Comments on: Why you should never use a CAPTCHA

By: Jill

Jill — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:51:41 +0000

You only list examples of HORRIBLE, poorly designed/implemented captchas and say "see how bad they are".

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:56:58 +0000

I tell people all the time that all these captcha things were broken a long time ago. For some reason they don't listen and add some form of captch to their site anyway. I do like the hidden field suggestion that is definitely something to think about. The thing that bugs me the most about them is a lot of them are almost impossible to figure out what letters they are. I had one the other day at a social bookmarking site, and there was no way a real person could have figured out what it said. Anyway great article.

By: Eric Roos

Eric Roos — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:03:55 +0000

Great post,

Hate captcha,

and recaptia try to let you digitalize books for free, they know one word and ask u to fill in the other, u see that one of them is squigly, this is the word they know, answer this one right, for the otherone write fuck,

now wait to see digilized books that have the word fuck all over the place

By: Graphiclineweb

Graphiclineweb — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:14:30 +0000

Hi Josh – A well written article

My opinion on the subject: Horses for Courses. I think Captchas have a place (Yes, they irritate me too, but I still use them), as do the alternatives. IP blocking is part of the process, but for site owners lacking the knowledge, and more importantly the time, to manually block every IP used to generate spam is not an option. Large corporations can afford full time web managers to provide these services, small business entrepreneurs cannot.

Another method that has worked for me is requiring an authenticated login – WordPress.com, Facebook and Twitter (open ID not available for wordpress.com). This has stopped 99% of spam comments on the blog – if someone doesn't want to login and identify themselves that way – too bad, I don't want their comments. At least the ones received are related to the content, and usually make sense.

Decide on what your objectives are with your website or blog – are you wanting a website, a blog or a FORUM, and design your anti spam measures around your objectives. How much time to you want to spend moderating comments? Do you even need to have a commenting system or will a contact form be sufficient? Then decide on how to manage spam…

By: emma

emma — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 18:02:03 +0000

Human spammers are a real problem, i get loads

By: Josh Fraser

Josh Fraser — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 01:28:22 +0000

Great point. I've written and talked about that issue as well: http://www.onlineaspect.com/2007/05/18/how_to_bui...

By: Interarticle

Interarticle — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 01:24:20 +0000

It annoys users more to be forced to login (even with OpenID) to comment on low traffic sites. Instead of whining about unfriendly CAPTCHAs, why not reduce the number of login boxes?

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 01:32:06 +0000

That reminds me of the new US Government OpenID program.
Which gives every citizen an account they can login to.
Its a great idea, and I think every government should follow once the US rolls it out.

By: Wild Edric

Wild Edric — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:38:35 +0000

I completely agree about this annoying merhtod of “verification” – worse still are those dumb website designers who choose to blank your form should you get the captcha wrong – even once! Think I’m kidding? Read more: http://bit.ly/hVB2bP

By: Larissa

Larissa — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:11:05 +0000

I didn't mind CAPTCHAs until they started giving out non-existent words to type. It's hard enough to differentiate between certain letters but if I have no idea what the word is supposed to be, I can't even make an educated guess about what letter it may be.