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This comment chain made me envision a potentially terrible future direction. Imagine a future where websites force people to consent to allowing them use your

by tyjen 5y ago

This comment chain made me envision a potentially terrible future direction. Imagine a future where websites force people to consent to allowing them use your device to mine cryptocurrency while you use its services or browse its content instead of ads.

matthewaveryusa 5y ago
Frankly I would pick that over ads any day.
Invictus0 5y ago
Welcome to the future. The year is 2018. https://cyware.com/news/pirate-bay-found-running-browser-based-cryptocurrency-miner-to-generate-revenue-0e09e764 https://cyware.com/news/pirate-bay-found-running-browser-bas...
thehappypm 5y ago
Can you mine crypto in the browser? I know there are some native hooks, presumably JavaScript is never going to give a good hash rate, but it would be interesting if sites starting dropping JS tags that silently mined crypto in the background.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  WASM Monero miners were a big problem years ago.
- causi 5y ago
  Oh certainly. Back in 2018 I found my favorite site to read online comics was turning my phone into a hot plate before I blocked JS.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Certainly. https://github.com/jtgrassie/xmr-wasm https://github.com/jtgrassie/xmr-wasm Individually hash rate will be quite poor but if you make a mining pool out of all your users everything changes. Monero mining pools even have rules prohibiting that. https://minexmr.com/miningguide https://minexmr.com/miningguide > Botnet / Web Mining Policy > Sadly it happens that Botnets often run cryptominers on infected PCs. > minexmr does not support botnets, web miners or any other illegal activities. > Any account suspected of botnet mining or web mining will be banned.
hutzlibu 5y ago
"Imagine a future where websites force people to consent " I imagine a future, where people just do not vist sites, where they do not agree to the conditions. But like others pointed out, those sites exist already since quite a while.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  How do you even know what the terms and conditions are without visiting the site? This whole "by using the site you agree" thing is completely stupid.
korse 5y ago
Isn't that the Brave browser?
- vmception 5y ago
  No Brave doesn't do that, its default behavior doesnt use crypto, its optional behavior theoretically lets you earn bat but not by processing cycles
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Brave has its Basic Attention Token that they give users in exchange for sending notifications with ads in them. They literally pay users for their attention. Doesn't consume any CPU. I think all advertising is inherently bad but this is the least bad form of advertising I've ever seen. Not only are users compensated, they can actually turn off the ads in the settings and simply use the browser normally, and it has a built-in adblocker even on mobile.
bluely 5y ago
Interesting tidbit: a few years back I encountered a Minecraft server with a dynamic map on a website. After checking it out for about 5 minutes I noticed some weird CPU usage so I asked the server admins. They apparently to came to an agreement with the players where, to support the server, a browser miner would be ran on the dynamic map website.
- ganzuul 5y ago
  I would like to get chunks off of a community grid like Nunet... There is a mod that adds LODs these days, CPU-intensive, so with a nice view the real estate does become a little valuable doesn't it? :)
Nextgrid 5y ago
I'd prefer that to ads. With crypto mining I can buy my way out of it by having powerful hardware, or - in a hypothetical future where this practice is mainstream - offloading the mining to a separate machine as to not affect my mobile device's CPU. Crypto miners have a defined price: give me an average CPU's hashrate while you stay on the page and that's it - so if you pay that you are good. With ads, buying your way out is impossible - by attempting to do so you just become an even bigger target. There is no define price for it that you can pay to "opt out".
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  >With ads, buying your way out is impossible I disagree. It's just not in its final form yet. But take a peek: Hulu: 6.99 with ads, 12.99 without Youtube: Free with ads, 11.99 without (or bundled with another google paid service, like Fi) HBO: 9.99 with ads, 14.99 without --- It's coming - if you have money to throw at the problem, you can already buy your way out of a lot of advertising. If you have time and a bit of technical savvy - setting up a pihole or ublock origin incurs costs on time, but also remove ads. At least with ads the cost is fairly clear, and it's definite. With mining... it's mostly malicious and will consume as much CPU as it can. That actually taxes me more for having a nice CPU.
  - diggernet 5y ago
    You can buy your way out of ads in some places, but you can never buy your way out of the invasive tracking.
sam0x17 5y ago
This was a reality a few years ago (in particular, there was a very easy to use Monero cryptominer that ran in the browser) and then every major ad blocker and many major browser distributions blocked crypto mining and it's basically become impractical for the most part. PirateBay did it for a while but I believe they have stopped, you really don't see it anymore.

by tyjen 5y ago

matthewaveryusa 5y ago

Frankly I would pick that over ads any day.

