Topic: WEBSITE OWNERS: NEW BROWSER MINER! HAVE YOUR WEBSITE GENERATE BITCOINS FOR YOU! - page 5. (Read 40372 times)

 **06/12/2011  -- UPDATE: Official launch of the BitJAM website-embeddable Bitcoin mining code. Availible at www.bitjam.org**

That's pretty cool, there're three problems though:

First, the link is broken (403 forbidden, probably either a permission issue or lack of an index page), so I had to go up a directory to access anything, and the source is inaccessible.

Second, the user would have to confirm a security popup in order for the applet to run, since java's security policy disallows access to anything related to hardware accelerated rendering (even opengl), so any user visiting the page would get some unknown popup when they visited the page, probably assume it's malware, and leave.

Third, the security popup never came up, and the code didn't run. I'm guessing the code is probably throwing an exception somewhere and failing before it gets a chance to ask the user for permission.

I have one with OpenCL - diablo port
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/mining/src

Thanks! I hope people will find it to be useful



Well, I anticipated that some people would have negative feelings towards this. I considered the potential negative aspects of a project like this before I started. Although the idea might sound bad initially to some people, I think that any possible negative aspects can be dealt with rather easily, and the idea has a lot of potential to offer new options to people.

And about the Javascript miners... Javascript can really bog things down if it's doing a lot of work, but it seems that Java applet threads don't seem to make much of an impact on performance on cpu time. From my experiments / messing with stuff, it seems that java applets get a low priority so they won't interfere with or lock up a user's computer. The developers of Java are really huge on security (there are some pretty bizarre things applets aren't allowed to do), so this wouldn't suprise me. Or maybe it just plays more nicely with the cpu scheduler or something. Either way, the Java applet doesn't seem the bog things down like Javascript can.



I'm pretty sure this wouldn't run on most (if any) smartphones:

Android/Blackberry:  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2433338/is-there-a-possibility-to-run-applets-on-android-or-blackberry
iPhone:  http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/9731

Even if a smartphone could run applets, it probably still wouldn't run due to security restrictions, and even in that case, you could filter them out by http header.

As for laptops, that's a pretty different issue, but it still probably wouldn't be a problem. If there's an outlet available nearby, people usually tend to plug in to save their battery life for when they really need it, and also so that their system will run faster since the OS isn't throttling the cpu, harddrive, etc. to conserve power. So what if there are no power outlets around? Well, If someone's browsing the web, they're almost certainly using wifi, and that would imply that there would be power outlets nearby. If the the user doesn't have a wifi connection, the applet won't be able to connect, and it's designed to sleep when there's no connection, so it won't use any cpu time at all. So, in short:

connected to wifi?
   yes -> there should be a power outlet nearby, not a problem.
   no  -> miner shuts itself off until a connection is available, not a problem.



Java uses Just In Time compilation, which means it gets the chance to optimize the compiled code in a way that is able to take full advantage of the machine's capabilities, which means that there's a good possibility that the Java code could run faster than statically compiled C/C++, though it varies from one program to another. You might be able to get better performance out of C#/Silverlight since that also uses JIT, but it's not as portable as Java.



Not sure what you mean here. If you mean the time it takes for the VM to start up, all of that happens in the background (and doesn't even take very long) so it really has no effect on the user. If you mean the Java VM icon cluttering up the system tray in windows, I believe it should be hidden by default, and it doesn't show up on linux. (dunno about mac though)



I find your response understandable, but I think that if you consider the idea further, it seems apparent that it has the potential to make the web a better places in many different ways, and at very little or no cost to anyone.

The applet is designed so that it shouldn't noticably impact performance in any way, so I find it unlikely that people would even know it was served to their browser. It's just code that runs in the background, like Google Analytics, Quantcast, and the like.

Try running Ghostery (http://www.ghostery.com/), there's already tons of stuff like this running behind all the webpages you visit every day. The big difference here is, this code directly and solely benefits the webmaster, and it's arguably quite a bit less ethically questionable.

Many of the scripts that are served invisibly collect information about you so that companies can construct user profiles, which are used to construct statistics which are then sold, usually to marketing companies so that they can figure out how you think and determine which advertisements to show you so you'll buy more stuff from them. Personally, I think that the fact that companies are recording what you do on the internet, building a profile on you, and then selling it is quite a bit more bothersome than having a bit of code that you'd never even know existed run in the background for a minute or two.

Now, if technology like this began to replace advertising, it would mean that rather than having things you don't care about trying to grab your attention by filling up a good portion of your screen space, being blasted in your face with popups, and trying to blend into the page and disguise itself as actual content, an applet would run in the background, and it wouldn't interfere with the user's experience at all.

In addition, if something like this really caught on and people were to use this rather than web advertising, there wouldn't be as much of a need for the previously mentioned (more questionable) scripts, to collect user data to sell to marketing companies, so it could improve internet privacy, while at the same time making the internet a much cleaner, more concise environment.
   
