14 ms·

Google's Captcha in Firefox vs. in Chrome

1343 points by kojoru 7y ago

ziddoap 7y ago
The fire hydrant example... I deal with this every day. It takes soooo looooong to load, it's really ridiculous.
- kbumsik 7y ago
  I face that example everyday too. I'm really curious this does not appear in Chrome.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    It does. I've run into it plenty of times with chrome.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  I'd be cool with it if it didn't fade out the selection and load new images. Fine, you want to do that, Google? I think some of these other images are hydrants, too!
  - Aunche 7y ago
    The point of the challenge isn't really to get the "correct" answer. It's for the captcha to be sufficiently confident that you're a human.
- AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
  There have literally been times where I debated whether or not I wanted to purchase something because of the knowledge that I would have to solve Google's captcha. Humble Bundle, in particular--the login process for me (due to uBlock+uMatrix installed) is like this: 1) Try to login 2) Login doesn't show up--go to uMatrix and whitelist some crap. 3) Try to login again. 4) First phase of login completes, now blank when site tries to load Google captcha. 5) Whitelist Google captcha frames in uMatrix and reload again. 6) Login for the third time, Google captcha now displays properly. 7) Spend 10 minutes solving captchas. If I'm lucky, the first "Verify/Submit" will work. If not, I probably need to whitelist cookies for it within uMatrix and reload/try again. 8) Get notification from HumbleBundle that "You have not logged in from this browser before" and wait for a Verification email to hit my inbox. 9) Enter verification code. Site usually then logs me out for some reason, even though it was successful. 10) Login again. Solve Google Captchas again. Finally allowed to login. 11) Finally buy the goddamn thing I was there to buy. 12) Search Amazon for wig.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    It always amazes me that companies, especially those that know their audience is tech savvy, don't test their sites/shops/systems with common things like ad blockers or privacy plugins. I often run into hidden problems on sites that go away after I allow some third party domain. I wonder if it's just incompetence at the developer stage or a management decision to annoy users that have ad block etc. Neither really makes sense, I'm a paying customers, they shouldn't take it personally that I don't care for ads, and they are multi-million (or even multi-billion) companies, surely somebody there knows that ad blockers exist.
  - worble 7y ago
    >Humble Bundle, in particular Funny you should mention that, I actually wrote an email to support asking them to have frickin mercy with the google captchas. The response was as you expect "we do this for safety and protection, yada yada" which to be fair, I obviously didn't expect them to change anything, although I hope it did help raise some awareness. The interesting thing I got out of it was that they mentioned that google captcha for logging in is disabled so long as you have 2FA activated on your account, which certainly helped, at least a little bit. You do still have to use the captcha to buy anything from the bundle (at least if you're using something like paypal, anyway).
    - benologist 7y ago
      I've emailed them about it as well. Totally sick of having to grind through Google to sign in to HB, I've not bought stuff because of the effort too. I also really don't think it's appropriate to include Google as a third-party in login processes anymore.
    - periphery 7y ago
      I wrote to them asking to close my account for exactly the same reason. Recaptcha was making me less inclined every visit to buy something.
  - user764743 7y ago
    I tried sending an email on their support page to complain about it as they are likely losing customers like me but it was behind a captchas and I gave up.
baggy_trough 7y ago
The Google captcha enrages me. Why should I train their stupid AI?
- y4mi 7y ago
  Because you're not providing advertising revenue as a non-chrome user ;)
- woodrowbarlow 7y ago
  there are updates coming that will make it much more tied to your google account. i fear that it will mean anybody not currently logged in is assumed to be a robot. (even more so than now, i mean.)
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    ReCAPTCHAv3. It will differ from ReCAPTCHAv2 in one important respect: it will no longer ask you any questions, meaning it will no longer give you the opportunity to appeal it's snap judgement of you. https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3
    - philpem 7y ago
      > "reCAPTCHA v3 will never interrupt your users, so you can run it whenever you like without affecting conversion. reCAPTCHA works best when it has the most context about interactions with your site, which comes from seeing both legitimate and abusive behavior. For this reason, we recommend including reCAPTCHA verification on forms or actions as well as in the background of pages for analytics." Just what the world needs, another tracking script...
  - bduerst 7y ago
    According to the recent Planet Money podcast on Captcha, the upcoming changes will only use the signal of whether or not you have an account, and not any account-based data, since it will be domain based on the website or something. Also, they're doing away with the questionnaire. It works by using a scoring system or something similar since it loads on the pages leading up to form fills. Edit: Source for you disbelievers - https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 >reCAPTCHA v3 returns a score for each request without user friction. The score is based on interactions with your site and enables you to take an appropriate action for your site.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 7y ago
This is especially prevalent in the Google mobile site tester in Firefox. In FF you have to do the Captcha almost every damn time. Switch to Chrome and it stopped immediately for me.
athorax 7y ago
I can't tell for sure, but it looks like middle row, first image might have a fire hydrant
- entropea 7y ago
  Is this ISO52600 image thick with grain at 200% crop a car?
exakoustos 7y ago
This is why once I switched to FF I also switched to DuckDuckGo
- talonx 7y ago
  The captcha has nothing to do with Google the search engine. Google's catpcha is used on a lot of websites which are not connected with Google. On a different note, this also makes it difficult to use such websites if you block google domains in your adblocker for non-Google sites.
  - exakoustos 7y ago
    You would think that they wouldn't block search. But Google kept throwing me at captcha when I was in FF and not signed in. The biggest pain so far has been the lack of map integration.
  - swebs 7y ago
    They actually block you from search if you're connecting from a VPN and have uMatrix enabled.
fernandotakai 7y ago
now that's weird. firefox is my main browser (developer edition on linux, windows and macos) and i never get captchas. maybe it's because i don't use umatrix (i only use ublock origin)? maybe because i'm always logged-in in at least one google account?
- kbumsik 7y ago
  I use a plain FF and I'm always logged in the Google account but I face this annoying captcha everyday.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  > maybe because i'm always logged-in in at least one google account? That's likely a primary reason.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  It's easy to configure umatrix to let Recaptcha through.
- entropea 7y ago
  I use ublock but stock Firefox otherwise. I am also logged into a Google account most of the time, but still get impossible captchas unless I switch to Chrome.
damnyou 7y ago
This could either be some of Firefox's privacy features genuinely making it look more bot-like to Google, Google accidentally or deliberately sabotaging Firefox, or some combination of the two. It's not really possible to tell from the outside, but it's clear that Google's incentives are for Google's products to work better with each other. This is why Google should be broken up -- it should be forced to spin off Chrome into a separate company with a business model similar to what Firefox has.
Algent 7y ago
Are you using Canvas Blocker or similar extensions ? As a FF user I also have to go thru 3-4 captcha everywhere and I'm pretty sure it's because the system is having trouble giving me a stable fingerprint.
stanski 7y ago
This reminds me of ticketmaster. Site owners can choose not to use google's recaptcha2 but it has become the de facto standard now so no one cares.
tomduncalf 7y ago
Google Captcha is a complete mess at this point and I often leave websites that use it if it's not essential to what I am doing
- entropea 7y ago
  I will cancel services that use it too. I am not wasting 5 literal minutes to solve impossible captchas because I don't use Chrome.
- bduerst 7y ago
  The newest version is going to be invisible - i.e. it just "works" without a questionnaire. It's based on a scoring system that doesn't prompt users unless the website owner wants to prompt them below a specific score. You've likely already used it but don't remember it because it was invisible.
  - bscphil 7y ago
    That was supposed to be what this version was (reCaptcha v3). As a matter of fact, however, quite a few of us get extremely long or unsolvable captchas every time.
    - timdorr 7y ago
      No, the OP is showing v2. v3 doesn't have any UI for end-users: https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 It is simply a scoring system, applying an ML model to typical actions for your website. It's up to the site owner to determine how to handle those that don't meet v3's score, which can be a traditional CAPTCHA or hopefully something more effective and forgiving to humans: https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/ https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/
      - bscphil 7y ago
        I was assuming that most people were using v3, my browser was flunking the scoring test, and v2 with the UI was being shown as a backup. Did everyone decide not to use v3 for some reason?
jackewiehose 7y ago
The slow animation is the worst. You really want to punch someone responsible in the face. And I never figure out how to solve the traffic light riddle.
- bad_user 7y ago
  You're not supposed to figure out the traffic light riddle, you're not a human if you do.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  Yes, it's the most obvious internet rage trigger. But I can't figure out why they make a 'delay'? Why not just show the next dam image?
  - bad_user 7y ago
    To make it more expensive for bots to try this at scale, obviously. Unfortunately it's making it more expensive for humans too.
    - masukomi 7y ago
      you may be right about the fade-out and delay but the time spent fading in only hampers humans not bots. As soon as it starts fading in the image is present in non-faded form and the bots can start processing it.
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        You realise you've just described why this would distinguish between bots and humans. (And yes, I'm also driven to rage by slow-fade animations. A practice I can date back to Microsoft's Clippy, which, when you punched it in the fact to go away, had just one more gratuitous animation just to twist the knife that just more.)
