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If you are looking for alternatives to Google reCAPTCHA, for pure simple curiosity or for work, this is the right place for you. In this article we will delve a little deeper into the topic, we will try to understand why you should look for alternatives.
Let's start with the basics first.
reCAPTCHA it is an automatic system that allows a site to recognize whether on the other side there is a real person or a bot, i.e. a program that tries to do something automatically. It comes from the word CAPTCHA which is the acronym for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart“. The first thing that catches our eye, therefore, is that it is not a thing invented by Google and that the use of reCAPTCHA it's just one possibility, certainly not the only one.
If you still haven't understood what we're talking about, do you know when you go to a site and it starts asking you to pass certain tests before you can move on? Tests like “find the fire hydrants" or "find the traffic lights“. Not always very simple to solve.
Why find alternatives to Google reCAPTCHA?
Let's get back to us. reCAPTCHA came purchased by Google in 2009. Its software, you can use it for free and it is not Open source. But why does Google put so much effort into distributing a CAPTCHA that millions of websites can use it for free? The answer, as you can imagine, is simple.
Google uses our free time wasted solving reCAPTCHA for improve their AI, improve their maps, their databases and their projects. In short, we are literally working for them for free. We quote from the Google site:
Hundreds of millions of CAPTCHAs are solved by people every day. reCAPTCHA makes positive use of this human effort by channeling the time spent solving CAPTCHAs into annotating images and building machine learning datasets. This in turn helps improve maps and solve hard AI problems.
Google reCAPTCHA
Google is omniscient
How does Google know that you are not a bot thanks to the CAPTCHA? Actually he already knows it before, the moment you arrived. What's more, and you've probably noticed this, if you use a Browsers different from Chrome and with more privacy-conscious settings the situation risks worsening drastically. It is a test that can be done very simply. We did it by testing a site first with Chrome and then with Firefox using the container cards.
In the first case we just need to press on "I'm not a robot" and it immediately makes us move forward, at most it makes us take a test but we pass it easily. With Firefox instead, images often disappear and reappear to make others recognizable. Someone he also says that the process is much slower and more laborious than in Chrome. Furthermore, it is proven that if you are a Google user you won't even need the test, it's all written in your cookies.
Recently, as you can read here too, The reCAPTCHA it has become increasingly difficult to solve for non-users Google And Chrome. Doesn't this seem like an excellent reason to avoid monopolies?
In short, for Google, if you are one of its users, you have the pass to go anywhere. If you dare to delete cookies and maybe you don't want to have an account then you should spend some happy moments identifying fire hydrants and chimneys. Even if the internet It's not from Google they have so much hands in the mix everywhere that it is almost impossible to actually do without it.
Remember that you can use the extension Mate Translate to translate the articles into English that we suggest if you have problems reading them.
There are alternatives to Google reCAPTCHA
Things, however, seem to be slowly changing. For example, not long ago Cloudflare chose to switch to a more privacy-friendly CAPTCHA called hCAPTCHA. Ok, he only did it for economic reasons because Google he had them presented the bill to be paid to still be able to use theirs reCAPTCHA. But this changes the underlying issue little, the change is important.
Then there is the whole question of 'Honeypots', literally jars of honey. Let's summarize just for those who may have only heard of it: instead of asking a human to identify themselves, we ask bots to do it. In practice, you insert an element into the page that is invisible to humans but visible and attractive (just like a jar of honey) to bots. If the bot falls for it and has an interaction with this element, it is literally caught with its hands in... honey. It is an innovative method and less invasive That it would effectively make it useless the reCAPTCHA. If you are a webmaster you can read Mailpoet, Project Honeypot, Solution Factor And Kijana Woodard.
Unfortunately we realize that this change needs to happen by those who manage the sites and not by the users. Even a privacy-conscious site like ProtonMail unfortunately use reCAPTCHA. It is perhaps the most used Google product, perhaps even more than Analytics.
In the hope of helping some webmasters in choosing a CAPTCHA that respects privacy, we offer you our alternatives.
Alternatives to Google reCAPTCHA
Askimet Anti-Spam
If you have a site on a WordPress platform there is no reason not to use Askimet to protect your blog from comment spam. Askimet works really well and is free for all personal blogs that are not for profit. The code is Open source.
Securimage
Unfortunately Securimage is no longer maintained or recommended 1.
FriendlyCaptcha
Another CAPTCHA Open source 2 and free with limits. In fact, up to 2000 CAPTCHAs per month are free, beyond that it can cost you 9€ to the 139€. You can try it in demo version and see if it's right for you! Unfortunately there are no plug and play plugins for WordPress but it is quite simple to use by implementing a simple code within your page.
hCAPTCHA
It's the tool used by Cloudflare as we mentioned before. It also allows you to earn money with its use and it is free for most websites. It is not Open source but there is a convenience for this too WordPress plugins. You can see a demo on their site.
Captcheck
Another CAPTCHA system Open source, you can either host it yourself or use their server. This CAPTCHA is slightly different from the others, you will be asked to click on an object and you will have to look for it among 5 objects drawn in pencil. For information on how to implement it and for a demo visit their site.
Click CAPTCHA
A project Open source from a long time ago but still seems to work reasonably well. A very graphically noisy 320x200px image will be generated, the person will have to find the circle and click on it for approval. You can see one demo here.
Blam
A slightly different project as it does not ask for CAPTCHA resolution but uses a database to avoid spam inside forum And comments. It is therefore not suitable for all solutions but it can be useful perhaps if you have one form or comments on your site. AND Open source.
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