Anubis (software)
| Anubis | |
|---|---|
.png?lang=en) The page shown by Anubis during its challenge. | |
| Original author | Xe Iaso |
| Developer | Techaro[1] |
| Initial release | January 19, 2025[1][2] |
| Stable release | 1.22.0[3] 
/ 6 September 2025 |
| Repository | github |
| Written in | Go, JavaScript[1] |
| License | MIT License |
| Website | anubis |
Anubis is a software program that adds a proof of work challenge to websites before users can access them, in order to deter web scraping. It has been adopted mainly by Git forges and free and open-source software projects.[4][5]
Anubis was created by Xe Iaso in response to Amazon's web crawler overloading their Git server, as the crawler did not respect the robots.txt exclusion protocol and would work around restrictions.[4][6]
Adoption
[edit]It is used by a number of projects, including:[7]
- The GNOME Project's GitLab instance[4]
- The Linux kernel mailing list archives[1] and Git server[8]
- sourceware.org[7]
- FFmpeg[1][6]
- FreeBSD
- FreeDesktop
- Wine[9]
- UNESCO[6]
- The Science Olympiad Student Center[9]
- Enlightenment[9]
- FreeCAD[10]
- Krantenbank Zeeland
- ScummVM[11]
Criticism
[edit]Tavis Ormandy noted that the cost of scraping websites protected by Anubis is likely negligible: "I don’t think we reach a single cent per month in compute costs until several million sites have deployed Anubis."[12]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e Brockmeier, Joe (July 10, 2025). "Anubis sends AI scraperbots to a well-deserved fate". LWN.net.
- ^ Iaso, Xe (January 19, 2025). "Block AI scrapers with Anubis". xeiaso.net. Retrieved May 2, 2025.
- ^ "Release 1.22.0". September 6, 2025. Archived from the original on September 7, 2025. Retrieved September 7, 2025.
- ^ a b c Edwards, Benj (March 25, 2025). "Open source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 2, 2025.
- ^ Bort, Julie (March 27, 2025). "Open source devs are fighting AI crawlers with cleverness and vengeance". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 2, 2025.
- ^ a b c Maiberg, Emanuel (July 7, 2025). "The Open-Source Software Saving the Internet From AI Bot Scrapers". 404 Media. Retrieved July 14, 2025.
- ^ a b "List of known websites using Anubis". anubis.techaro.lol. Retrieved May 10, 2025.
- ^ "Anubis". Techaro. Retrieved July 28, 2025.
- ^ a b c Iaso, Xe (April 12, 2025). "Anubis works". xeiaso.net. Retrieved May 9, 2025.
- ^ "Forum and Wiki Performance; Anubis Deployed". FreeCAD News. April 30, 2025. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
- ^ "The Day Anubis Saved Our Websites From a DDoS Attack". fabulous.systems. May 1, 2025. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
- ^ Ormandy, Tavis. "Anubis". lock.cmpxchg8b.com. Retrieved October 2, 2025.
External links
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