An actual, non-scam way to make free money!

[da na]

First, this is NOT a sponsored review. What this is is hopefully a preemptive answer to "How do I make free money online with my PC" threads. 

It's a little app called Honeygain. I'll explain how it works, tell you the basics, and discuss the yield. Despite the similar name, this is not the Honey browser extension. 

Well, what is it? It's an app for Windows PCs that shares your network bandwidth to "trusted companies" according to Honeygain's website. Basically, if you have a fast network, your computer's network resources can be remotely used to access websites through your provider.

So, is it safe? Well, I've done a little investigating. All the traffic in and out of my Honeygain nodes is encrypted P2P with solid security, and Honeygain claims the app does not share any of your personal information or access local files. I believe this, as restricting the app so it cannot access local files or account information has no effect on its functionality.

How's the pay? Well, don't quit your job just yet - it's not much. For me, running on two computers with content delivery (will explain later) enabled on one has gotten me approximately $20 over the course of one month. 

Note: Don't use the JumpTask mode, just use the Honeygain mode. I made the mistake of using Jumptask, and it was, well, just that - a mistake. Jumptask is a crypto wallet that, although supposedly having a far higher USD conversion rate than Honeygain wallet, you can't actually do anything with. You can swap the tokens to BNB and then you can swap the BNB to other tokens to then trade them for USD but it's such a mess and I do not recommend it. Gas fees eat a lot of your profits.

Content Delivery, as explained earlier, allows media streaming as well as general web browsing through your network. It's not available in all locations or on all devices. It's not mega profitable either, but is a nice boost so I recommend enabling it.

Here's my earnings from the past 30 days.

[Commodore256]

Even begging by a sign takes effort.

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Commodore256 said:

Even begging by a sign takes effort.

True. At some point you have to do something to see returns. Heck, even theft requires a good amount of effort... (not saying I encourage it)

[Alex Atkin UK]

Sounds dodgy, they claim transparency but where do they explain EXACLTY how it works?

 

While great in principle, running anything like this without assurances that other users potentially using it for something illegal wont track back to you is a very bad idea.  This sounds a lot like running a Tor exit node which is known to be a legal minefield.

[da na]

Just now, Alex Atkin UK said:

Sounds dodgy, they claim transparency but where do they explain EXACLTY how it works?

 

While great in principle, running anything like this without assurances that other users potentially using it for something illegal wont track back to you is a very bad idea.

It seems all responsibility would fall on Honeygain, since users have no clue what is being accessed through their network.

Traffic rerouting is simple - it's how a lot of the Internet is driven when it comes to ad services and et cetera.

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

It seems all responsibility would fall on Honeygain, since users have no clue what is being accessed through their network.

Traffic rerouting is simple - it's how a lot of the Internet is driven when it comes to ad services and et cetera.

Its never quite that simple, eg https://torrentfreak.com/tor-exit-node-operator-dodges-bullet-in-piracy-lawsuit/

 

Now imagine if what it was used for was worse than piracy.

 

Even assuming you might be able to argue you are innocent, the lawsuit alone could really mess up your life.

[manikyath]

legal minefield of potentially being an edge server for weird stuff aside...

 

$20/mo barely covers the power cost of running a computer for this.

and unless you're in some poverty ravaged region, 20 bucks per month is so little you might actually make more money by becoming more aware of parasitic energy usage and paying a bit more attention at the supermarket.

 

as for if anyone wonders how this works; my guess is that this is the "back side" of something like a decentralized VPN product, or similar. basicly a company wants to make something "decentralized" because they learned a new word.. but decentralized means endpoints.. so they buy endpoints.

[da na]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

legal minefield of potentially being an edge server for weird stuff aside...

 

$20/mo barely covers the power cost of running a computer for this.

and unless you're in some poverty ravaged region, 20 bucks per month is so little you might actually make more money by becoming more aware of parasitic energy usage and paying a bit more attention at the supermarket.

 

as for if anyone wonders how this works; my guess is that this is the "back side" of something like a decentralized VPN product, or similar. basicly a company wants to make something "decentralized" because they learned a new word.. but decentralized means endpoints.. so they buy endpoints.