Invictus0 5y ago

Welcome to the future. The year is 2018. https://cyware.com/news/pirate-bay-found-running-browser-based-cryptocurrency-miner-to-generate-revenue-0e09e764 https://cyware.com/news/pirate-bay-found-running-browser-bas...

thehappypm 5y ago

Can you mine crypto in the browser? I know there are some native hooks, presumably JavaScript is never going to give a good hash rate, but it would be interesting if sites starting dropping JS tags that silently mined crypto in the background.

kmeisthax 5y ago
WASM Monero miners were a big problem years ago.
causi 5y ago
Oh certainly. Back in 2018 I found my favorite site to read online comics was turning my phone into a hot plate before I blocked JS.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Certainly. https://github.com/jtgrassie/xmr-wasm https://github.com/jtgrassie/xmr-wasm Individually hash rate will be quite poor but if you make a mining pool out of all your users everything changes. Monero mining pools even have rules prohibiting that. https://minexmr.com/miningguide https://minexmr.com/miningguide > Botnet / Web Mining Policy > Sadly it happens that Botnets often run cryptominers on infected PCs. > minexmr does not support botnets, web miners or any other illegal activities. > Any account suspected of botnet mining or web mining will be banned.

hutzlibu 5y ago

"Imagine a future where websites force people to consent " I imagine a future, where people just do not vist sites, where they do not agree to the conditions. But like others pointed out, those sites exist already since quite a while.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
How do you even know what the terms and conditions are without visiting the site? This whole "by using the site you agree" thing is completely stupid.

korse 5y ago

Isn't that the Brave browser?

vmception 5y ago
No Brave doesn't do that, its default behavior doesnt use crypto, its optional behavior theoretically lets you earn bat but not by processing cycles
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Brave has its Basic Attention Token that they give users in exchange for sending notifications with ads in them. They literally pay users for their attention. Doesn't consume any CPU. I think all advertising is inherently bad but this is the least bad form of advertising I've ever seen. Not only are users compensated, they can actually turn off the ads in the settings and simply use the browser normally, and it has a built-in adblocker even on mobile.

bluely 5y ago

Interesting tidbit: a few years back I encountered a Minecraft server with a dynamic map on a website. After checking it out for about 5 minutes I noticed some weird CPU usage so I asked the server admins. They apparently to came to an agreement with the players where, to support the server, a browser miner would be ran on the dynamic map website.

ganzuul 5y ago
I would like to get chunks off of a community grid like Nunet... There is a mod that adds LODs these days, CPU-intensive, so with a nice view the real estate does become a little valuable doesn't it? :)

Nextgrid 5y ago

I'd prefer that to ads. With crypto mining I can buy my way out of it by having powerful hardware, or - in a hypothetical future where this practice is mainstream - offloading the mining to a separate machine as to not affect my mobile device's CPU. Crypto miners have a defined price: give me an average CPU's hashrate while you stay on the page and that's it - so if you pay that you are good. With ads, buying your way out is impossible - by attempting to do so you just become an even bigger target. There is no define price for it that you can pay to "opt out".

horsawlarway 5y ago
>With ads, buying your way out is impossible I disagree. It's just not in its final form yet. But take a peek: Hulu: 6.99 with ads, 12.99 without Youtube: Free with ads, 11.99 without (or bundled with another google paid service, like Fi) HBO: 9.99 with ads, 14.99 without --- It's coming - if you have money to throw at the problem, you can already buy your way out of a lot of advertising. If you have time and a bit of technical savvy - setting up a pihole or ublock origin incurs costs on time, but also remove ads. At least with ads the cost is fairly clear, and it's definite. With mining... it's mostly malicious and will consume as much CPU as it can. That actually taxes me more for having a nice CPU.
- diggernet 5y ago
  You can buy your way out of ads in some places, but you can never buy your way out of the invasive tracking.

sam0x17 5y ago

This was a reality a few years ago (in particular, there was a very easy to use Monero cryptominer that ran in the browser) and then every major ad blocker and many major browser distributions blocked crypto mining and it's basically become impractical for the most part. PirateBay did it for a while but I believe they have stopped, you really don't see it anymore.