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I hate Recaptcha. In my experience using Firefox and not being logged into a google account results in a very long if not impossible chain of captcha challenge

by hnaccy 8y ago

I hate Recaptcha. In my experience using Firefox and not being logged into a google account results in a very long if not impossible chain of captcha challenges.

jannes 8y ago
Yes, same here. - Using Firefox with uBlock Origin - Not logged in to Google (at least outside of Firefox's containers) - Third-party cookies disabled + Cookie AutoDelete addon They present me with 3-5 captchas every time
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  Hardly surprising considering you are removing the cookies they use to remember you already passed the test.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    I highly doubt that Google relies solely on cookies to identify someone.
    - brownell 8y ago
      Perhaps not saving cookies is something bots tend to do, hence the number of attempts...
wild_preference 8y ago
On the flip side, abuse exists, and wishing that anti-abuse measures went away does not acknowledge reality. Just like how I'm annoyed when I have to pay for a cup of coffee, but my annoyance doesn't really inform how things should be. Besides, if a relatively simple puzzle is too much to ask, then maybe you didn't care all that much to begin with. I can think of various platforms where this would be a good filter even if there was no such thing as abuse. ;)
- robin_reala 8y ago
  The puzzles aren’t simple if you’re blind or hard of vision. Or don’t have a US cultural background (I personally know a sidewalk is US English for a pavement, but I definitely don’t recognise all US street signs or shop hoardings, and have been caught out by that before).
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    ReCaptcha, of all things, has pretty good accessibility measures. Likely more than the site in which it's embedded. Nobody is claiming it's perfect. But notice how nobody here is analyzing why people use ReCaptcha in the first place nor providing alternatives. If you knew nothing of ReCaptcha and only read these comments, you'd wonder if it was a gag website operators put on their website for self-amusement, which is basically how I looked at homework as a kid. But I feel like this discussion is a bit more one-sided than I expected on HN, a place where I would've thought more people had experience running a website and how immediately effective ReCaptcha was the second you added a <textarea>.
    - robin_reala 8y ago
      No. They say they do, but neither me not any of the team that tried it was able to complete a single test of the ReCAPTCHA accessible fallbacks. 0%. This was a couple of years ago, but at that point at least putting ReCAPTCHA into a site was putting a fixed roadblock in for people with visual impairments strong enough to force them down their audio route.
      - wild_preference 8y ago
        You're going to lose users or time/money with any abuse prevention. But you lose even more by letting things like spammers run rampant on your platform. You're stuck analyzing trade-offs, not ignoring reality. Once again, all trails lead back to you providing some alternative solutions instead of the empty catharsis of coming up with downsides to something in an internet comment. Here's one of my own: Isn't it annoying that spambots show up the second I launch a website? Ugh! Well, got that out of the way. Now I need a solution. What's yours?
jesseb 8y ago
My home setup is a plain old Xubuntu installation; for browsing I'm running Firefox with uBlock Origin. Nothing fancy or too far out of the ordinary. Lately I've experienced the same thing, often 3-4 rounds of captcha challenges, sometimes more. It's painful from UX standpoint and insulting as user. I've been trying to avoid any site that uses them, they're very user-hostile, but there's only so much you can avoid.
- danuker 8y ago
  Thank you for avoiding them! I do the same. If the site is important to you, you should contact the owners with an alternative (such as an open source captcha, or spam filtering). The only way to topple the monopoly of Google is to erode it site by site.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tinus_hn 8y ago
Using TOR not logged into anything does not. Perhaps you’re not following the instructions correctly.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  "Click all of the street signs" Do I also click the poles? "Click the traffic lights" Do I also click the poles they're attached to? "Click the store fronts" If it doesn't have writing on it but it looks like it might be a store do I click it? "Click all cars" Do I also include trucks, busses, or just cars?
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    This consistently confuses me and the answer seems to vary between cases.

by hnaccy 8y ago

I hate Recaptcha. In my experience using Firefox and not being logged into a google account results in a very long if not impossible chain of captcha challenges.

jannes 8y ago

Yes, same here. - Using Firefox with uBlock Origin - Not logged in to Google (at least outside of Firefox's containers) - Third-party cookies disabled + Cookie AutoDelete addon They present me with 3-5 captchas every time

tinus_hn 8y ago
Hardly surprising considering you are removing the cookies they use to remember you already passed the test.
- majewsky 8y ago
  I highly doubt that Google relies solely on cookies to identify someone.
  - brownell 8y ago
    Perhaps not saving cookies is something bots tend to do, hence the number of attempts...

wild_preference 8y ago

On the flip side, abuse exists, and wishing that anti-abuse measures went away does not acknowledge reality. Just like how I'm annoyed when I have to pay for a cup of coffee, but my annoyance doesn't really inform how things should be. Besides, if a relatively simple puzzle is too much to ask, then maybe you didn't care all that much to begin with. I can think of various platforms where this would be a good filter even if there was no such thing as abuse. ;)

robin_reala 8y ago
The puzzles aren’t simple if you’re blind or hard of vision. Or don’t have a US cultural background (I personally know a sidewalk is US English for a pavement, but I definitely don’t recognise all US street signs or shop hoardings, and have been caught out by that before).
- wild_preference 8y ago
  ReCaptcha, of all things, has pretty good accessibility measures. Likely more than the site in which it's embedded. Nobody is claiming it's perfect. But notice how nobody here is analyzing why people use ReCaptcha in the first place nor providing alternatives. If you knew nothing of ReCaptcha and only read these comments, you'd wonder if it was a gag website operators put on their website for self-amusement, which is basically how I looked at homework as a kid. But I feel like this discussion is a bit more one-sided than I expected on HN, a place where I would've thought more people had experience running a website and how immediately effective ReCaptcha was the second you added a <textarea>.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    No. They say they do, but neither me not any of the team that tried it was able to complete a single test of the ReCAPTCHA accessible fallbacks. 0%. This was a couple of years ago, but at that point at least putting ReCAPTCHA into a site was putting a fixed roadblock in for people with visual impairments strong enough to force them down their audio route.
    - wild_preference 8y ago
      You're going to lose users or time/money with any abuse prevention. But you lose even more by letting things like spammers run rampant on your platform. You're stuck analyzing trade-offs, not ignoring reality. Once again, all trails lead back to you providing some alternative solutions instead of the empty catharsis of coming up with downsides to something in an internet comment. Here's one of my own: Isn't it annoying that spambots show up the second I launch a website? Ugh! Well, got that out of the way. Now I need a solution. What's yours?

jesseb 8y ago

My home setup is a plain old Xubuntu installation; for browsing I'm running Firefox with uBlock Origin. Nothing fancy or too far out of the ordinary. Lately I've experienced the same thing, often 3-4 rounds of captcha challenges, sometimes more. It's painful from UX standpoint and insulting as user. I've been trying to avoid any site that uses them, they're very user-hostile, but there's only so much you can avoid.

danuker 8y ago
Thank you for avoiding them! I do the same. If the site is important to you, you should contact the owners with an alternative (such as an open source captcha, or spam filtering). The only way to topple the monopoly of Google is to erode it site by site.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tinus_hn 8y ago

Using TOR not logged into anything does not. Perhaps you’re not following the instructions correctly.

prolikewh0a 8y ago
"Click all of the street signs" Do I also click the poles? "Click the traffic lights" Do I also click the poles they're attached to? "Click the store fronts" If it doesn't have writing on it but it looks like it might be a store do I click it? "Click all cars" Do I also include trucks, busses, or just cars?
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  This consistently confuses me and the answer seems to vary between cases.