cryptocurrency mining to replace ads

Discussion in 'Tech Discussion' started by kjoke, Sep 18, 2017.

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Mining VS Ads

  1. I'd prefer ads

    19 vote(s)
    39.6%
  2. I'd prefer mining

    5 vote(s)
    10.4%
  3. I'd block bot anyway

    20 vote(s)
    41.7%
  4. I don't care at all

    10 vote(s)
    20.8%
  5. Interesting idea, let's see how it develops

    4 vote(s)
    8.3%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. kjoke

    kjoke Well-Known Member

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    Apparently The Pirate Bay is testing a js-cryptocurrency miner to generate revenue from visitors without having to display ads (Source). Personally I think this could be a great idea as long it's not used excessively. For example it should be disabled on mobile to save battery and generate 5% CPU usage at the most on PCs.
    Another idea could be to use a visitor only for a set amount of time to generate currency. For example only the first 20 min of visiting the website will be used for mining, the rest of the time will be ad and mining free.
    Or allow visitors to "donate" to a site via mining for them.

    I don't know how profitable using visitors to mine is and whether this can replace ads but well...what do you guys think?
     
  2. Milanin

    Milanin [Reader] [???] [Freeloader]

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    I don't like the idea, since to mine it, something has to give way
     
  3. TUSF

    TUSF Well-Known Member

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    Bitcoin mining takes a lot of computing power. Embedding a miner into a webpage is a terrible idea, for anyone who has a subpar computer. Most computers simply won't be able to handle the load.

    Edit: On top of that, now you've gone from paying for ads through bandwidth, to paying for bitcoin miners through your electric bill. Fun.
     
  4. Crow3r

    Crow3r Well-Known Member

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    Well mobile readers wont be happy with batery life. And dont forget quick wear of any hw used to mining
     
  5. osman993

    osman993 Well-Known Member

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    maybe something for the FUTURE
     
  6. kjoke

    kjoke Well-Known Member

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    What do you mean with "something has to give way"?


    I think the cpu load can be adjusted. As I said, it shouldn't go above ~5%.

    Assuming the cpu load is limited to around 5% the additional cost should be almost neglegible though. At least I think it might be worth it to not have to worry about malicious ads

    Definitely should be disabled on mobile. The wear on hw really doesn't apply here, since only a fraction of your cpu is used for mining and only for a couple minutes a day.
     
  7. Raenef

    Raenef Well-Known Member

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    1. not usable at all for mobiles or laptops which run on batteries

    2. it uses or abuses ur gpu and even on piratebay depending on different user reports it has low to high usage on their pcs, what if u have it open and play a game, do i have to shut down all my browser pages if i want to play, as the browser wont know it, will u hope that the browser gets shut down or do u just have low fps lags etc

    3. some said 5% per tab, per page, so if i have 10 tabs open, 50% gpu from minung, ...
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2017
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  8. J-Mitch

    J-Mitch ⚖ Tipping the Scales of the World

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    It's an interesting idea. I've seen something similar on the show, Silicon Valley.

    To put it so that people can earn money from it, is in it's way interesting. Problem is it's application.

    1. I disagree on the 20 min rule, as a huge proportion of users range around 10-20 minutes on a site in our circles.

    So, I would place it within that range. Maybe 15 minutes?

    2. I would also prefer if the CPU uptake was 5% similar to your suggestion. No more. Also, it would be active on mobile, but only when it's on wi-fi (no data).

    3. The javascript cannot be render blocking. Asynchronous. It cannot slow page speed.

    4. It will also be restricted to a certain time limit. I'm sure they can guage how much power this would draw from a device, so, they should limit to estimates of an average of 5 % battery, no more.

    For a site with a few users, it will not earn them much, but for one that is popular, 100,000 visitors per month, I'm sure it will have some revenue. It may not replace ads, but it could reduce the # of them. I'm sure a lot of users would love having only 2 ads here and there, and not the commonly seen 7-10 per page.

    I have more thoughts on this, but let's end it here.
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2017
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  9. CountryMage

    CountryMage [XSanguine8] not my blood...

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    5% according to who, does it just automatically adjust to your specs, or will it be the straw that breaks my old PC?
     
  10. MangoGuy

    MangoGuy Rambling Mango

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    Can someone please explain what crypto currency and what is being mines here? I don't think I will be able to understand the technical definition on Google.
     
