Opera team just announced the new version, version 50, of its browser with several new features including an anti bitcoin mining tool, Chromecast support, VR Player enhancements, Oculus Rift support and more.
The rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrency has become a major trend of 2017. Crypto hackers and hijackers are finding various holes to process crypto data on users' machines and one of the methods is called cryptojacking. Cryptojacking is a combination of two words – cryptocurrency and hijacking. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash require tons of electricity and processing power to mine coins. Cyber hackers have found a way to hijack user’s browsers and use their machine for mining and the credit goes to the hacker’s account.
What is Cryptojacking?
From the blog post:
Everyone is talking about Bitcoins these days. Their sudden rise in value resulted in the fact that more and more people set out to mine them by running shady scripts on the PCs of unsuspecting users. This situation might sound familiar: Your CPU is suddenly working at 100 percent capacity, the fan is going crazy for seemingly no reason and your battery is quickly depleting. These are signs someone might be using your computer to mine for cryptocurrency and can continue to do so even after you have left the site. It’s a problem which affects approximately 500 million people worldwide but not for those who choose Opera 50.
We, as the only major browser with an integrated ad blocker, have a built-in solution to keep miners from trespassing onto your machine.
After we recently updated the rules of our built-in ad blocker mechanism, we eliminated cryptocurrency mining scripts that overuse your device’s computing ability.
Here’s how it works:
To prevent cryptocurrency mining sites from doing their dirty work on your computer, simply enable Opera’s ad blocker. You can also find and change NoCoin in Settings (Preferences on macOS) > Basic > Block ads, under the Recommended lists of ad filters. If you like ads but still want to be protected from Bitcoin-mining, you can simply uncheck EasyList and leave the NoCoin box checked. Voilà – you’re protected.