        Cyph0n 7y ago
Ocha 7y ago
FYI. Title is misleading. This experience has nothing to do Firefox vs Chrome. Result is because of 3rd party cookie and tracker blocking. I had same and even worse (I was not able to get through captcha) experience on chrome itself because I have 3rd party cookies disabled and couple privacy oriented extensions running.
- hartator 7y ago
  The user is complaining about the slow CSS animations. It's definitely a bug though not something they did on purpose. I remember having the same issue on Chrome as well.
  - gsnedders 7y ago
    IIRC, it is something they do on purpose, to make it clear to the user something is happening while rate-limiting challenges given to the user.
    - hartator 7y ago
      Oh no Google ReCaptcha doesn't work that way. In case of rate limiting, they will just throw an error. It's probably some clever JS or CSS that got a bug in it. Here's the official thread on GH: https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268 https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268 Disclaimer: We built a solution at SerpApi.com to solve those offline using ML. Timing of solving doesn't matter. It will be odd that they do that just to annoy user when it's not a technical limitation.
  - floatingatoll 7y ago
    They’re slow because it’s live-challenging two or more recaptcha users at once with an unknown image, right?
  - shakna 7y ago
    It's not a bug. Its part of a patent Google holds designed at frustrating access for bots.
- 7y ago
pgug 7y ago
I there any anti reCaptcha or anti Google, that I can donate to? I want to donate a small amount every time Google forces me to solve their problems.
- nprateem 7y ago
  Get a disabled person to take them to court for discrimination.
  - penagwin 7y ago
    > Get a disabled person to take them to court for discrimination. I was thinking something more along the lines of sponsoring them to take Google to court ;)
- izacus 7y ago
  Pay the website owner to remove reCaptcha from the sites you use?
llao 7y ago
While relatable, this is just a low effort post more suited for Twitter or Reddit. For a fair comparison OP would need to use clean browser profiles on fresh IPs. Like this it is just fan-service for Google Captcha victims (like me).
- a012 7y ago
  How can you have a fresh IP which isn't in your control?
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    Many of us have control of our IP Address within a certain range. In fact I have to specially request a static IP and pay money for it. A dynamic IP that changes when I refresh DHCP on the edge router is free.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > A dynamic IP that changes when I refresh DHCP on the edge router is free. But you don't know who had it before you, what Google thinks of it ("known Spammer", "legitimate User") etc, so that's not going to help in this case.
      - jakear 7y ago
        Maybe try buying up some unclaimed IPv6 space and test from there?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- SquareWheel 7y ago
  I kept looking for the article. Surprised to see such a low-effort post submitted to HN.
  - thinkingemote 7y ago
Kwpolska 7y ago
If you can, skip the visual CAPTCHA and just go for the audio version. You’ll help train Google’s speech recognition bots, but you’ll get through the CAPTCHA faster.
dessant 7y ago
I was going through the same ordeal as a Firefox user, so I've made Buster to solve challenges and reclaim some of that lost time: https://github.com/dessant/buster https://github.com/dessant/buster If you're a developer, please consider replacing reCAPTCHA on your site with an alternative. reCAPTCHA discriminates against people with disabilities and those who seek privacy, and it gaslights you into thinking you did not solve the challenge correctly, which is plain cruel. Here are some reCAPTCHA alternatives: https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/ https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/
- victorheld 7y ago
  I've recently had issues with buster where Google detects it, giving me this error: "Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now". Is there a solution for this?
  - nprateem 7y ago
    It may not be buster causing that. I see that sometimes on a VPN, but also when not on a VPN but using Firefox with ghostery/ublock origin, etc.
    - erinnh 7y ago
      It may not, but Ive seen the same. Only with Buster. And only since recently.
  - dessant 7y ago
    It may help if you go to the extension's settings and enable user input simulation and install the client app. Though Google may block your access to the audio challenge regardless of the browser or extensions you use, see more details here: https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/25 https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/25
  - megous 7y ago
    I also get this sometimes, not even using buster. Once I was not able to access package tracking information, because Google blocked me completely via recaptcha from that. I actually do a lot of automated queries from my computer. I like to scrape and save content that may disappear. Just recently one psychology website I liked years ago where I put a lot of effort to comment on, silently deleted all 60k user comments, including 100s I wrote, and started putting old articles behind a paywall. My activity is perfectly legal, as I'm doing all this for my own personal use. Thankfully I have all the content locally in the database. Does it mean I should be prevented from accessing third party services that use recaptcha?
yumraj 7y ago
Turbo Tax uses Google Captcha when trying to import information from financial institutions. While filing taxes, on several occasions I had to just give up and try again after several hours because the Captcha won't let me pass through and after several attempts Turbo Tax will throw an error - to come back later. It was literally a Nightmare
- buildzr 7y ago
  Interesting, I wonder if this is something TurboTax itself is doing or if it's something the banks are going and TurboTax is making you bypass it in order to scrape it.
  - yumraj 7y ago
    Not really sure, it was shown after the credentials for the financial institution were entered. However, it was shown for each financial institution. So it is possible that the financial institutions (or the API provider) were doing it, though it is equally likely that turbo tax just has a bad implementation. Because TT can make an assumption that I'm a human, I wonder if there is a regulatory requirement or the API provider is doing that.
- akeck 7y ago
  It's a bit more expensive, but for this type of thing and other reasons, I now use a CPA.
  - muzika 7y ago
    ... who then use an Intuit product to file your taxes
    - fencepost 7y ago
      If it's a CPA that's not on their own, there's a good chance they're using something vertical market instead - Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters, not sure what others.
- 7y ago
sergiotapia 7y ago
I see a website with google captcha I just close it. Not going to waste time and also train this huge monopoly's AI further for free.
gosseyn 7y ago
Omg I knew I wasn't imagining things...I reached the point when I don't bother anymore...captcha means no !
navidfarhadi 7y ago
I have experienced the same behavior when trying to complete Captchas in Tor Browser. However the vast majority of the time it just says "Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now." so I cannot even attempt to complete the Captcha.
Yetanfou 7y ago
When confronted with reCAPTCHA I always switch to the audio-version as that: - is generally easier to solve (download the sound clip using curl or wget, type in the nonsense it says, done) - does not turn me into a mechanical Turk training Google's AI - works in 'any browser' by circumventing the browser (by using wget/curl), thereby not allowing Google to punish me for not using their dragnet/browser.
- epanchin 7y ago
  While you find this convenient, others may find it imperative. Somewhat akin to labelling your pet dog a support animal or using a disabled bathroom.
  - yathern 7y ago
    More like walking up the handicapped ramp because the stairs are covered in oil and slippery.
- zuppy 7y ago
  I'm using the audio too. The image captcha is simply broken, it often doesn't let me pass even though I've provided the only valid answer.
- atomwaffel 7y ago
  > does not turn me into a mechanical Turk training Google's AI I’ve been wondering about that. Are you sure you’re not training their speech recognition AI?
  - Yetanfou 7y ago
    No, I'm not sure. It deem it unlikely though as those sound snippets are rather short and uncomplicated, something which I'd think any reasonable STT-system should be able to handle - which makes it vulnerable to those systems as well.
amedvednikov 7y ago
Every website that uses this fingerprinting abomination, should be ashamed.
wooptoo 7y ago
This also happens in Chrome when 3rd party cookies are turned off.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  So basically Google is abusing it's monopoly as a captcha provider to inconvenience users into enabling enhanced tracking in their browsers under the guise of "security"?
truth_seeker 7y ago
As a Brave browser user, I go through this partial behaviour every single time.
yegortimoshenko 7y ago
I saw both variants in both browsers.
SamWhited 7y ago
I thought this was just me and their stupid caption being impossible for even humans to solve; turns out I was just being gaslighted this entire time and they're just discriminating against Firefox users? How does the EU or someone not shut down this sort of anti-competative monopolostic nosense? I didn't think I could get more furious about having to struggle with these captions all day, but somehow I am. Please everyone stop using recaptcha on your sites, it's not worth the pain it costs your users.
- sniperjzp 7y ago
  In Chrome Incognito mode, I saw it a few years back, but less frequently recently, it also happened to me with other browsers like Edge, Chrome in iOS, etc.
- michaelt 7y ago
  they're just discriminating against Firefox users? At least part of the behaviour shown in the video depends on factors like cookies, IP address, and whether you have features like anti-fingerprinting protection turned on. [1] Recaptcha is frustrating and I dislike it, especially the slow fade-ins and multiple challenges, but if you repeat the test shown in the video you won't find it 100% repeatable just because you're using Firefox. [1] https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-483248998 https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-...
  - SamWhited 7y ago
    As far as I can tell it's 100% repeatable, every now and then one works the first time on Firefox, but it almost never does. If I use it in Chrome on the same sites, it works. Then I go back to Firefox, and sure enough it doesn't work again. Maybe there's something else making it work for you? I don't know what other factor there could be; some privacy settings in Firefox maybe?
  - AJ007 7y ago