  11. CountryMage

    CountryMage [XSanguine8] not my blood...

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    Here's my understanding, the programs make your computer do complicated math, looking for unique number chains, those are the currency.
     
  12. Airye

    Airye Hermit Water Elementalist

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    I'm pretty sure we have a few years of upgrades both the mining and the computer before it can become common...
     
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  13. kjoke

    kjoke Well-Known Member

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    @Raenef As far as I know it doesn't use the gpu at all, only cpu. The impact on gaming performance (or other programs) really depends on how well this is implemented

    @CountryMage 5% would be what I'd consider optimal. I'm sure this can be adjusted in the code

    One problem I can think of is having opened multiple different sites that all want to mine. Even 5% do add up
     
  14. TUSF

    TUSF Well-Known Member

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    Cryptocurrency is basically "money" that exists as a string of numbers. You "mine" cryptocurrency by performing a bunch of math operations on your computer, and the "swarm" awards you bitcoin (or whatever other currency it is)
    In general, the price of a bitcoin is about the price of the electricity it took to mine it. Not an absolute rule, I think, but it's what I've heard.

    The worry discussed in this topic is that The Pirate Bay has put a "bitcoin miner" in their webpages, which means anyone visiting their website immediately begins mining bitcoins for TPB. You could make a bitcoin miner use less of your CPU power, but that just means it'll make less money, so if this becomes widespread practice, I doubt everyone will be so courteous as to limit the power consumption.
     
  15. CountryMage

    CountryMage [XSanguine8] not my blood...

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    This is part of what worries me, one site with a bunch of ads, nearly crashed my computer last week, my browser hangs just from having two such pages open for a minute (it keeps taking resources the longer it's open), so if there are sites geared for people on better systems draining my scarce resources....
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2017
  16. SublimeWay

    SublimeWay Well-Known Member

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    I'm surprised that there are no mining botnets out there or maybe they are too easily detected.

    This is like a compulsory SETI.
     
  17. MangoGuy

    MangoGuy Rambling Mango

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    So, we all have money equivalent to current. And site wants to take this current when we visit them, only that doing so damages performance. So you all want to limit how much they take to get a better performance? If there are more users, then they can take less from each maybe...
     
  18. J-Mitch

    J-Mitch ⚖ Tipping the Scales of the World

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    There are no in Browser API's for security reasons. So, they can't get your specs. But, what they can do is determine what browser you're using and it's version.

    If your version is Chrome XXY, then they'll know the basic specs you require to have it on said device. From that minimum, they can calculate what 5 % would be. It will not be system specific, but specific to your minimum system requirements for using a particular browser.

    That being the case, the better your system specs from the minimum, the less of a strain it would have on your CPU. So, while minimum may see 5 % CPU usage, those with highs specs will see 1-2 %, probably.

    It will be relative from thereafter.

    This is just conjecture. It is how I would think to do it from the limited knowledge I have on this concept.
     
  19. SAimNE

    SAimNE Well-Known Member

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    Most people here don't seem to understand that it won't "abuse" your system. They will be using tiny bits of your system, there should be little to no performance impact if handled correctly, and definitely no long term damage or perceivable performance loss.

    It operates the same way as a botnet. Sure if you have 15 computers mining you devote 100% of them 24/7 and wear the GPU into nothingness, but with a large host using many client PC's for it, they can essentially have 20k+ PC's working at once. Even if each only contributes 1% of their performance would stack up to 200 ~average pcs operating at 100%, granted distributed processing doesn't add up so cleanly so it would effectively be 100-150. Now if they did 5% that'd be like having 500 systems all burning themselves out mining the data.

    It's a theoretically effective concept, and should have about the same impact on your system that ads would, while not throwing random crap in your face and redirecting you, not to mention ads are a rather big security hole for many sites.
     
  20. SAimNE

    SAimNE Well-Known Member

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    It won't be hard to opt out of mining, it's easy to find and block it yourself if you're familiar with pc usage, chrome and every other major browser will probably have settings built in for it within a month or two, and "mineblock+" or something similar would be out within days. It will likely be very simple for even a less than comp savy person to just install an extension/addon and have settings to cap or refuse the Bitcoin mining.
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2017