Anubis uses a Proof-of-Work scheme to protect websites against aggressive scraping by AI companies. The mechanism is inspired by Hashcash, a proof-of-Work scheme originally proposed to reduce email spam.
Anubis uses Proof-of-Work scheme to combat aggressive AI web scraping
The system aims to make mass-scale scraping significantly more expensive for scrapers. While the computational load for individual users remains negligible, the cumulative cost at a large scale is intended to deter intensive scraping activities that cause server downtime and resource exhaustion.
According to the Anubis documentation, this approach serves as a placeholder solution. It provides time for more advanced methods, such as fingerprinting headless browsers through font rendering, to identify and differentiate between automated scrapers and legitimate users.
As a technical requirement, Anubis requires the use of modern JavaScript features. This may conflict with privacy-focused browser plugins, such as JShelter, that disable these features.
Sources
- Everyone should slow down AI development except for me （Hacker News Frontpage, 2026-09-13）
- Anubis ドキュメント