Online.io: A safer, faster and more private way to browse the Web
An increasing number of people spend a large part of their days on the Internet. Over the recent decades, the quality of their experience there has improved considerably. Connection speed has increased, while harmful or obnoxious scripts have become simpler to block. Yet there is still plenty of room for improvement. What's more, there is a kind of arms race on the Internet between the makers of ad blocking or anti-virus software on one hand and the creators of online ads and malware on the other. The creations of the latter are becoming more and more sophisticated and difficult to catch; consequently, the former are struggling to keep up. Also, big companies and government agencies are increasingly prone to using tracking scripts that accumulate user information, including some sensitive details, for various commercial and other purposes.
Privacy is a major concern for many Internet users, but there are other problems with this as well. Malware can do a great deal of damage. Ads are simply irritating and spoil their overall online experience. Also, all those overt and covert scripts, usually largely extraneous to the sites they are attached to, slow down browsing speed significantly. Blocking ads is itself an imperfect solution, because ad revenues are essential for many websites, especially ones that focus on free content.
Online Blockchain Technologies Ltd offers a new and more complex approach. In addition to protecting Internet end-users from unwanted content, it also proposes a different way to support website owners, creating a direct financial incentive for them to alter their business models and get rid of ads.
How will Online.io do this?
Website owners or operators will be able to become a part of the Online.io ecosystem by removing ads and malware, purchasing and staking Online tokens (OIO) and allowing the addition of a JavaScript guardian to their webpages. The guardian will detect and block extraneous adware as well as carry out occasional automated verifications to make sure that there are no new unwanted scripts on the page and prevent operators from gaming the system by including ads later. The same JavaScript will record user activity on the page by the minute. This information will be forwarded to a network of private nodes on Cloudflare which will confirm that the users were not bots and carry out the weekly mining of a separate token currency (ICE) on a combined Proof of Stake and Proof of Elapsed Time (also called Proof of Online) basis. These tokens will then be distributed to OIO holders and participating website owners.
Visitors on an Online.io-compliant site will be informed of this fact by a tooltip and offered a chance to install the Online.io browser extension or mobile app. The app will include a highly secure wallet and a custom ad blocker, tracking script blocker and anti-malware program. The browser extension will come with a separate wallet app, but its functionality will be similar. In addition to safeguarding them from unwanted content on all sites, it will allow them to rank participating websites using a five-star system. Voting and writing reviews will be encouraged with a Trust token (TST). Unlike the other two currencies, it will not be possible to trade TST but it could be used to increase user rank, lending more weight to their ratings; it could also be used to acquire various prizes and customisation options. The ranking, automatically defaulting to 2.5 stars when there are no votes, will be used together with user activity minutes to determine the exact size of an ICE reward due to every participating site. Lastly, Online.io will also encourage merchants to accept ICE as payment for their products, give them the necessary API to accept it and set up a marketplace for products that could be bought online with ICE.
How can you win with Online.io?
Onlineo.io's intent is to cultivate an ecosystem around a higher-quality Internet experience. The end users' interest in this is obvious and might be taken for granted. “Game” tokens will be used to incentivise an active participation in the rating system. Combined with the ICE reward mechanism, it is expected that this will encourage web operators to establish higher quality websites instead of relying on the old and often very user-unfriendly ad-based model. Their income will depend directly on their pages' popularity with the users. The proliferation of ad blocking software, including that offered by Online.io itself, should make this a more appealing option. Provided that the ecosystem takes off, e-shop owners will also have an incentive to allow ICE to be integrated as a payment method to add more clients.
The team behind Online.io has considerable startup and IT experience. Its product is currently in development. Given the current concerns with online privacy and the endemic unrest among Internet users about ad-based revenue models and malware, the project seems likely to acquire a fair amount of enthusiasm and popular support.
Token sale details
An alternative model for the online economy
Online.io's core proposal is very ambitious and idealistic. It amounts to completely revamping the way online sites are monetised in order to create an Internet ecosystem based on quality (as assessed by interested users). There is some cause for concern as to whether or not it will be able to live up to its promises. Its model does not seem foolproof against bias on the user side, for instance. Also, many details about the technical side of its operations are either not elaborated on or not yet set in stone.
It is still early in this project's life cycle, so there is time for it to address these and other concerns. Along the same lines, it must be kept in mind that Online.io could not hope to transform the entire Internet overnight. Many of the larger sites in particular probably wouldn't be interested in its proposal for the near future. But it does offer what may be the best way out of the current dilemma posed by online ads. Assuming enough website owners are interested in the experiment of changing their revenue streams, and that its model works as advertised, this project could in due time achieve its goal.
Website: https://online.io/
WhitePaper: https://online.io/download/OIO-Whitepaper.pdf
Telegram: https://t.me/OnlineIO
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Online.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OnlineIO_
Medium: https://medium.com/online-io-blockchain-technologies
ANN: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3452258
Author: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=980049
Disclaimer
This review by Bonanza Kreep is all opinion and analysis, not investment advice.
thanks for your review, on online. io @bonanza-kreep
You're welcome!