Opera 50 with Crypto Mining Protection

Opera 50, the next stable version of the Opera web browser, comes with cryptocurrency mining protection to block mining scripts on sites automatically.

Crypto mining using JavaScript is a relatively new phenomenon. This cryptocurrency mining method received some bad press because it was abused by a number of sites.

What's meant by that is that sites ran mining operations in JavaScript on their sites, and that users who connected to these sites had their resources used without them giving their okay or having options to reduce the impact the mining had on their devices.

Some sites did not limit the resource use at all, and users experienced their device's cpu load going up to 100% the moment they connected to these sites. Even worse, some used technology to continue mining operations even after the site is exited or the browser window closed.

Malwarebytes discovered one method that sites abused to do so. Basically, what sites in question did was launch a popunder that would fit right under the taskbar of the operation system so that it was difficult to spot by the user.

Opera 50 will ship with anti-crypto mining support. Opera Software loads the NoCoin list if ad blocking is enabled in the browser, and that list powers the protection.

As you may know, Opera browser is one of the few browsers with integrated ad-blocking. You can load opera://settings to manage the blocking of ads in the browser.

If you have enabled the preference "block ads and surf the web up to three times faster", you should see NoCoin (Cryptocurrency Mining Protection) under recommended lists. Note that it may take a moment before the entry is added after you enable the ad blocking in Opera.

All lists are loaded from Opera servers anonymously. You cannot open the list in the browser's interface, but can check out which sites and resources are on the NoCoin list on the project's GitHub page.

The NoCoin list can be loaded into most ad-blocking extensions such as Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin.

Closing Words

The abuse of JavaScript mining by sites has reduced the chance of this ever becoming a feasible option for webmasters and site owners to monetize their sites. A site that wants to use mining ethically, by asking users or providing a clearly visible toggle at the very least, will have the reach of that option cut by a large percentage because of the use of anti-mining lists by ad-blocking extensions.

I'm not saying that mining is feasible for most sites, as you need a lot of users to make this a viable alternative to advertisement even with all the issues that advertising faces.