    If it can be statistically proven that this is occurring more on Firefox than Chrome then Google has a really, really big problem. The burden to make sure it isn’t is on them, most especially in the EU. Google is facing a very real future where they will have no web browser and possibly no operating system.
FerretFred 7y ago
Ha! Been there, done that. I registered with Patreon (using Firefox), then tried to login (using Firefox) after verifying my email address. Nineteen (19) Captcha screens later and I gave up. Seriously. Bastards (and apologies to the Creatives I was trying to contribute to).
OJFord 7y ago
reCaptcha's not all bad guys, it's actually educational. It's thanks to reCaptcha that I know what a 'crosswalk' is.
- r721 7y ago
  Also how storefronts around the world look like.
S_A_P 7y ago
It looks like the user missed one fire hydrant in the middle left square. If you look closely there is a tiny fire hydrant in that picture.
- ferdek 7y ago
  I laughed when mouse hovered over it like the user was deliberately looking for fire hydrant on this one and then just moved on with rage, waiting for other images to load :D. I honestly think this was the reason why Captcha's bot was so passive-aggressive :D
helper 7y ago
I've seen that behavior using chrome on linux when using public wifi networks.
finchisko 7y ago
This doesn't make sense to me. Making reCaptcha work worse in FF without telling user that if he/she used Chrome it would be better. Only few tech savvy people (hn readers), will eventually realize that. And it doesn't make them to switch to Chrome (or does it?). They'll just be angry. And btw I hate reCaptcha. Is it really only option to fight with spam? When I see it on sites, like dhl parcel tracking, I get mad. I always ask why? Can they just block suspicious traffic, or at least not display captcha on first attempt.
- parrellel 7y ago
  If you increase user friction enough, subtly, eventually the affected user is going to look for something else, and now there's only one real something else - especially for non-techie users.
darkhorn 7y ago
Dear developers, if you want to avoid most of the bots use only HTTP/2 and only TLS v1.3. Don't support lower protocols than these ones and your bot problem will decrease greatly. Even GoogleBot won't be able to crawl your web site.
netwanderer3 7y ago
This is exactly what you would encounter if you access Google services using TOR. It's actually even more frustrating than this.
peteretep 7y ago
Would it be possible to build a Firefox plugin that creates and isolates the requisite cookies to allow reputation to be built, but at least partially maintains privacy? I was thinking maybe something that has 10 difference Google sessions, and shards them depending on the website, deciding which to send to the Captcha. You'd build reputation at 1/10th the speed, but you'd still potentially build it. Or, one that allows you to create a random Gmail account and then use that as your identity across the different sites. Perfect privacy would be hard, but improved privacy should be doable. Alternatively, getting something like blinded identity tokens widely used would be good.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  I doubt it's easy, so I prepared such a setup myself, i.e. I keep a separate browser with a Google account and use it only when I really need to. Helps in cases like this one, but of course you give up some privacy - hopefully just the minimal bit.
- ssivark 7y ago
  Sounds like Firefox containers should support this kind of usage.
- Sean1708 7y ago
  I'm fairly sure (but admittedly not certain) that captcha uses non-cookie and non-account based methods for identifying users, so I don't those methods would work.
  - peteretep 7y ago
    I suspect it falls back to the other methods, but if there are Google cookies, I'd have thought it starts with them cookies.
- iicc 7y ago
  https://github.com/privacypass/challenge-bypass-extension https://github.com/privacypass/challenge-bypass-extension
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
SCHiM 7y ago
Big rant, there are few things I hate more than filling out their endless useless CAPTCHA's when browsing websites that have nothing to do with Google. Google is a hypocritical pile of burning . They use bots right? They scrape websites, they infest everything from my banking website to console emulators with their tracking, and yet we little people are not allowed to scrape or interface with the web programmatically. I want them to burn so badly, I hope the EU breaks them up. Screw captcha, screw AWP, screw them.
- guelo 7y ago
  It's the web developer that doesn't want you to interact with their site programmatically.
  - calibas 7y ago
    Google and Facebook tend to do it as a matter of policy, and while they say it's to protect privacy and prevent abuse, it also furthers the "walled garden" effect.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > It's the web developer that doesn't want you to interact with their site programmatically. Yeah because too many people abuse any hint of such functionality to peddle fake Viagra, pennystock scams, MLMs, ICOs or the good old SEO link spam.
- Dammitnigga 7y ago
  Why u mad when the 4chan hacker ddos your website don't cry. Blame the tool user not the tool maker
- Bakary 7y ago
  They're not hypocritical but cynical. There is an appreciable difference.
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  Google respects robots.txt
klodolph 7y ago
This looks suspiciously like slowbanning.
deforciant 7y ago
I have noticed that Google often signs me off from my multiple Google accounts on FF too :/ While Chrome (which I use only for Hangouts) remains logged in. A bit annoying! :D Also, good to see that it's a more widespread issue with these captchas too, I somehow thought that I am just bad at solving them :)
dredmorbius 7y ago
My present Recaptcha policy: https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102054627041751386 https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102054627041751386
turrini 7y ago
For Google Recaptcha, I use GreaseMonkey with an user script: "Speed Up Google Captcha" "Makes Google Captcha works faster by removing slow visual transitions and unnecessary delays." https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/382039-speed-up-google-captcha https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/382039-speed-up-google-cap...
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  I'm really surprised that works, as I assumed the delay was random and it was looking for bots who were completing the image processing before the image has actually faded in. Huh.
matteopey 7y ago
This is the experience with the `privacy.resistFingerprinting` flag set to true. A while back I made a few try to see how the behavior change with different settings and extensions, you can see the result here: https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-483248998 https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-... I solved the problem by using an extension that toggle that flag: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toggle-resist-fingerprinting/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toggle-resist...
unixfox 7y ago
The worst part is that fading effect is completely useless because a bot can wait too if it doesn't detect a proper image. When I tried to exploit Google recaptcha for fun it was an easy task for me to implement a timer that will wait for the image to appears correctly.
paradox1234 7y ago
I barely use Edge in Windows 10, but whenever I do and I go to any google site I get constantly badgered about 'downloading chrome' even though, a) I've already downloaded Chrome and have it installed, b) I've click such notices away 1000 times. More than mildly annoying and aggressive.
stcredzero 7y ago
1. Big company browser attains majority market share. 2. Big company browser's quality starts to slip, but they are not so powerful, they don't have to care. 3. Big company browser starts to work against the common good. We've seen this before. We'll probably see it again.
neilv 7y ago
Those storefront photos were remarkably clear/unambiguous, compared to some I've gotten. When logging into an account I needed to log into, maybe a couple years ago, they'd jerk me around in the manner of this grumpy.website example, but more. One time, it went on for several topics, for what seemed around 10 minutes. I pay money for that account. This obnoxious annoyance is in addition to the offense of some company letting third-party code from a mass-surveillance company not only into their pages (which almost every company with a Web site does, sadly) but also into their authentication page. Much more important services on the Web do not need captchas for login to accounts that were paid for. Now, every time I get a hassle to log in to my account I pay for, plus directly leak that info to a surveillance company. It makes me regret paying money for the account, like the company are oblivious or don't care, and I won't have much loyalty when the right competitor appears.
war1025 7y ago
I've never run into these image captcha things before. Where do they get used at?
- Raphmedia 7y ago
  It's the same widget as the checkbox but it throws the images at you if it has doubts.
  - war1025 7y ago
    I guess maybe because I don't have all the privacy extensions installed that some people use?
bluehatbrit 7y ago
I'm from the UK and often get very American questions. Such as "select all the images with cross-walks". This isn't really a phrase we have over here, so when I first got this I had no idea what I was meant to be looking for in the array of random pictures and actually had to look it up to get past it. If you're going to force me to do a captcha, at least localise the damn questions. Do other non-American's get this as well?
- GordonS 7y ago
  Another Brit here, and yes this does annoy me a bit.
- bouke 7y ago
  Or fire hydrants, which don’t exist in the NL. I only recognize those from US movies. Or taxi’s which can be any brand, model or color here. Sigh.
- izacus 7y ago
  American storefronts are always an interesting guesswork for me. "Is this a rundown shack or an actual store?"
- josefresco 7y ago
  American here: I when given the challenge of "select all the images with storefronts", typically they are not US based. I almost never speak/understand the language, but if there's a big sign on the building, I select it because it's most likely a storefront.
- _emacsomancer_ 7y ago
  They're zebra crossings, but I suppose you know that by now. The captchas are completely non-localised as far as I can tell; as others have pointed out the 'store-fronts' tend to be non-American.
  - bluehatbrit 7y ago
    Generally it's not too hard to find something in a picture that is from another country, but the actual request text should really be localised. I usually go for the audio ones now though rather than the visual ones.
eanzenberg 7y ago
Why are we labeling images for free for google?
- krispbyte 7y ago
  Not for free. It's a service the owners of the website give to Google in exchange for letting you post. You are the product here.
Chris_Chambers 7y ago
This isn’t Firefox-specific you witch hunting morons. I’ve seen the inexplicably slow captcha in Chrome many many times.
cyphar 7y ago
