4 ms·

Plenty of threads on HN about this, Anubis does not work.

by stickfigure 19d ago

autoexec 19d ago
It always seems to keep me, a normal human, locked out of any site that uses it.
phendrenad2 19d ago
Plenty of threads saying it works, too.
danbolt 19d ago
I’ve read a few different experiences with hosts having had success with Anubis to cut down on excessive scraping. One that comes to mind is the Dolphin project.[1] I’ve read a few of those threads, but often it’s people at cross-purposes with the goals of Anubis. Is there a chance you could clarify the “not working” bit? [1] https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2025/06/04/dolphin-progress-report-release-2506/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2025/06/04/dolphin-progress-rep...
- stickfigure 19d ago
  From a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500040 Basically, the cost of an optimized solution is orders of magnitude lower than the cost of an in-browser solution. Anyone dedicated can easily afford to solve workloads higher than your users will tolerate. You might stop casual scrapers, but you're not going to stop someone who cares. AI scraping companies care.
  - hedora 19d ago
    [dead]
  - murderfs 19d ago
    That's not even the fundamental problem. Even if the payload runs optimally in the browser, the cost of CPU is so small that it's basically irrelevant. If you waste your user's time with something that would take a full minute to run on a datacenter core, you're costing the scraper something like $0.000005: 360 W TDP on a 128-core EPYC 9754 * $0.10/kWh. In reality, it'll be substantially less than that, because CPUs don't use 0W at idle. The only way this would make any sense is if there were many more scrapers than users and scrapers cared more about latency than real users, but that's the exact opposite of reality. The entire endeavor is so fundamentally misguided that it almost seems like a psyop.
  - mitxela 18d ago
    You're assuming that the part of Anubis that stops bots is the PoW. It's not.
    - account42 18d ago
      The other parts are even more trivial for someone who cares to work around.
      - mitxela 18d ago
        "someone who cares" is the part that creates the firewall.
        stickfigure 18d ago
        With modern AI tools, the amount you have to care is slight. Not much of a firewall. And the bad actors causing these scraping problems care a lot.
        mitxela 18d ago
        Still have to care enough to run the ai
- nubinetwork 18d ago
  > Is there a chance you could clarify the “not working” bit? I see anubis, 90% of the time I close the tab before it finishes.
  - ShadowOfThePit 18d ago
    But why?
    - nubinetwork 18d ago
      Impatience and annoyance
GaryBluto 18d ago
I am thankful for Anubis. It's a litmus test for the arrogance of the people behind a website.

Plenty of threads on HN about this, Anubis does not work.

autoexec 19d ago

It always seems to keep me, a normal human, locked out of any site that uses it.

phendrenad2 19d ago

Plenty of threads saying it works, too.

danbolt 19d ago

I’ve read a few different experiences with hosts having had success with Anubis to cut down on excessive scraping. One that comes to mind is the Dolphin project.[1] I’ve read a few of those threads, but often it’s people at cross-purposes with the goals of Anubis. Is there a chance you could clarify the “not working” bit? [1] https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2025/06/04/dolphin-progress-report-release-2506/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2025/06/04/dolphin-progress-rep...

stickfigure 19d ago
From a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500040 Basically, the cost of an optimized solution is orders of magnitude lower than the cost of an in-browser solution. Anyone dedicated can easily afford to solve workloads higher than your users will tolerate. You might stop casual scrapers, but you're not going to stop someone who cares. AI scraping companies care.
- hedora 19d ago
  [dead]
- murderfs 19d ago
  That's not even the fundamental problem. Even if the payload runs optimally in the browser, the cost of CPU is so small that it's basically irrelevant. If you waste your user's time with something that would take a full minute to run on a datacenter core, you're costing the scraper something like $0.000005: 360 W TDP on a 128-core EPYC 9754 * $0.10/kWh. In reality, it'll be substantially less than that, because CPUs don't use 0W at idle. The only way this would make any sense is if there were many more scrapers than users and scrapers cared more about latency than real users, but that's the exact opposite of reality. The entire endeavor is so fundamentally misguided that it almost seems like a psyop.
- mitxela 18d ago
  You're assuming that the part of Anubis that stops bots is the PoW. It's not.
  - account42 18d ago
    The other parts are even more trivial for someone who cares to work around.
    - mitxela 18d ago
      "someone who cares" is the part that creates the firewall.
      - stickfigure 18d ago
        With modern AI tools, the amount you have to care is slight. Not much of a firewall. And the bad actors causing these scraping problems care a lot.
        mitxela 18d ago
        Still have to care enough to run the ai
nubinetwork 18d ago
> Is there a chance you could clarify the “not working” bit? I see anubis, 90% of the time I close the tab before it finishes.
- ShadowOfThePit 18d ago
  But why?
  - nubinetwork 18d ago
    Impatience and annoyance

GaryBluto 18d ago

I am thankful for Anubis. It's a litmus test for the arrogance of the people behind a website.