Kitz Forum
Chat => Tech Chat => Topic started by: Bowdon on February 14, 2018, 04:50:14 PM
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https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/salon-to-ad-blockers-can-we-use-your-browser-to-mine-cryptocurrency/ (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/salon-to-ad-blockers-can-we-use-your-browser-to-mine-cryptocurrency/)
Salon.com has a new, cryptocurrency-driven strategy for making money when readers block ads. If you want to read Salon without seeing ads, you can do so—as long as you let the website use your spare computing power to mine some coins.
If you visit Salon with an ad blocker enabled, you might see a pop-up that asks you to disable the ad blocker or "Block ads by allowing Salon to use your unused computing power."
I think this is a worrying trend. I noticed once when I went on youtube last month my cpu usage shot up and a warning from firefox saying a tab was slowing the browser down. When I clicked off youtube all went back to normal. Then a couple of weeks later there was an article in a computer magazine saying how certain adverts on youtube were crypto-currency mining and that those adverts have now been removed.
I've seen quite a few of these stories of people finding ways to use other peoples computer power when they visit certain websites.
What do people here think?
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Under no circumstances would I visit that website. :no:
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If the user is made aware, and it does not use excessive CPU power then I don't see a problem with it*, websites have to be paid for somehow.
*Obviously it should stop when you leave that website.
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Part of me says “at least they are being honest”. But regardless of views on rights and wrongs of mining, which I barely understand anyway, one thing strikes me...
...Until the arstechnica article, I had never heard of the website concerned. Now I have, and it is involuntarily lodged in my subconscious. I have no idea what the website is and no inclination at all to visit, but I will recognise the name. If the aim was to discredit that website then it has failed, they have merely given it free advertising (any publicity being good publicity). ???
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Salon is an American news and opinion website, created by David Talbot in 1995 and currently owned by the Salon Media Group. It focuses on U.S. politics, culture, and current events from a politically progressive, liberal or left-wing perspective. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(website))
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More free advertising, then? :wall: :D
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I saw that as confirming I had no reason to go to the actual site to find out what it was!
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I saw that as confirming I had no reason to go to the actual site to find out what it was!
Understood. :)
My concern is that the more identifiable mentions they get, in the press and in forums, the more traffic they will get. But if that was their aim all along, they’ve probably already succeeded. ::)