I find it incredible that modern reCAPTCHA exists and is legal. Aside from the the obviously concerning censorship that happens if you try to access reCAPTCHA-locked sites over Tor, it is literally forcing internet users to do free labour for Google so that can train their AI for whatever project they're doing. So not only is it a tax on using the internet (paid in seconds to minutes of human existence each time -- I bet reCAPTCHA has collectively cost humanity thousands of lifetimes of wasted effort solving stupid puzzles) and it creates censorship, it also is an act of charity on our part that we provide Google free work with no benefit for ourselves. Given that they literally pay people to do (something similar to) what we are doing for free, I wonder it there are labour law arguments to be made (we aren't paid anything for this work which Google clearly is willing to employ people to do).
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  You're barking up the wrong tree here. reCAPTCHA is a free service that developers implement. If you don't like that, complain to them. Companies aren't compelled to use Google services - they have no choice because the bot issue is untenable without it.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    Yes it's a free service which developers choose to use (though many sites use it without knowing through CloudFlare), but that doesn't change the fact that Google has decided to use it as a method of getting free labour out of internet users. reCAPTCHA used to be far more reasonable and ethical when it was being used to digitise books. And when you got reCAPTCHA'd constantly as a Tor user, it wasn't so bad. These days I have to spend several minutes of my life giving training data to Google on every site which uses reCAPTCHA, with nothing in return except for the privilege to be able to access the internet.
snek 7y ago
I've had this a lot, thought this was a bug in firefox's rendering or something. Glad to know it isn't, but now I'm somewhat more annoyed to know the real issue.
jedberg 7y ago
I think what most people don't realize is that you don't need a good captcha to stop most abuse. Even the crappiest of captchas will stop 95% of the bots out there. Unless your site is a high value target, you don't really need a great captcha.
dawnerd 7y ago
Happens to me in chrome every single day. I think it's a bug in how they're detecting potential bots. Of course no one at Google will listen when you submit reports. Especially the one about selecting street lights/stop lights/crosswalks.
- tsjq 7y ago
  the concern here is about super-slow loading and more tiles to verify when you use Firefox than when you use Google Chrome browser
  - dawnerd 7y ago
    All of which I see in Chrome as well. Literally the same experience in the linked post.
user764743 7y ago
Sometimes it's stairs, and they ask you to click all the stairs, but there's an inch of stairs overlapping one window, so you aren't sure if you should click that window because of the pixel or not. This whole captcha joke and firefox made me hate Google more than anything else.
LeoNatan25 7y ago
It's simple; any shitty website that uses this garbage—don't use it. If there is a "contact us" page or email, tell them why you will no longer use it. If it's your bank's site, move a bank. You say "oh, it's a lot of work just for some captcha"; yes it is, but this is the only way this clowns will learn. When 1000 people leave a bank for a competing one and say "I left because your site employs captcha", it will magically disappear. I've seen it happen.
- yathern 7y ago
  Are you against all captcha then? How do you suggest websites deal with automated spam or other attacks?
crazygringo 7y ago
I've never understood what happened to reCAPTCHA, it was originally so great and is now just so, so toxic. Originally it was an awesome solution based on OCR'ing books that usually worked quickly on the first try, and almost never took more than two. Then it turned into a single checkbox (analyzing mouse movement) so it was even faster... and I remember some simple image-based like "select the images of cats" that were also easy to get right. So even better. But THEN... in the past couple of years, the image-matching started asking exclusively for analysis of street images, that has two huge problems: 1) The images are so blurry and ambiguous it's really hard to get right, it feels like a test designed to make you fail 2) You never know how far you have to go -- you keep clicking items, they keep replacing them with new ones, and there's zero indication of if you're almost done or if you're getting better or worse. Once I did one for three minutes straight, neither passing nor failing, until I just gave up and left the page... if it's a bug, that should never happen. If that's supposed to be able to happen, that's the apex of asshole design. Either way, it's a failure in every way.
- fimdomeio 7y ago
  Originaly it didn't belong to google, it was an aquisition. I remember seeing a ted talk about it. To me it constantly feels like I'm working for google for free for their AI projects which is very annoying comparing to help a smaller company OCR books.
  - fjsolwmv 7y ago
    You aren't working for free. You get access to a website and the publisher gets bot protection. It's a 3 way win-win-win transaction.
  - rhino369 7y ago
    Trying to convince a robot that you aren’t a robot by teaching a robot how to look at pictures is a pretty absurd state of the world. When they reboot the Matrix, instead of being used as batteries, the machines will keep humans around for machine learning test sets.
AshleysBrain 7y ago
This fits the pattern of Google consistently going "oops we broke Firefox" (or otherwise made it worse than Chrome) to the extent it raises suspicion of a deliberate strategy, as described by this former Mozillian: https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871246510264320 https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871246510264320
willtim 7y ago
My company proxy kept triggering endless Google captcha games. I switched to DuckDuckGo.
tsjq 7y ago
i shifted from Chrome to Firefox a few months ago. been facing this super-slow Captchas. I simply assumed this is due to some network slow / server slow / browser slow. I didn't even bother to go back to Chrome to compare this. After reading comments in this thread, now I realize this is intentional thing against Firefox. Damn Google. what happened to your "Don't be evil" beginnings ?
TheKarateKid 7y ago
I get this all the time with Safari. It’s because Google can’t read as much about you in more privacy based browsers, so you have to prove yourself. Not saying it’s right, but that’s the reason. It needs to be changed.
N0RMAN 7y ago
Someone explain to him that you have to click the Verify button on both browser.
stunt 7y ago
I don't have this issue.
shanth 7y ago
nah i just need to use tor with chrome to get the same effect as firefox.
neya 7y ago
This happens even on Chrome. If you're logged into a Google account, it seems to know that you're not a bot since your Google Account is tightly integrated within Chrome. If you try the same captcha on an Incognito page on Chrome, you will have the same experience as on Firefox. Atleast, that's the case for me.
somebodythere 7y ago
The latest captchas are so hard that when I encounter one, it really feels like I am engaged in an unpaid labor relationship with Google. It makes me sad that they are so pervasive or I would categorically refuse to engage with any site that uses reCaptcha.
hosteur 7y ago
I consider putting the following on my cv: 2016-2019: working for google - analyzing street footage for implementing AI for self driving cars. Maybe I should also invoice google for the effort.
- emiliobumachar 7y ago
  Would a class action lawsuit for unpaid wages be plausible?
bussiere 7y ago
Human seems able to see face on anything. WOuldn't be a good idea to use this as a way to make a captcha ?
dpcan 7y ago
I never use Firefox, but I'm pretty sure I've seen this same format before in Chrome. No?
NelsonMinar 7y ago
Do websites get paid to run reCAPTCHA? I keep seeing reCAPTCHA installed on very low security sites that don't seem like targets for automated bots. I'm wondering if they have some external incentive to install it.
quwert95 7y ago
As a developer who has worked with reCAPTCHA in the past and as a diehard Firefox user, what likely happened here is a form of shadow banning. You're moving too fast; your mouse and mouse clicks are "too good" to be human. Try solving the reCAPTCHA slower and you'll see wildly different results, or, purposely fail one reCAPTCHA to get easier ones. reCAPTCHA tech is crazy; reCAPTCHAs are not simple web forms and Javascript, they're a sandboxed and monitored 'window' to a Google server. If you solve too many reCAPTCHAs too quickly (ie. when you are testing a web page, or are rotating your passwords on many websites) then Google's servers will try to rate limit you with slow animations and harder reCAPTCHAs.
- resoluteteeth 7y ago
  > reCAPTCHA tech is crazy; reCAPTCHAs are not simple web forms and Javascript, they're a sandboxed and monitored 'window' to a Google server. If you solve too many reCAPTCHAs too quickly (ie. when you are testing a web page, or are rotating your passwords on many websites) then Google's servers will try to rate limit you with slow animations and harder reCAPTCHAs. Google should absolutely not be in a position where it can be inadvertently rate limiting your attempts to rotate passwords on different websites across the internet.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
hhjinks 7y ago
This is bullshit. I regularly experience the "Firefox" example in Chrome, but only in incognito mode. Either way, it's not something Google does deliberately to disincentivize other browsers.
deleted 7y ago
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DrJaws 7y ago
The thing that happens to him in firefox, it also happens to me in chrome. misleading
simias 7y ago
I'm a Firefox user and I did encounter some issues with reCaptchas in the past but this video doesn't convince me at all. For reference I post regularly on 4chan (not compulsively but maybe a dozen comments a day on average) and if you don't have a pass you have to fill the captcha every time. I only use Firefox. I definitely experienced what this video shows on Firefox in the past (the super-slow loading images) but it felt more like a bug than anything else and it doesn't represent the typical experience. Maybe I tripped one of Google's bot filters somehow and I ended up with a reinforced captcha, or there was a bug somewhere. The Chrome section of the video is a lot closer to what I see usually, but they make me go through two challenges in a row typically (although that might be 4chan's settings at play). I'm all for the Chrome hate if it means that people switch to Firefox but I think we need harder data than a short video to call shenanigans on that one. Off topic rant: the fact that a post with such lack of substance manages to reach 700 votes in 3 hours is frankly depressing, it has no place on this website IMO.
seieste 7y ago
I believe this is part of a greater Google strategy of using their monopoly power. I’ve noticed that in the last week, Google no longer provides a link to the non-amp version of pages. Previously, you could press two button taps to get to the non-amp page, but now that ability has been removed. This sucks because Amp doesn’t always support all the features of a normal site, like Reddit or blogs (commenting). I worry how Google will abuse this in the future. Right now they control the first page you visit after leaving Google through AMP, but you can usually find a link to the home page of a site. In the future, they may restrict it further.
