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dheerayesterday at 10:03 PM3 repliesview on HN

Coming soon: JavaScript embeds on bloated websites that mine cryptocurrency on viewers' WebGPUs.

Accidentally leave a browser tab open and it burns $5 of your electricity overnight to make $2 for the owner of the website.


Replies

drakytheyesterday at 10:05 PM

That's not coming soon, that is a thing that was happening on compromised servers years ago (and probably still, but to a lesser extent given the decline in popularity of meme coin launches)

fg137yesterday at 10:14 PM

A few years ago, if you visit a site, your laptop grinds to a halt and the fan starts spinning like crazy, you know there is crypto mining happening on the site.

(btw that was a really good showcase for WebAssembly. Too bad it's used for illegitimate purposes)

show 1 reply
RobotToasteryesterday at 10:09 PM

Already been done, albeit without the webgpu part. I think some browsers already block crypto miners

It's a shame in a way, it also blocked the pseudo-captchas that used mining to limit spam.