Browser Mining?

So, I was looking online for a list of all known mining scripts out of curiosity; but, the top result diverted my attention... Sites are exhausting CPUs to mine Monero. Have a read, it's very interesting, despite being sensationalized. Basically, some sites were including a captcha alternative, where instead of a normal picture captcha, the host computer must solve a set number of hashes under the cryptonight algorithm (best for consumer CPUs) - with the site owner getting 70% of the profits and coinhive (the creators of the software) recieving 30%. The profits are negligible on a small scale as only a couple of hashes are performed and web mining is about 60% efficient compared to native. But on a site that has thousands of users, it could subtly supplement the owner(s), making it a form of passive donation - like adverts but less obvious.

On the contrary to the article I mentioned before, this is not a scam - but a legitimate way for site holders and bloggers to make a bit of money without costing their users more than a couple of seconds. Which I think is great! I did sign up and attempted to patch the script into this post but steemit doesn't allow scripts so I made a HTML file for you guys to inspect and mess about with. It contains their 'proof of work' miner and their normal GUI miner.

CPU maxing out during 'proof of work'

Fraud

I was really quite shocked when I found out browser mining was a thing, considering how programs were being 'spiked' with crypto miners such as the time Linux MINT was hacked, and the plethora of pirate software that are running hidden miners, most antivirus software now completely reject miners.

To me, this technology could be quite detrimental if it were in the wrong hands, someone could hack a popular website, place a script in the background and cash out hugely, people might not even realise they've been profited from.

At least this would only be on one website, it wouldn't stick around - and no one is harmed, it's more of an inconvenience.

Donation

This is the part i find really opens a few doors. Traditionally, to make money, a website owner would have to:

• Sell a product or service
• Allow advertisers
• Ask for donations
• Sell customer info

Browser mining means they have a new option; passive donation. Users can help support website owners simply by lending some of their spare computing power while they're on the site. It could be that users don't even know about it. I can see many free sites such as wikipedia picking this up, that's because I know how hard it is to get people to donate even a small ammount of cash - it's down to the effort involved, not the money itself. The trouble then lies in whether customers perfer lag or adverts...

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you've found it at least slightly interesting! :)