To be clear I have an actual job. This is not my only income source and I am saying this should not be your own income source. However, $20 a month covers some cables, adapters, etc I do need for my job so knocks off a few expenses there.

Also, I don't pay for power, and I run this on my NAS since it already has 2.5 gig Ethernet. I would not recommend setting up a computer just for this.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

To be clear I have an actual job. This is not my only income source and I am saying this should not be your own income source. However, $20 a month covers some cables, adapters, etc I do need for my job so knocks off a few expenses there.

Also, I don't pay for power, and I run this on my NAS since it already has 2.5 gig Ethernet. I would not recommend setting up a computer just for this.

first things first: SOMEONE is paying for that power. might not be you directly, but the power isnt "free". and if the power goes up, that probably ends up on your doorstep at some point.

 

beyond that.. if you have a job, $20 can be earned (or not spent) in better ways than letting "undefined entities" use your connection as their endpoint. and if you need to do shady stuff to buy stuff you need for your job.. again - there's issues on that side of things. 

 

also, 2.5G LAN means nothing, it's eating whatever your ISP connection is, not what your LAN is.

 

my point is that it's free money in the same quantity as learning to not buy candy when you go to the supermarket is free money. except the not buying candy thing does not have potential for legal hot water because YOU are responsible for what goes over YOUR connection.. and in this you have NO idea what's going over it. unless that 20 bucks really is a major impact on your life, it is simply not worth the risk.

 

let me put it differently - if you're paid the US minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, averaging about 8 minutes of paid overtime per day will net you more money than what this thing is earning you. taking lowest 10% median of factory workers (according to bis.gov), that goes down to 5 minutes per day.

 

basicly.. you're making the equivalent of taking a really big dump at work every day.

[SorryBella]

2 hours ago, Mel0n. said:

running on two computers with content delivery (will explain later) enabled on one has gotten me approximately $20 over the course of one month. 

Putting what @manikyathand @Alex Atkin UK said aside, this also wont cover massive bill of being a "CDN". Its an upload-download intensive task that your ISP will log as your activity, which means if you live in rate limited ISP, youre fucked. 20$ wouldnt even get me an extra 500GB limit on my internet.

[Alex Atkin UK]

7 hours ago, SorryClaire said:

Putting what @manikyathand @Alex Atkin UK said aside, this also wont cover massive bill of being a "CDN". Its an upload-download intensive task that your ISP will log as your activity, which means if you live in rate limited ISP, youre fucked. 20$ wouldnt even get me an extra 500GB limit on my internet.

To be fair if you look at the site, they claim $19 for only 2GB data.

 

However my concerns seem legitimate:

 

[da na]

13 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

To be fair if you look at the site, they claim $19 for only 2GB data.

 

However my concerns seem legitimate:

 

A ton of the comments say most people have had no issue with the service. Just one person complaining os not a reason to discount the whole thing, lthough these claims are something I will take into account

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Mel0n. said:

A ton of the comments say most people have had no issue with the service. Just one person complaining os not a reason to discount the whole thing, lthough these claims are something I will take into account

The main point is that the traffic from people sharing your connection is NOT segregated, it is seen by your ISP, law enforcement, etc, as YOUR activity.  I mean it was kinda obvious that is how it would have to work as any sort of obfuscation would mean relay nodes, and that would negate the whole point of this which is for us to lease out our connection AS relay nodes.

No matter which way you look at it, its a terrible idea.

[SansVarnic]

Took a look at the site, this is not a good idea. I won't repeat what has already been said but I will Ditto to everything @Alex Atkin UKsaid as it is pretty well spot on.  @manikyath  & @SorryClaire make solid points as well.

 

I would recommend steering clear of this "service".

[da na]

2 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Took a look at the site, this is not a good idea. I won't repeat what has already been said but I will Ditto everything  @Alex Atkin UKsaid as it is pretty well spot on.  @manikyath  & @SorryClaire make solid points as well.

 

I would recommend steering clear of this "service".

Sorry to recommend such a service without knowing potential risks. Knowing what has been brought up, I will no longer recommend it (and no longer use it myself).