How does this work? What prevents AI bots to just solve the proof-of-work and enter the site anyways? It doesn't take much compute to solve it if I can do it on my phone in a second.
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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ai scrapers send thousands of requests per second, they'll just deem a small website using it "not worthy"
Those bots make hundreds of requests a second. Having to load JS and perform PoW for 2 seconds does have an impact.
Adding some extra CPU compute or ASICs for solving puzzles will not slow down a bandwidth-constrained bot. Bandwidth is still the bottleneck and cost factor. With the current state of AI investments, I bet they will go to great lengths to scrape every little bit of the internet at whatever internet bandwidth they have available.
Been seeing this more and more lately. It's a shame we need such a nuclear solution, but it works reliably well. It takes a second or two to be redirected to the site you're visiting.
, but it works reliably well. It takes a second or two to be redirected to the site you’re visiting.
Do you mean it works reliably well in letting users through, or in blocking AI?
Do you have sources or more information about the effectiveness of it in blocking AI? What else it blocks as collateral damage would also be interesting.
/edit: Clicking through some links (specifically canine.tools) I have to say - it may also be effective in annoying me personally, and eventually exiting those websites. Similar to consent dialogs you could go into settings for and save with opt-outs. But it's a barrier and user-opposing functionality.
I certainly don't see it as a simply or only good and effective thing.
Do you mean it works reliably well in letting users through, or in blocking AI?
Both, check out this article talking about it: The Day Anubis Saved Our Websites From a DDoS Attack
Looking at the statistics really shows how dire things have gotten with AI crawlers. The before and after is crazy. There are some other blog posts also mentioning they get maybe 1000x less requests per hour after deploying Anubis.