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"Cryptomining and fingerprinting protections are added to strict content blocking settings in Privacy & Security preferences." my first reaction is it's really

by geokon 7y ago

"Cryptomining and fingerprinting protections are added to strict content blocking settings in Privacy & Security preferences." my first reaction is it's really sad to see this. looks like something Google blackmailed them into adding. maybe Im missing some aspect to this.. but why is mining crypto bad but showing ads is not? I rather mine coins/ether/whatever for the website owners than see more ads moving away from the web being funded by advertisement to a web funded by distributed computing is what a lot of people have been looking forward to, no?

derefr 7y ago
Crypto-mining scripts are mostly silent; if your computer doesn’t have a loud fan to spin up, you’re hardly able to even tell one is running other than on its eventual impact on battery life. As such, they’re a favoured tool of script-kiddies who deface websites. They take over a site, and then drop a crypto-miner onto the site to make themselves money, otherwise leaving everything intact. Sometimes even the site owner doesn’t notice anything has changed for quite a while. Meanwhile, an unaffiliated third party is now making money off of their website on the backs of their users.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  The whole adtech industry is built around arbitrary javascript execution for tracking purposes, so we've also seen crypto mining scripts served through ad networks. For example: ads on YouTube mining Monero https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-even-youtube-serves-ads-with-cpu-draining-cryptocurrency-miners/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-e... This is being used by anybody who can sneak a javaascipt into your page or an iFrame that you embed, which has become too easy to do. When it comes down to it, IMO, site owners are responsible for what ads and scripts they allow to be served via their page, but I think I'm in the minority on that opinion. Ad networks (the more reputable ones anyway) are playing a cat and mouse game of allowing a Turing complete js environment and trying to prevent its use for doing particular pieces of math. I'm glad Firefox is joining in as well, but I'd be happier if we didn't have this problem to begin with.
- geokon 7y ago
  If they wanted to show me which websites are impacting my battery life that'd be fantastic! That's a great idea There seems to be a conflict of interest when a browser singles out one of the biggest threats to the online ad industry while being funded by that same industry (~90% of Mozilla's money is from Google according to Wikipedia) While we're on the topic, does anyone have a good guide for adding a crypto miner to a simple static website? (like Githubpages)
  - bzbarsky 7y ago
    > If they wanted to show me which websites are impacting my battery life that'd be fantastic! about:performance aims to do that.
ufo 7y ago
The vast majority of javascript crypto mining is not there to displace advertisements. It is added to the website by hackers or rogue sysadmins for unscrupulous reasons.
sp332 7y ago
It's off by default for security. If you want it on, it takes 4 clicks to enable it. Menu -> Options -> Privacy & Security -> Cryptominers. Edit: alternatively, you can enable this per-site by clicking the shield icon that appears next to the URL when something has been blocked.
driverdan 7y ago
You're better off donating money. The electric cost of mining in the browser is higher than the payout.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  If people did that, we'd indeed not need crypto miners or the huge amount of ads that we enjoy today.

by geokon 7y ago

derefr 7y ago

Crypto-mining scripts are mostly silent; if your computer doesn’t have a loud fan to spin up, you’re hardly able to even tell one is running other than on its eventual impact on battery life. As such, they’re a favoured tool of script-kiddies who deface websites. They take over a site, and then drop a crypto-miner onto the site to make themselves money, otherwise leaving everything intact. Sometimes even the site owner doesn’t notice anything has changed for quite a while. Meanwhile, an unaffiliated third party is now making money off of their website on the backs of their users.

wlesieutre 7y ago
The whole adtech industry is built around arbitrary javascript execution for tracking purposes, so we've also seen crypto mining scripts served through ad networks. For example: ads on YouTube mining Monero https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-even-youtube-serves-ads-with-cpu-draining-cryptocurrency-miners/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-e... This is being used by anybody who can sneak a javaascipt into your page or an iFrame that you embed, which has become too easy to do. When it comes down to it, IMO, site owners are responsible for what ads and scripts they allow to be served via their page, but I think I'm in the minority on that opinion. Ad networks (the more reputable ones anyway) are playing a cat and mouse game of allowing a Turing complete js environment and trying to prevent its use for doing particular pieces of math. I'm glad Firefox is joining in as well, but I'd be happier if we didn't have this problem to begin with.
geokon 7y ago
If they wanted to show me which websites are impacting my battery life that'd be fantastic! That's a great idea There seems to be a conflict of interest when a browser singles out one of the biggest threats to the online ad industry while being funded by that same industry (~90% of Mozilla's money is from Google according to Wikipedia) While we're on the topic, does anyone have a good guide for adding a crypto miner to a simple static website? (like Githubpages)
- bzbarsky 7y ago
  > If they wanted to show me which websites are impacting my battery life that'd be fantastic! about:performance aims to do that.

ufo 7y ago

The vast majority of javascript crypto mining is not there to displace advertisements. It is added to the website by hackers or rogue sysadmins for unscrupulous reasons.

sp332 7y ago

It's off by default for security. If you want it on, it takes 4 clicks to enable it. Menu -> Options -> Privacy & Security -> Cryptominers. Edit: alternatively, you can enable this per-site by clicking the shield icon that appears next to the URL when something has been blocked.

driverdan 7y ago

You're better off donating money. The electric cost of mining in the browser is higher than the payout.

lucb1e 7y ago
If people did that, we'd indeed not need crypto miners or the huge amount of ads that we enjoy today.