Google reCAPTCHA Tips & Tricks 2019

If you are a genuine internet user, you must have seen a ton of reCAPTCHA forms to solve as you surf the web. reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA is a free service powered by Google that helps protect websites from spam and abuse.

A “CAPTCHA” is a test to help detect between real humans and bots. It’s created to be easy for humans to solve, but hard for “bots” and other malicious software to figure out.

Well, if the reCAPTCHA is so easy for humans, I wouldn’t be putting this post up here.

Sometimes, the reCAPTCHA becomes so annoying especially when you don’t just get it right, it’s not loading properly on your browser or it just hates you.

Well, that’s why I am here, at least I understand how this reCAPTCHA guy works a little bit beyond the surface.

Before we dive into some more interesting aspects of reCAPTCHA, you need to understand and love it. Yea, it’s for good, for security purposes.

Since most websites are being attacked by bots and malicious software that may cause issues to the site or server, reCAPTCHA is actually a wall those bots and malicious software cannot climb through.

• So what’s reCAPTCHA?

reCAPTCHA is a form of challenge-response testing called CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), and it’s basically designed to prevent clever ‘bots from bugging websites with nonsense data.

One of the most widely adopted forms is Google’s reCAPTCHA.

So you are not a robot but a good human surfing the web and you just bump into a CAPTCHA. You have always wondered, what triggers or causes the CAPTCHA to appear suddenly?

Well, a CAPTCHA can be triggered by automated processes sometimes caused by worms, proxy search traffic going through infected computers or DSL routers, or from some SEO ranking tools. It’s just a test that’s triggered when your authenticity needs to be verified.

This is why immediately you switch through different IP addresses, you might get a CAPTCHA to solve to be able to get through to the next page.

• How long do I need to solve the CAPTCHA test to gain access to what I am looking for?

Well, from experiences which isn’t just from my end, you can have up to 5 CAPTCHAS to solve if your Internet connection or device is showing some instability or no clarity to the site’s security.

I sometimes find myself solving CAPTCHAs when I switch VPN connections or change IP addresses rapidly while viewing secured sites.

• How can I bypass a reCAPTCHA form?

Unfortunately, you can only bypass it by solving it. I like finding out new kinds of stuff but I couldn’t get passed it without doing the right thing; solving it.

Not everything needs a bypass, and the reCAPTCHA is for your security which makes it a better safety measure against bots and malicious scripts.

Trying to bypass a CAPTCHA will only end up giving you more CAPTCHAs to solve and waste your time. So, get used to them and you won’t find it so annoying.

• Is reCAPTCHA a virus or malware?

Something that actually protects you from malware is an Anti-malware or an Anti-virus. Google reCAPTCHA isn’t a virus but a security measure to reduce spam and malicious bots from having an impact on your site or blog.

• Why am I getting a reCAPTCHA error?

The reCAPTCHA form can’t be tricked, so you will get an error if you weren’t able to properly solve the task in the CAPTCHA form.

• CAPTCHA  & reCAPTCHA, what’s the difference?

CAPTCHA means (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) and is a program that verifies user input is not computer generated but human.

reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service by Google to help protect your websites from spammy activities. It reduces server load caused by spam and increases a positive user experience.

So, How do I properly solve reCAPTCHAs while browsing the web?

• To solve reCAPTCHAs, all you need to do is to follow the instructions on the CAPTCHA form.
• Most times, you are required to select similar images which are mostly 3 and then hit the button to confirm/verify that you are done. You don’t have to pick everything, just 3 of the matching ones.
• A few times, you might have to choose more than 3 square images, mostly with street signs that overlap into other boxes.
• You might be asked to enter a given word into a blank box to verify that you are a human.
• You might be asked to just check a box which will prove you are not a bot or malicious software jumping up and down the web page.
• Sometimes, after selecting the images, you might have to hit the skip button.
• You might just have to tick a box that says I am not a robot.
• If your reCAPTCHA is stuck or just won’t let you in, just delete your browser cookies and try again.
• Most times, you will be asked to select all the images in the form that are alike. E.g, select all images with mountains, street signs, crosswalk, coffee, water body, cars, storefront, bicycles, etc
• Sometimes you might be given a sample image to use for assistance.
• In any scenario, you should check properly before selecting any image or typing the text on the form because it’s only a human that will do it right.
• Failing to do CAPTCHA properly will only increase the time you will spend trying to decipher the task.

Google’s new Invisible reCAPTCHA:

With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA system, users don’t have to do anything to prove they are human other than to behave like a human.

Invisible reCAPTCHA has no direct user interface. The work of identifying humans is done in the background as the user interacts with a web page. Google says that it uses “advanced risk analysis technology to separate humans from bots.”

It’s powered by machine learning/artificial intelligence which uses huge quantities of data about how humans and bots behave to develop sophisticated pattern recognition algorithms that can easily tell between a human and a bot.

Most websites or forums online that are on a CDN like Cloudflare always have this security tunnel that checks if you are a bot or a human. A robot/computer or malicious software cannot fill Captcha. Hence, Captcha is used to differentiate between humans and computers.

Like I previously said, this will reduce the load on your server caused by spams and malicious bots that access your site.

Integrating Google reCAPTCHA is quite easy. You just need to visit their help page or if you are a WordPress user, you can use reCAPTCHA plugins available on the WP site.

reCAPTCHA v2 also has an audio challenge in case he former doesn’t work for you. All you have to do is to listen to the audio and enter what you hear in the field provided.

Hope you find this useful and get to understand how the Google reCAPTCHA works and why it does so. Feel free to join the discussion via the comments box.