caconym_ 7y ago
The mainstream internet of today exists to serve the advertising industry (including but not limited to Google) and things that don't so serve will be marginalized like an organism rejecting a foreign body or disease. It's funny, because really the thing that makes users "more significant" than bots for the average website operator is that showing ads to real people has a monetary value attached to it. That is the only reason you prove your humanity to a machine: to validate your suitability as a target for ad spend.
hollander 7y ago
I've noticed this effect as well. The white boxes, waiting and waiting, four or five different consecutive tests. All in all a terrible user experience. I thought it was because I used VPN, but this is another explanation.
mikejb 7y ago
I'm not sure what the comparison is on Chrome vs. Firefox. I've had the pain of these slow animations, with a follow-up captcha, and it's infuriating - On Chrome. Is it better on Firefox?
tootahe45 7y ago
I decided to test this for a good hour once. I was suprised how little it actually matters whether you're on a cheap VPN (although i do think they limit TOR) or are actually getting the answers correct. Load up chrome or brave, and it almost instantly solved, whereas Firefox on default privacy settings is a total pain. The worst thing is how they purposely try to just waste your time with the fading images, like in OP.
deleted 7y ago
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r00fus 7y ago
I use a site frequently and am on the latest FF and I don't see this behavior - the refresh is quite quick. Does this mean that Google knows enough about me (ie, privacy leak) that it's choosing to not having infuriating UI?
teekert 7y ago
Oh, I thought it was me... seems like it was my choice of browser. In any case, perhaps Google has a harder time telling me apart from a computer. I guess that is a plus for FF then.
realcr 7y ago
I experienced a similar problem. I'm using Firefox. Two websites I have great difficulties logging into are twitch.tv and italki.com, both require solving a google captcha that can sometimes take more than a minute to solve. I am working on a micro-payments system (based on mutual credit) that should allow to pay something like $0.001 instead of solving a captcha. If this would introduce zero extra friction, would you consider using this kind of solution over the traditional captcha?
cloud_thrasher 7y ago
From my experience, it's the "Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *" response header that causes the problem. So, it's in the way Chrome uses/enforces cross-origin HTTP request/response headers.
7six 7y ago
Google does this often, it makes Firefox bugs on purpose to make them look bad, down with the Google monopoly I say
elagost 7y ago
reCAPTCHA is malware. If a site uses it, I (usually reluctantly) stop using the site. It's not even a privacy issue anymore - I'm logging into the site, usually so I can give them some money (bandcamp, humble bundle) - I just don't want Google all up in my business. Is that too much to ask these days? In order to not have some creepy giant corporation overseeing everything I do, I guess I just have to not use the Internet.
make3 7y ago
this is just unacceptable
anticensor 7y ago
A class action for drudgery needs to be started.
superasn 7y ago
The Recaptcha 3 is even worse. For example go to truecaller.com and enter a phone number to lookup in Firefox (android). You won't be able to, it will say Recaptcha had failed. Now do the same in chrome on Android and it works. It's because on ff it gives a low score (i. e user is a bot) while on chrome it passes without a hitch. Funny thing is I haven't used chrome in months so it should be the other way round!
taf2 7y ago
I can replicate this same thing in a chrome incognito window...
glenngillen 7y ago
If you’re looking for a good commercial alternative that isn’t turning you into a mechanical Turk to train/classify ML: https://funcaptcha.co/ https://funcaptcha.co/ If you’re primarily trying to stop bots and similar take a look at https://www.kasada.io/ https://www.kasada.io/
miohtama 7y ago
reCaptcha v3 fixes this behavior. Instead of having one gateway test to determine if you are a human or a bot, it collects data on a background on your browsing behavior. Thus, it has a longer browsing behavior sample for heurestics. https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 Of course, you need to have cookies enabled. If you do any browser in ignonito mode and/or use VPN or Tor you are going to get persona no grata treatment because it is likely your source network and IP address have caused a lot of problems before. The only way to go around is to have some permacookie on your browser saying you are a good citizen.
floatingatoll 7y ago
HN previously, when Google released RCv3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18331159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18331159 Has anyone posted a technical analysis of the changes? I’d love to read more about it.
goblin89 7y ago
In my experience[0], the captchas are rotated regardless of the browser. The captcha shown each time seems to be chosen based on some sort of hidden “trust level”, which fluctuates across attempts based on your choices. The starting level, I suspect, is heavily influenced by browser settings and many other factors. With that in mind, and assuming that 1) trust inversely correlates with anonymity, 2) people using Firefox tend to be more tech-savvy and careful about their privacy, and 3) tech-savvy people using Chrome probably won’t bother locking it down, since it “talks to Google anyway”, I’d be disinclined to believe Google actually discriminates against browsers—no matter how compelling a narrative this may seem—until I have a complete picture of OP’s setup (from browser settings to OS and connection). [0] Last year there was a period I was getting many captchas (either my location or AWS VPN caused me to be considered “untrusted”); I actively tried to figure out how to get past it without giving the algorithm what it wants, so I could go through a dozen of these captcha screens in one browser window. I use Safari, Firefox and Chrome routinely.
joshfraser 7y ago
I absolutely hate CAPTCHAs and have done my best to persuade developers to never use them (1). But in fairness to Google, the promise of their new Captcha system is that it uses all of your previous browsing history across the web to determine how likely you are to be a bot. You can't do a fair apples to apples comparison unless the browsing history and behavior is the same across both browsers. 1) https://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never-use-a-captcha/ https://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never...
driverdan 7y ago
Based on some CAPTCHA solving sites it costs about $3 per 1000 ReCAPTCHAs solved. That shows you how worthless adding ReCAPTCHA to your site is. All it'll do is slow bots down a bit and cost $0.003. Here's an extension to use those services in the browser so you never have to solve one again: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/recaptcha-solver/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/recaptcha-sol... That's assuming you can't get Buster to work.
- gouh 7y ago
  Or even pay, I wouldn't mind paying 0.003$ at each Captcha as long as I have an anonymous payment system.
napsterbr 7y ago
That's exactly what happens to me on an almost daily basis. But then I decided to change my feeling from rage to revenge. Here's how: I get the first few selections right, so the algorithm knows I'm trustworthy. Then I purposefully get the last ones wrong. This way, I'm still validated by the captcha and I get to show the middle finger to Google. Now I smile every time I'm faced with reCaptcha :) Highly recommend. It does take some time to figure out the patterns (when to get it right and when to get it wrong), but once you do, it just works.
terrycody 7y ago
I got same thing in Chrome too, so I guess its related trackers, not just for firefox lol.
NamTaf 7y ago
Oh wow, I assumed it was just my combination of ublock origin + privacy badger + accelereyes + privacy-first settings in FF (block all 3rd party cookies, containers, resist fingerprinting, etc.) that caused many hits. I'm not sure whether I'm glad to find out it's (also? only?) because they hate Firefox.
m463 7y ago
Google chrome can already identify who you are and it knows you're not a robot. That said, it still forces you do to work for its self-driving car effort.
camgunz 7y ago
Antitrust investigators should look into captcha stats for at least browser, ISP, mobile device, IP address, and referer header. It would be better if they could just get Google's algorithm, which I assume is based on more data. I'd be very surprised if Google popped captchas less for non-Google IPs, devices, and browsers.
ashaikh 7y ago
Does Google use this data to help train its self driving cars and maps for identifying information? I feel like every captcha is about a street scene of some sort... house numbers, cars, motorcycles, hydrants, stop lights etc.
627467 7y ago
My default approach is to leave site that require reCaptcha (meaning, when ticking the box triggers the challenge) but when I do need to take the challenge I make sure I sprinkle my results with subtle errors.
vageli 7y ago
I'm frankly surprised there has not been an ADA-based lawsuit against Google. I can't tell you the number of times the audio captcha has been unavailable for "reasons".
nilsocket 7y ago
Google search results page in Firefox mobile browser looks like it is from 2010. I filed a bug report, only one version of it is fixed, later versions were just displaying same old pages.
piyush_soni 7y ago
There have been many discussions on HN about this before. Google is making us its free slaves, when they can clearly know in the first click that we are not a robot (it used to work perfectly! How can it unintentionally become that worse?) Is there no Google employee here that sees how absurd this is and get this message sent across?
tyler_larson 7y ago
Congratulations, you played yourself. It's not Firefox that's the problem; reCAPTCHA works just fine on Firefox. It's all those anti-tracking measures you installed and enabled -- they work by making your browser indistinguishable from a low-quality bot, kicking the website into self-defense mode. The slow fade is a rate-limiting measure. It's annoying to you, but it's more annoying to people trying to automate login attempts. The site is attempting to protect your account by preventing automated attacks against it. Meanwhile your browser is doing it's best to look like a shell script, refusing to send any sort of behavioral feedback or distinguishing characteristics that might give away the fact that you're a human. So the question is: is it really worth alienating those quirky, paranoid users who take extraordinary anti-tracking measures, just to protect your normal users from automated attacks? Yes. Of course it is.
lousken 7y ago
Can someone from recaptcha team respond to this? Because this happens to me all the time and it's ridiculous

