unlikely to be able to do any useful work in the time someone visits your site.

PirateBay probably won't make any money. I'm considering adding this to an online game, which would probably generate a modest income. Video and social media sites could definitely benefit as well.

I think this would be fine as long as you have the users' consent. I suppose you could even give out rewards to players based on how much they contribute. I see this model in a lot of Android games nowadays (although with ads), you are asked to look at an ad/watch a 30 second video, and in return you get a small amount of in-game currency otherwise only obtainable through spending money.

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

#162

Post by tw04 »

gkya wrote: post #84
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 wi…

...you do realize "non-profit" doesn't mean they don't make money, right? It means they don't show a profit. They still need to monetize their offering, and unless you've got a solution yet to be offered up... it'll be the exact same thing as "for-profit" companies do. As for "objective" - most non-profits are far less objective because they thrive off donations.

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

#163

Post by frankacter »

quantumsequoia wrote: post #133
wrinkl3 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

I'm intrigued. Do you know what the startup was called?

Not OP, but this is probably it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidbit

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

#164

Post by earenndil »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #111
Tharre wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ads are burned into the stream, so you can't block them. Source? Adblock seems to work fine.

https://help.getadblock.com/support/solutions/articles/60001... It's clearly the future of ad delivery. If you burn ads into video, you can't block them short of doing some kind of realtime detection against the video frames. It absolutely sucks because the pause button has become a "play ad" button. There's no way to temporarily pause anymore without showing an ad. Hopefully they won't realize they can do the same t…

I believe some university was working on a computer vision-based adblock.

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

#165

Post by quickthrower2 »

aembleton wrote: post #23
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.

I do Eli 5s every day:

Mining makes the battery die quicker.

They are mining to make money so they can buy food.

A silly man pays the bad man money for the tiny baby numbers they find in your phone when they mine it.

You can still watch Frozen. The battery isn't dead yet.

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

#166

Post by mintplant »

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…

Sorry, no, you can't burn my CPU cycles and drain my battery for money. Full stop, end of story, thanks for playing, etc, etc. I still own my computer, and I couldn't care less about your innovative new business model. Just, no.

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

#167

Post by seanwilson »

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."

Then users would just set their machine to say they're on a slow laptop with 1% battery left.

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

#168

Post by 3131s »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #129
mhluongo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can use another card game. Get over it, as long as it's disclosed everyone involved are consenting.

Sure thing. I can also block whatever crap I don't want running in my browser so I'll be doing that. Just giving feedback.

The real environmental cost of ads is when people actually buy the useless shit being advertised. Also, you definitely have a strange attitude toward mining cryptocoins client-side and are engaging in many assumptions and false notions (that 100% of CPU will be used, that ad-tracking doesn't use just as many cycles, that it's not opt-in, etc.)

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

#169

Post by phailhaus »

outoftacos wrote: post #137
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…

"Solution" wow, just step back a second here, I never signed up for advertisements AT ALL, much less background CPU miners for shady schemes. Solution is the last word to use, there is no problem first off and malware is not how you would solve this fantasy of a "problem".

You have to remember that you're not entitled to their server resources. If you are not okay with a CPU miner, then don't use their site. I'm okay with this as long as they are 100% transparent about their monetization scheme.

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

#170

Post by phailhaus »

mintplant wrote: post #166
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…

Sorry, no, you can't burn my CPU cycles and drain my battery for money. Full stop, end of story, thanks for playing, etc, etc. I still own my computer, and I couldn't care less about your innovative new business model. Just, no.

Yeah but you're not entitled to use their server's resources for free. If you're not okay with them running a miner while you use their site, don't use their site. I'm okay with this approach as long as they are transparent about it.
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