I’m currently using the Chia Gui wallet and farming on flex poool. Im wondering if switching to their software makes any improvement.
If i’m plotting would i continually have to add the plots to it? Its nice having it automatically set up.
I get a few notices of stale plots but it seems very minimal.
Thanks for your thoughts in advance.
The main advantage is that you don’t need to run a node which saves you a few Watts and some disk wear
I recommend it. It will catch the new plots. It is very light too.
Disclosure: I’m in Flexpool support, and I was the first person to use Flexfarmer on mainnet over a year ago.
I wrote about features and benefits of flexfarmer at the beginning of the year on my personal blog.
You need a synced node for plotnft operations (join/leave pool), wallet operations (if you don’t use a third party wallet), and to get the farmer secret key for Flexfarmer configuration (lets your Flexfarmer instance sign partials and blocks, does not give access to your wallet).
Once you have the plotnft created and joined, and the farmer secret key extracted, you no longer need the Chia Blockchain software running or the wallet synced, although a minimally-scientific survey I did last year showed that a lot of Flexfarmer users still run a full node (or more) to help secure the network and do full node functions when needed.
Upsides are very low memory usage, real reported space information (not just estimates based on 10 points per k32 plot per day), an easter egg in the log when you find a block, Prometheus and Discord hooks, naming your own workers (and changing names if you want), DOH and SNI features (for people in restrictive network environments), and automatic region failover between pool regions. It runs on any modern platform/OS with Golang (Raspberry Pi class machines, including 32bit, are popular, as are x86 x64 systems of course), and there’s easy implementation in Docker containers (including on Synology NAS).
Potential downsides include only working with Flexpool, not working with OG plots (if you still have them), needing one instance per plotnft (although it’s still usually under 100MB of RAM per instance), and not adding to the decentralization of the network (although as noted above, you can still run full nodes alongside Flexfarmer). Also, to add directories to your flexfarmer instance, you have to restart the client, which could mean up to ten seconds of downtime.
If you do run a full node and Flexfarmer, make sure you are not farming the same plot dirs in both or you’ll get weird stats and lots of stales.
Thank for the insight.
Is there a worry about having your key in the software for security.
As noted above, the farmer secret key lets your Flexfarmer instance sign partials and blocks, and does not give access to your wallet.
There was some FUD about this last year, but the only risk is that someone could farm plots tied to your PlotNFT if they had your farmer secret key and launcher ID. They couldn’t even create new plots with your PlotNFT with this farmer key. They would not have access to your other two keys, your wallet, your farming system(s), etc. Gene acknowledged this on Reddit many months ago.
Great. Thank you for clarifying. Ill give it a shot.
Define better?
Of course people on here will tell u it’s better
What does chias GitHub say about using alternative means of farming?
I ask u
Is it worth the risk
Are u going to audit the code yourself?
If the answers no then u should most definitely not use it. On common sense alone.
Who would seriously take that risk with their farm without being 100% sure.
Perhapse u have a close friend who can look at the source and tell you. If it’s better…
Don’t look for answers like that in a den of vipers
It’s like going to a bar and roofieing yourself.
People are biased and people are gullible
threads like this are extremely dangerous.
If it ain’t broken why fix it?
Oh yeah to implant malicious code, right right
Happy farming
Good looking out. Thanks for the words of wisdom.
It says one click farming coming soon? (No idea if it actually says that but its on their to-do list).
With Flexfarmer after setup its double click farming 
Chia highly encourages people to develop their own software, what they release is meant as a template/reference to build on. The same as ETH or most other cryptos. No one used the cpu eth miner released by the devs after gpu miners came out. If your mining any other coin, do you use the original software?
And again, its from a company that didn’t rug despite after 20+ mil of eth in its accounts. Technically more like 28 mil CAD. One thats legally registered in Canada. If we were the kind of people that treat users balances as our personal wallet we’d already have retired on some island country. Obviously not the Bahamas though, you need billions in users balances there.
That being said, we highly encourage people to run it in a container with ports closed on a blank pi. The whole idea is to shift your setup to minimum software so you can get your computer back. Or run it in hive os and combine your gpu mining and chia farming rigs. Although it’s not open source I’ve been told the go binaries are very easy to read which makes it obvious what it does.
We are not here to steal your mojos. If there’s ever a Chia-con in the future I plan to have a booth.
FUD isn’t a good look. Show your work. (oh yeah, you didn’t do any work)
People have reviewed the code. You wouldn’t be able to, but people who know what they’re doing have done so.
But the “den of vipers” confession is kinda relevant. You shouldn’t be proud of it.
Perhapse have a great day.