Miasma
Ranked 3 of 4 anti-scraping tools by recommenders
Free tool that traps AI web scrapers in an endless loop of poisoned content, praised for its idea and name. Critics doubt it works against major crawlers and say it may hurt the site owner.
Free tool that traps AI web scrapers in an endless loop of poisoned content, praised for its idea and name. Critics doubt it works against major crawlers and say it may hurt the site owner.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 57%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Ineffective against major crawlers
“This project's selective protection of the major players reinforces that effect”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit” “it certainly won't work against Google”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit” “it won't work, especially on gemini”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “Miasma: A tool to trap AI web scrapers in an endless poison pit”
Other anti-scraping tools people recommend
The three most recommended other anti-scraping tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anubis | 164 | 163 | 50% | 12 | — | — |
| iocaine | 9 | 5 | 64% | 6 | — | — |
| MiasmaThis page | 8 | 6 | 57% | 2 | — | — |
| Poison Fountain | 5 | 5 | 50% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Very impressive project tbh.”
“The self-referential loop is a great approach”
“I love the idea but this will only end up harming your SME in the long run.”
“This example is simply a failure”
“It'd be great if the code returned by this project is code that doesn't work.”
“It's not all that productive, it's an act of desperation.”
“This project's selective protection of the major players reinforces that effect”
“It also probably won't work if the person actually wants your content and is checking if the thing they scraped actually makes sense”
“it certainly won't work against Google”
“it won't work, especially on gemini”
“"disobeys robots.txt" is more of a feature”
“Seems a clever and fitting name to me.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.