Merging Branch 'hl/test-helper-fd-close': Understanding the Anubis Protection Measure

You are seeing this message because your administrator has set up Anubis, a security measure designed to protect our server against the increasing threat of AI-powered website scrapers. This compromise may cause downtime for websites, making their resources inaccessible to everyone.

The Problem with AI Scraping

AI companies have been using sophisticated algorithms and bots to scrape websites, draining resources and causing problems for legitimate users. In an effort to combat this issue, our administrator has implemented Anubis, a Proof-of-Work scheme inspired by Hashcash.

Anubis is designed to make scraping more expensive at mass scales, while being negligible at individual levels. This compromise aims to create a barrier that makes it difficult for malicious actors to scrape websites without adding significant costs or complexity.

The Real Purpose of Anubis

While the primary intention of Anubis is to deter AI scrapers, its implementation also serves another purpose. By requiring users to complete a challenge-proof-of-work page, our administrator aims to gather more information about legitimate users and improve their ability to detect headless browsers.

This improved detection capability will help reduce the number of times that legitimate users are presented with the Anubis challenge, making it easier for them to access websites without being slowed down by this measure. However, this comes at a cost – users must enable JavaScript to bypass the challenge, which is now required due to changes in how website hosting works.

Enabling JavaScript: A Necessary Evil

The Anubis protection requires users to have JavaScript enabled, as it relies on modern JavaScript features that plugins like JShelter disable. To access our website safely, please disable JShelter or other similar plugins and enable JavaScript.

This solution is still a work-in-progress, as a no-JS solution is not yet available. Our administrator encourages you to stay patient and informed about updates and improvements to this measure.