Even if you don't see the value in this applet, I'm sure that it will be useful not only to web masters, but also to any developers of future distributed computing applications that could be used to, in an ideal world, offer a complete and viable replacement for web advertisements.

While I applaud the development of bitcoin-related software, I think it's a horrible idea, just like the JavaScript miners. You're:

1. Potentially consumes all available CPU resources of your visitors unbeknownst to them (especially bad considering laptops and smartphones, which have limited power and small fans at full throttle are uncool as well)
2. Even if you have people give you full consent, they'd be better off running a miner closer to the bare metal. While probably a few orders of magnitude more efficient than JS implementations, it's still a waste of energy.
3. Having to load the Java VM is pretty annoying by itself.

Nice tech demo, but don't ever serve this to my browser or I'll never return.

According to this, it seems that you can use Java in Firefox extensions:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/java_in_firefox_extensions

So yeah, if you modified the source code, you could probably do something like that, and since it wouldn't be an applet anymore, you could probably add an option to have it only kick in if the screensaver is on, or if there hasn't been any mouse/keyboard input for X number of minutes, so it would only run while the computer isn't being used.

Actually, if you can run non-applet Java code in an extension, it kinda makes me wonder if it'd be possible to get a Java gpu miner running in an extension too. The main problem with that would be that the computer would have to have a graphics card capable of using opencl, and the appropriate sdk would have to be installed.

I wonder how much Wikipedia could make using this?

So pardon me if these are dumb questions, as I'm not technical, but could this be redesigned to be a browser plugin?  Something Mozilla could use to pay the bills?

Or, could it be a browser plugin that could be custom-branded by charities, sort of like those branded search bars, and used for fundraising?

Haha yeah, the thought definitely crossed our minds, unfortunately this forum (as well as any that I know of) doesn't allow tags.  However, the Admin should totally get on that! It would be a good way to fund some Bitcoin dev., startups, or other projects for sure.


...As well as any other high traffic site for that matter.  There's even a place for BitJAM in the avid blogger's page!  Imagine... a web without advertisements... just information... 

So since this forum now seems to have 1000+ visitors most of the time, it would be a good idea to run this applet here and generate some btc!



[edit] ChatRoulette could finally monetize all that traffic.

Thanks for the support! If you (or anyone reading this, for that matter) have any ideas / suggestions / developments you would like to see from Zephyre and I be sure to let us know!  We'd love some feedback/critiques.   

Oh and just for a little update, we plan on releasing our embeddable version in a few days (in the process of debugging and optimizing ATM). It should run well over 100 times faster than any of the JavaScript-based browser miners available, and significantly faster than the one on Bitcoin Plus.  Also, it will not require an account with us of any kind! Simply plug and go (user specific data such as amount of shares/Bitcoins generated will still be available via simply entering your individual walled I.D. on our "MyJAM" tab).

Cheers!

 **06/06/2011 9:30am -- UPDATE: Official launch of the BitJAM website. www.bitjam.com**

I'm on board

Well, it doesn't send the hashrate back to the server, since that'd use more bandwidth and add complications, but there is a section in the applet code that's commented out, which prints the hashrate on the current machine to the status bar of the browser. One machine I tested got about 200khps, another got around 800khps, and I think I might be able to bump it up to a couple mhps on some machines if I restructure the applet code a bit.

Sounds very interesting. I am always looking for web-based miners since I have multiple high traffic sites.

Do you have any stats on numbers (hashrates) that could be generated?

06/06/2011 -- UPDATE: Official launch of the Bit•JAM website.
06/12/2011 -- UPDATE: Applet optimized for hyper-threading/multi core CPUs.  Hash rate increased exponentially.
06/12/2011 -- UPDATE: Official Launch of the embeddable browser miner! Drop it in your website/blog/whatever and start generating some "coin flow."
06/13/2011 -- UPDATE: Basic stats on the MyJAM page are now available.
06/20/2011 -- UPDATE: Enhanced statistics are now available on the MyJAM page. Payout system is up and going. 0.06 bitcoins have been paid out to various users so far. Various fixes on the backend (shouldn't crash anymore). Still need to take a look at python2.5 compatibility, some significant improvements should be coming soon.


Your website traffic could be generating Bitcoins for you. Is it?


Bit•JAM - Bitcoin Java Applet Miner - Allows you to do just that. We're open source, and with multi-threading capabilities we're the fastest browser miner on the web! Drop our embed code in your website and start generating some real "coin flow!" There's no sign-up, no user accounts, just plug in your walled I.D., copy, paste, and kick back.

Note: While the embed code is fully functional and stores a record of who has created what shares, it will not actually start paying out for another day or two as we are currently in the final testing stages of the payout code. Rest assured, however, that you may start using the embed code right now and your earnings will be safely and securely stored and recorded.

  
If you like Bit•JAM please donate some bitcoins

  1FyMZskjC9fXSYATVXP3TH3NNeD9E1Pynp