1343 points by kojoru 7y ago

ziddoap 7y ago

The fire hydrant example... I deal with this every day. It takes soooo looooong to load, it's really ridiculous.

kbumsik 7y ago
I face that example everyday too. I'm really curious this does not appear in Chrome.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  It does. I've run into it plenty of times with chrome.
theandrewbailey 7y ago
I'd be cool with it if it didn't fade out the selection and load new images. Fine, you want to do that, Google? I think some of these other images are hydrants, too!
- Aunche 7y ago
  The point of the challenge isn't really to get the "correct" answer. It's for the captcha to be sufficiently confident that you're a human.
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
There have literally been times where I debated whether or not I wanted to purchase something because of the knowledge that I would have to solve Google's captcha. Humble Bundle, in particular--the login process for me (due to uBlock+uMatrix installed) is like this: 1) Try to login 2) Login doesn't show up--go to uMatrix and whitelist some crap. 3) Try to login again. 4) First phase of login completes, now blank when site tries to load Google captcha. 5) Whitelist Google captcha frames in uMatrix and reload again. 6) Login for the third time, Google captcha now displays properly. 7) Spend 10 minutes solving captchas. If I'm lucky, the first "Verify/Submit" will work. If not, I probably need to whitelist cookies for it within uMatrix and reload/try again. 8) Get notification from HumbleBundle that "You have not logged in from this browser before" and wait for a Verification email to hit my inbox. 9) Enter verification code. Site usually then logs me out for some reason, even though it was successful. 10) Login again. Solve Google Captchas again. Finally allowed to login. 11) Finally buy the goddamn thing I was there to buy. 12) Search Amazon for wig.
- luckylion 7y ago
  It always amazes me that companies, especially those that know their audience is tech savvy, don't test their sites/shops/systems with common things like ad blockers or privacy plugins. I often run into hidden problems on sites that go away after I allow some third party domain. I wonder if it's just incompetence at the developer stage or a management decision to annoy users that have ad block etc. Neither really makes sense, I'm a paying customers, they shouldn't take it personally that I don't care for ads, and they are multi-million (or even multi-billion) companies, surely somebody there knows that ad blockers exist.
- worble 7y ago
  >Humble Bundle, in particular Funny you should mention that, I actually wrote an email to support asking them to have frickin mercy with the google captchas. The response was as you expect "we do this for safety and protection, yada yada" which to be fair, I obviously didn't expect them to change anything, although I hope it did help raise some awareness. The interesting thing I got out of it was that they mentioned that google captcha for logging in is disabled so long as you have 2FA activated on your account, which certainly helped, at least a little bit. You do still have to use the captcha to buy anything from the bundle (at least if you're using something like paypal, anyway).
  - benologist 7y ago
    I've emailed them about it as well. Totally sick of having to grind through Google to sign in to HB, I've not bought stuff because of the effort too. I also really don't think it's appropriate to include Google as a third-party in login processes anymore.
  - periphery 7y ago
    I wrote to them asking to close my account for exactly the same reason. Recaptcha was making me less inclined every visit to buy something.
- user764743 7y ago
  I tried sending an email on their support page to complain about it as they are likely losing customers like me but it was behind a captchas and I gave up.

baggy_trough 7y ago

The Google captcha enrages me. Why should I train their stupid AI?

y4mi 7y ago
Because you're not providing advertising revenue as a non-chrome user ;)
woodrowbarlow 7y ago
there are updates coming that will make it much more tied to your google account. i fear that it will mean anybody not currently logged in is assumed to be a robot. (even more so than now, i mean.)
- darkpuma 7y ago
  ReCAPTCHAv3. It will differ from ReCAPTCHAv2 in one important respect: it will no longer ask you any questions, meaning it will no longer give you the opportunity to appeal it's snap judgement of you. https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3
  - philpem 7y ago
    > "reCAPTCHA v3 will never interrupt your users, so you can run it whenever you like without affecting conversion. reCAPTCHA works best when it has the most context about interactions with your site, which comes from seeing both legitimate and abusive behavior. For this reason, we recommend including reCAPTCHA verification on forms or actions as well as in the background of pages for analytics." Just what the world needs, another tracking script...
- bduerst 7y ago
  According to the recent Planet Money podcast on Captcha, the upcoming changes will only use the signal of whether or not you have an account, and not any account-based data, since it will be domain based on the website or something. Also, they're doing away with the questionnaire. It works by using a scoring system or something similar since it loads on the pages leading up to form fills. Edit: Source for you disbelievers - https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 >reCAPTCHA v3 returns a score for each request without user friction. The score is based on interactions with your site and enables you to take an appropriate action for your site.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 7y ago

This is especially prevalent in the Google mobile site tester in Firefox. In FF you have to do the Captcha almost every damn time. Switch to Chrome and it stopped immediately for me.

athorax 7y ago

I can't tell for sure, but it looks like middle row, first image might have a fire hydrant

entropea 7y ago
Is this ISO52600 image thick with grain at 200% crop a car?

exakoustos 7y ago

This is why once I switched to FF I also switched to DuckDuckGo

talonx 7y ago
The captcha has nothing to do with Google the search engine. Google's catpcha is used on a lot of websites which are not connected with Google. On a different note, this also makes it difficult to use such websites if you block google domains in your adblocker for non-Google sites.
- exakoustos 7y ago
  You would think that they wouldn't block search. But Google kept throwing me at captcha when I was in FF and not signed in. The biggest pain so far has been the lack of map integration.
- swebs 7y ago
  They actually block you from search if you're connecting from a VPN and have uMatrix enabled.

fernandotakai 7y ago

now that's weird. firefox is my main browser (developer edition on linux, windows and macos) and i never get captchas. maybe it's because i don't use umatrix (i only use ublock origin)? maybe because i'm always logged-in in at least one google account?

kbumsik 7y ago
I use a plain FF and I'm always logged in the Google account but I face this annoying captcha everyday.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> maybe because i'm always logged-in in at least one google account? That's likely a primary reason.
theandrewbailey 7y ago
It's easy to configure umatrix to let Recaptcha through.
entropea 7y ago
I use ublock but stock Firefox otherwise. I am also logged into a Google account most of the time, but still get impossible captchas unless I switch to Chrome.

damnyou 7y ago

This could either be some of Firefox's privacy features genuinely making it look more bot-like to Google, Google accidentally or deliberately sabotaging Firefox, or some combination of the two. It's not really possible to tell from the outside, but it's clear that Google's incentives are for Google's products to work better with each other. This is why Google should be broken up -- it should be forced to spin off Chrome into a separate company with a business model similar to what Firefox has.

