• ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    Yeah but it doesn’t matter what the objective of the scraper is, the only thing that matters is that it’s an automated client that is going to send mass requests to you. If it wasn’t, Anubis would not be a problem for it.

    The effect is the same, increased hosting costs and less access for legitimate clients. And sites want to defend against it.

    That said, it is not mandatory, you can avoid using Anubis as a host. Nobody is forcing you to use it. And as someone who regularly gets locked out of services because I use a VPN, Anubis is one of the least intrusive protection methods out there.

    • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      It’s very intrusive in the sense that it runs a PoW challenge, unsolicited on the client. That’s literally like having a cryptominer running on your computer for each challenge.

      Each one would do what they want with their server, of course. But for instance I’m very fond of scraping. For instance I have FreshRSS running ok my server, and the way it works is that when the target website doesn’t provide a RSS feed ot scrapes it to get the articles. I also have other service that scrapes to get pages changes.

      I think part of the beauty of internet is being able to automate processes, software lile Anubis puts a globally significant energy tax on theses automations.

      Once again, each one it’s able to do with their server whatever they want. But the think I like the least is that they are targeting with some great PR their software as part of some great anti-AI crusade, I don’t know if the devs itself or any other party. And I don’t like this mostly because I think is disinformation and just manipulative towards people who is maybe easy to manipulate if you say the right words. I also think that it’s a discourse that pushes into radicalization from certain topic, and I’m a firm believer that right now we need to overall reduce radicalization, not increase it.

      • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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        2 days ago

        A proof of work challenge is infinitely better than the alternative of “fuck you, you’re accessing this through a VPN and the IP is banned for being owned by Amazon (or literally any data center)”