4 ms·

I just don't understand why bot owners can't just run a complete windows 11 VM running Google Chrome complete with graphics acceleration. You can probably run

I just don't understand why bot owners can't just run a complete windows 11 VM running Google Chrome complete with graphics acceleration. You can probably run 50 of those simultaneously if you use memory page deduplication, and with a decent CPU+GPU you ought to be able to render 50 pages a second. That's 1 cent per thousand page loads on AWS. Damn cheap.

poly2it 7mo ago
If you know of a simple way to run a Windows 11 VM with good graphics acceleration (no GPU passthrough), please contact me.
- MarioMan 7mo ago
  I assume your concern with GPU passthrough is that each VM needs a whole GPU? You can use GPU-PV to split your GPU between VM instances. Then the main bottleneck becomes how thin you split out your VRAM. More info here: https://web.archive.org/web/20231107182321/https://mu0.cc/2020/08/25/hyperv-gpupv/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231107182321/https://mu0.cc/20... https://youtu.be/XLLcc29EZ_8?t=570 https://youtu.be/XLLcc29EZ_8?t=570 https://github.com/jamesstringer90/Easy-GPU-PV https://github.com/jamesstringer90/Easy-GPU-PV
  - deltoidmaximus 7mo ago
    Wouldn't virtualbox or vmware's paravirtual GPUs be a better fit for this use case? Unfortunately the offerings with qemu/libvirt still lag vmwares by a lot.
    - MarioMan 7mo ago
      I know those offer virtual GPUs, but I am unfamiliar with any paravirtual GPU offerings from VMWare or VirtualBox. The virtual GPUs are much more limited in performance and graphics API support.
huertouisj 7mo ago
there are scraping subreddits. if you browse them you will see that bot writers are very annoyed if they can't scrape a site with a headless browser. you can do what you suggested, but with Linux VMs/containers. windows is too heavy, each VM will cost you 4 GB of RAM
- xmcp123 7mo ago
  I’m in those. xvfb and headless=false still works great
- londons_explore 7mo ago
  The reason to use windows is that anti bot tech is going to be a lot stricter if Linux is detected...
jaccola 7mo ago
There are myriad providers competing to offer this, nicely packaged with all the accoutrements (IP rotation, location spoofing, language settings, prebuilt parsers, etc.) behind an easy to use API. Honestly it is a very healthy competitive market with reasonably low switching costs which drives prices down. These circumstances make rolling your own a tough sell.
arcfour 7mo ago
They do, but the fact that they have to do this means there are fewer bots because it's less economical to go to such lengths, compared to something much less complex (which is orders of magnitude cheaper).
himata4113 7mo ago
284 on 296gb of ram with deduplication enabled on a 128c with 32Q vgpu.
hrmtst93837 7mo ago
[flagged]
YetAnotherNick 7mo ago
I am reasonably sure that these kind of fingerprints can detect if the browser is inside a VM.
kristjansson 7mo ago
… yup? I mean you missed the minigame of preventing Chrome from signaling that it’s being programmatically (webdriver etc) driven and tipping your hand, but … yup?

poly2it 7mo ago

If you know of a simple way to run a Windows 11 VM with good graphics acceleration (no GPU passthrough), please contact me.

MarioMan 7mo ago
I assume your concern with GPU passthrough is that each VM needs a whole GPU? You can use GPU-PV to split your GPU between VM instances. Then the main bottleneck becomes how thin you split out your VRAM. More info here: https://web.archive.org/web/20231107182321/https://mu0.cc/2020/08/25/hyperv-gpupv/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231107182321/https://mu0.cc/20... https://youtu.be/XLLcc29EZ_8?t=570 https://youtu.be/XLLcc29EZ_8?t=570 https://github.com/jamesstringer90/Easy-GPU-PV https://github.com/jamesstringer90/Easy-GPU-PV
- deltoidmaximus 7mo ago
  Wouldn't virtualbox or vmware's paravirtual GPUs be a better fit for this use case? Unfortunately the offerings with qemu/libvirt still lag vmwares by a lot.
  - MarioMan 7mo ago
    I know those offer virtual GPUs, but I am unfamiliar with any paravirtual GPU offerings from VMWare or VirtualBox. The virtual GPUs are much more limited in performance and graphics API support.

huertouisj 7mo ago

there are scraping subreddits. if you browse them you will see that bot writers are very annoyed if they can't scrape a site with a headless browser. you can do what you suggested, but with Linux VMs/containers. windows is too heavy, each VM will cost you 4 GB of RAM

xmcp123 7mo ago
I’m in those. xvfb and headless=false still works great
londons_explore 7mo ago
The reason to use windows is that anti bot tech is going to be a lot stricter if Linux is detected...

jaccola 7mo ago

There are myriad providers competing to offer this, nicely packaged with all the accoutrements (IP rotation, location spoofing, language settings, prebuilt parsers, etc.) behind an easy to use API. Honestly it is a very healthy competitive market with reasonably low switching costs which drives prices down. These circumstances make rolling your own a tough sell.

arcfour 7mo ago

They do, but the fact that they have to do this means there are fewer bots because it's less economical to go to such lengths, compared to something much less complex (which is orders of magnitude cheaper).

himata4113 7mo ago

284 on 296gb of ram with deduplication enabled on a 128c with 32Q vgpu.

hrmtst93837 7mo ago

[flagged]

YetAnotherNick 7mo ago

I am reasonably sure that these kind of fingerprints can detect if the browser is inside a VM.

kristjansson 7mo ago

… yup? I mean you missed the minigame of preventing Chrome from signaling that it’s being programmatically (webdriver etc) driven and tipping your hand, but … yup?