Algent 7y ago

Are you using Canvas Blocker or similar extensions ? As a FF user I also have to go thru 3-4 captcha everywhere and I'm pretty sure it's because the system is having trouble giving me a stable fingerprint.

stanski 7y ago

This reminds me of ticketmaster. Site owners can choose not to use google's recaptcha2 but it has become the de facto standard now so no one cares.

tomduncalf 7y ago

Google Captcha is a complete mess at this point and I often leave websites that use it if it's not essential to what I am doing

entropea 7y ago
I will cancel services that use it too. I am not wasting 5 literal minutes to solve impossible captchas because I don't use Chrome.
bduerst 7y ago
The newest version is going to be invisible - i.e. it just "works" without a questionnaire. It's based on a scoring system that doesn't prompt users unless the website owner wants to prompt them below a specific score. You've likely already used it but don't remember it because it was invisible.
- bscphil 7y ago
  That was supposed to be what this version was (reCaptcha v3). As a matter of fact, however, quite a few of us get extremely long or unsolvable captchas every time.
  - timdorr 7y ago
    No, the OP is showing v2. v3 doesn't have any UI for end-users: https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 It is simply a scoring system, applying an ML model to typical actions for your website. It's up to the site owner to determine how to handle those that don't meet v3's score, which can be a traditional CAPTCHA or hopefully something more effective and forgiving to humans: https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/ https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/
    - bscphil 7y ago
      I was assuming that most people were using v3, my browser was flunking the scoring test, and v2 with the UI was being shown as a backup. Did everyone decide not to use v3 for some reason?

jackewiehose 7y ago

The slow animation is the worst. You really want to punch someone responsible in the face. And I never figure out how to solve the traffic light riddle.

bad_user 7y ago
You're not supposed to figure out the traffic light riddle, you're not a human if you do.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
Yes, it's the most obvious internet rage trigger. But I can't figure out why they make a 'delay'? Why not just show the next dam image?
- bad_user 7y ago
  To make it more expensive for bots to try this at scale, obviously. Unfortunately it's making it more expensive for humans too.
  - masukomi 7y ago
    you may be right about the fade-out and delay but the time spent fading in only hampers humans not bots. As soon as it starts fading in the image is present in non-faded form and the bots can start processing it.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      You realise you've just described why this would distinguish between bots and humans. (And yes, I'm also driven to rage by slow-fade animations. A practice I can date back to Microsoft's Clippy, which, when you punched it in the fact to go away, had just one more gratuitous animation just to twist the knife that just more.)
      - Cyph0n 7y ago

Ocha 7y ago

FYI. Title is misleading. This experience has nothing to do Firefox vs Chrome. Result is because of 3rd party cookie and tracker blocking. I had same and even worse (I was not able to get through captcha) experience on chrome itself because I have 3rd party cookies disabled and couple privacy oriented extensions running.

hartator 7y ago
The user is complaining about the slow CSS animations. It's definitely a bug though not something they did on purpose. I remember having the same issue on Chrome as well.
- gsnedders 7y ago
  IIRC, it is something they do on purpose, to make it clear to the user something is happening while rate-limiting challenges given to the user.
  - hartator 7y ago
    Oh no Google ReCaptcha doesn't work that way. In case of rate limiting, they will just throw an error. It's probably some clever JS or CSS that got a bug in it. Here's the official thread on GH: https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268 https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268 Disclaimer: We built a solution at SerpApi.com to solve those offline using ML. Timing of solving doesn't matter. It will be odd that they do that just to annoy user when it's not a technical limitation.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  They’re slow because it’s live-challenging two or more recaptcha users at once with an unknown image, right?
- shakna 7y ago
  It's not a bug. Its part of a patent Google holds designed at frustrating access for bots.
7y ago

pgug 7y ago

I there any anti reCaptcha or anti Google, that I can donate to? I want to donate a small amount every time Google forces me to solve their problems.

nprateem 7y ago
Get a disabled person to take them to court for discrimination.
- penagwin 7y ago
  > Get a disabled person to take them to court for discrimination. I was thinking something more along the lines of sponsoring them to take Google to court ;)
izacus 7y ago
Pay the website owner to remove reCaptcha from the sites you use?

llao 7y ago

While relatable, this is just a low effort post more suited for Twitter or Reddit. For a fair comparison OP would need to use clean browser profiles on fresh IPs. Like this it is just fan-service for Google Captcha victims (like me).

a012 7y ago
How can you have a fresh IP which isn't in your control?
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Many of us have control of our IP Address within a certain range. In fact I have to specially request a static IP and pay money for it. A dynamic IP that changes when I refresh DHCP on the edge router is free.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > A dynamic IP that changes when I refresh DHCP on the edge router is free. But you don't know who had it before you, what Google thinks of it ("known Spammer", "legitimate User") etc, so that's not going to help in this case.
    - jakear 7y ago
      Maybe try buying up some unclaimed IPv6 space and test from there?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
SquareWheel 7y ago
I kept looking for the article. Surprised to see such a low-effort post submitted to HN.
- thinkingemote 7y ago

Kwpolska 7y ago

If you can, skip the visual CAPTCHA and just go for the audio version. You’ll help train Google’s speech recognition bots, but you’ll get through the CAPTCHA faster.

dessant 7y ago

I was going through the same ordeal as a Firefox user, so I've made Buster to solve challenges and reclaim some of that lost time: https://github.com/dessant/buster https://github.com/dessant/buster If you're a developer, please consider replacing reCAPTCHA on your site with an alternative. reCAPTCHA discriminates against people with disabilities and those who seek privacy, and it gaslights you into thinking you did not solve the challenge correctly, which is plain cruel. Here are some reCAPTCHA alternatives: https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/ https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/

victorheld 7y ago
I've recently had issues with buster where Google detects it, giving me this error: "Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now". Is there a solution for this?
- nprateem 7y ago
  It may not be buster causing that. I see that sometimes on a VPN, but also when not on a VPN but using Firefox with ghostery/ublock origin, etc.
  - erinnh 7y ago
    It may not, but Ive seen the same. Only with Buster. And only since recently.
- dessant 7y ago
  It may help if you go to the extension's settings and enable user input simulation and install the client app. Though Google may block your access to the audio challenge regardless of the browser or extensions you use, see more details here: https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/25 https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/25
- megous 7y ago
  I also get this sometimes, not even using buster. Once I was not able to access package tracking information, because Google blocked me completely via recaptcha from that. I actually do a lot of automated queries from my computer. I like to scrape and save content that may disappear. Just recently one psychology website I liked years ago where I put a lot of effort to comment on, silently deleted all 60k user comments, including 100s I wrote, and started putting old articles behind a paywall. My activity is perfectly legal, as I'm doing all this for my own personal use. Thankfully I have all the content locally in the database. Does it mean I should be prevented from accessing third party services that use recaptcha?

yumraj 7y ago

Turbo Tax uses Google Captcha when trying to import information from financial institutions. While filing taxes, on several occasions I had to just give up and try again after several hours because the Captcha won't let me pass through and after several attempts Turbo Tax will throw an error - to come back later. It was literally a Nightmare

buildzr 7y ago
Interesting, I wonder if this is something TurboTax itself is doing or if it's something the banks are going and TurboTax is making you bypass it in order to scrape it.
- yumraj 7y ago
  Not really sure, it was shown after the credentials for the financial institution were entered. However, it was shown for each financial institution. So it is possible that the financial institutions (or the API provider) were doing it, though it is equally likely that turbo tax just has a bad implementation. Because TT can make an assumption that I'm a human, I wonder if there is a regulatory requirement or the API provider is doing that.
akeck 7y ago
It's a bit more expensive, but for this type of thing and other reasons, I now use a CPA.
- muzika 7y ago
  ... who then use an Intuit product to file your taxes
  - fencepost 7y ago
    If it's a CPA that's not on their own, there's a good chance they're using something vertical market instead - Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters, not sure what others.
7y ago

sergiotapia 7y ago

I see a website with google captcha I just close it. Not going to waste time and also train this huge monopoly's AI further for free.

gosseyn 7y ago

Omg I knew I wasn't imagining things...I reached the point when I don't bother anymore...captcha means no !

navidfarhadi 7y ago

I have experienced the same behavior when trying to complete Captchas in Tor Browser. However the vast majority of the time it just says "Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now." so I cannot even attempt to complete the Captcha.

