Some websites use your computer without your knowledge to mine cryptocurrency. Here is how to block this siphoning of CPU resources.
You are browsing a website and all of a sudden your laptop fan starts spinning faster than usual. This may be a sign that your processor is under heavy demand to mine cryptocurrency. This mishap happened, for example, to users of The Pirate Bay site, who executed JavaScript code to undermine moneros without your knowledge.
If you are in doubt, Windows can tell you if your processor is in use or not. To do this, execute the key sequence
1 – Use an antivirus
The first barrier of protection is quite simply the antivirus if the latter has a function of blocking cryptocurrency miners. This is for example the case of the famous Avast and a window is displayed to warn you that the threat has been blocked when you surf on a site containing a mining JavaScript code.
2 – Install an extension for your browser
Extensions are available for major browsers to block mining operations. Let us quote for example No Coin which is available for Chrome and Firefox.
Click on Add to Chrome then on Add extension in order to make it active. It appears as an icon at the top right of the window and you don’t have to do anything else.
Opera browser users now have an internal version of No Coin. To activate it, use the key sequence
3 – use an ad blocker
If you have already installed the Adblock Plus or uBlock Origin ad blocker, it is possible to modify it to block cryptocurrency miners. For Adblock Plus, click in the browser on the ABP icon, located at the top right, then on Options. In the tab Filter List, click on Subscribe to the filter list, then on Add another subscription at the bottom of the drop-down list.
Then type a name for your new subscription, for example NoCoin, then the address of the block list, available on This site.
Finally click on the button Add to complete the operation.
4 – Modify the hosts file … possibly
Found in Windows and macOS, the hosts file contains text matches between a website and its IP address. Just add lines that redirect mining sites to 0.0.0.0 to block the connection. For example, use Notepad to add the line 0.0.0.0 coin-hive.com to the Windows hosts file (usually C: Windows System32 drivers etc).
If the operation seems simple, it requires adding all the lines concerning the mining sites, available as a text file. The task turns out to be complex and this data may subsequently no longer be valid.