The rise of cryptocurrencies might be good for paving the way for a decentralized economy, but the technology has also given birth to a number of problems. The tech world is seeing an exponential increase in the number of malware and websites which are forcing user’s machines to mine cryptocurrencies on their behalf. We first discovered that such a problem exist when the extremely popular torrent website, the Piratebay was found to include a code which forced visitors machines to mine cryptocurrencies for them. And now more and more websites are following the same path.
The worst part of this problem is that there is no easy way to find out as to which websites are hiding these crypto-mining malware. That’s why it’s so good to hear that prominent browser applications like Opera are making sure that they inherently support the blocking of such malware. Opera has just announced that their latest Release Candidate (RC) version of their web browser now comes with a built-in innovative cryptocurrency mining protection service.
Opera is one of the best privacy-focused browsers out there. It already comes with baked in unlimited VPN service, and now the service also blocks crypto-mining malware on websites. The service which is mentioned as NoCoin is present inside the Basic tab under the Preferences or Settings page. Once this setting is enabled, the browser will block all the cryptocurrency mining scripts present on any website. NoCoin initially existed and in fact still exists as an extension for the Opera browser.
That said, I don’t know if Opera is including the same extension or has created its own scripts to block crypto miners. Whatever’s the case, I am glad that Opera is focusing on the problem of cryptocurrency mining script and providing a pro-active solution for its users. I hope that other prominent browsers such as Mozilla, Chrome, and Safari also start doing the same.