Yetanfou 7y ago

When confronted with reCAPTCHA I always switch to the audio-version as that: - is generally easier to solve (download the sound clip using curl or wget, type in the nonsense it says, done) - does not turn me into a mechanical Turk training Google's AI - works in 'any browser' by circumventing the browser (by using wget/curl), thereby not allowing Google to punish me for not using their dragnet/browser.

epanchin 7y ago
While you find this convenient, others may find it imperative. Somewhat akin to labelling your pet dog a support animal or using a disabled bathroom.
- yathern 7y ago
  More like walking up the handicapped ramp because the stairs are covered in oil and slippery.
zuppy 7y ago
I'm using the audio too. The image captcha is simply broken, it often doesn't let me pass even though I've provided the only valid answer.
atomwaffel 7y ago
> does not turn me into a mechanical Turk training Google's AI I’ve been wondering about that. Are you sure you’re not training their speech recognition AI?
- Yetanfou 7y ago
  No, I'm not sure. It deem it unlikely though as those sound snippets are rather short and uncomplicated, something which I'd think any reasonable STT-system should be able to handle - which makes it vulnerable to those systems as well.

amedvednikov 7y ago

Every website that uses this fingerprinting abomination, should be ashamed.

wooptoo 7y ago

This also happens in Chrome when 3rd party cookies are turned off.

cptskippy 7y ago
So basically Google is abusing it's monopoly as a captcha provider to inconvenience users into enabling enhanced tracking in their browsers under the guise of "security"?

truth_seeker 7y ago

As a Brave browser user, I go through this partial behaviour every single time.

yegortimoshenko 7y ago

I saw both variants in both browsers.

SamWhited 7y ago

I thought this was just me and their stupid caption being impossible for even humans to solve; turns out I was just being gaslighted this entire time and they're just discriminating against Firefox users? How does the EU or someone not shut down this sort of anti-competative monopolostic nosense? I didn't think I could get more furious about having to struggle with these captions all day, but somehow I am. Please everyone stop using recaptcha on your sites, it's not worth the pain it costs your users.

sniperjzp 7y ago
In Chrome Incognito mode, I saw it a few years back, but less frequently recently, it also happened to me with other browsers like Edge, Chrome in iOS, etc.
michaelt 7y ago
they're just discriminating against Firefox users? At least part of the behaviour shown in the video depends on factors like cookies, IP address, and whether you have features like anti-fingerprinting protection turned on. [1] Recaptcha is frustrating and I dislike it, especially the slow fade-ins and multiple challenges, but if you repeat the test shown in the video you won't find it 100% repeatable just because you're using Firefox. [1] https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-483248998 https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-...
- SamWhited 7y ago
  As far as I can tell it's 100% repeatable, every now and then one works the first time on Firefox, but it almost never does. If I use it in Chrome on the same sites, it works. Then I go back to Firefox, and sure enough it doesn't work again. Maybe there's something else making it work for you? I don't know what other factor there could be; some privacy settings in Firefox maybe?
- AJ007 7y ago
  If it can be statistically proven that this is occurring more on Firefox than Chrome then Google has a really, really big problem. The burden to make sure it isn’t is on them, most especially in the EU. Google is facing a very real future where they will have no web browser and possibly no operating system.

FerretFred 7y ago

Ha! Been there, done that. I registered with Patreon (using Firefox), then tried to login (using Firefox) after verifying my email address. Nineteen (19) Captcha screens later and I gave up. Seriously. Bastards (and apologies to the Creatives I was trying to contribute to).

OJFord 7y ago

reCaptcha's not all bad guys, it's actually educational. It's thanks to reCaptcha that I know what a 'crosswalk' is.

r721 7y ago
Also how storefronts around the world look like.

S_A_P 7y ago

It looks like the user missed one fire hydrant in the middle left square. If you look closely there is a tiny fire hydrant in that picture.

ferdek 7y ago
I laughed when mouse hovered over it like the user was deliberately looking for fire hydrant on this one and then just moved on with rage, waiting for other images to load :D. I honestly think this was the reason why Captcha's bot was so passive-aggressive :D

helper 7y ago

I've seen that behavior using chrome on linux when using public wifi networks.

finchisko 7y ago

This doesn't make sense to me. Making reCaptcha work worse in FF without telling user that if he/she used Chrome it would be better. Only few tech savvy people (hn readers), will eventually realize that. And it doesn't make them to switch to Chrome (or does it?). They'll just be angry. And btw I hate reCaptcha. Is it really only option to fight with spam? When I see it on sites, like dhl parcel tracking, I get mad. I always ask why? Can they just block suspicious traffic, or at least not display captcha on first attempt.

parrellel 7y ago
If you increase user friction enough, subtly, eventually the affected user is going to look for something else, and now there's only one real something else - especially for non-techie users.

darkhorn 7y ago

Dear developers, if you want to avoid most of the bots use only HTTP/2 and only TLS v1.3. Don't support lower protocols than these ones and your bot problem will decrease greatly. Even GoogleBot won't be able to crawl your web site.

netwanderer3 7y ago

This is exactly what you would encounter if you access Google services using TOR. It's actually even more frustrating than this.

peteretep 7y ago

Would it be possible to build a Firefox plugin that creates and isolates the requisite cookies to allow reputation to be built, but at least partially maintains privacy? I was thinking maybe something that has 10 difference Google sessions, and shards them depending on the website, deciding which to send to the Captcha. You'd build reputation at 1/10th the speed, but you'd still potentially build it. Or, one that allows you to create a random Gmail account and then use that as your identity across the different sites. Perfect privacy would be hard, but improved privacy should be doable. Alternatively, getting something like blinded identity tokens widely used would be good.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
I doubt it's easy, so I prepared such a setup myself, i.e. I keep a separate browser with a Google account and use it only when I really need to. Helps in cases like this one, but of course you give up some privacy - hopefully just the minimal bit.
ssivark 7y ago
Sounds like Firefox containers should support this kind of usage.
Sean1708 7y ago
I'm fairly sure (but admittedly not certain) that captcha uses non-cookie and non-account based methods for identifying users, so I don't those methods would work.
- peteretep 7y ago
  I suspect it falls back to the other methods, but if there are Google cookies, I'd have thought it starts with them cookies.
iicc 7y ago
https://github.com/privacypass/challenge-bypass-extension https://github.com/privacypass/challenge-bypass-extension

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

SCHiM 7y ago

Big rant, there are few things I hate more than filling out their endless useless CAPTCHA's when browsing websites that have nothing to do with Google. Google is a hypocritical pile of burning . They use bots right? They scrape websites, they infest everything from my banking website to console emulators with their tracking, and yet we little people are not allowed to scrape or interface with the web programmatically. I want them to burn so badly, I hope the EU breaks them up. Screw captcha, screw AWP, screw them.

guelo 7y ago
It's the web developer that doesn't want you to interact with their site programmatically.
- calibas 7y ago
  Google and Facebook tend to do it as a matter of policy, and while they say it's to protect privacy and prevent abuse, it also furthers the "walled garden" effect.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > It's the web developer that doesn't want you to interact with their site programmatically. Yeah because too many people abuse any hint of such functionality to peddle fake Viagra, pennystock scams, MLMs, ICOs or the good old SEO link spam.
Dammitnigga 7y ago
Why u mad when the 4chan hacker ddos your website don't cry. Blame the tool user not the tool maker
Bakary 7y ago
They're not hypocritical but cynical. There is an appreciable difference.
fjsolwmv 7y ago
Google respects robots.txt

klodolph 7y ago

This looks suspiciously like slowbanning.

deforciant 7y ago

I have noticed that Google often signs me off from my multiple Google accounts on FF too :/ While Chrome (which I use only for Hangouts) remains logged in. A bit annoying! :D Also, good to see that it's a more widespread issue with these captchas too, I somehow thought that I am just bad at solving them :)

dredmorbius 7y ago

My present Recaptcha policy: https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102054627041751386 https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102054627041751386

turrini 7y ago

For Google Recaptcha, I use GreaseMonkey with an user script: "Speed Up Google Captcha" "Makes Google Captcha works faster by removing slow visual transitions and unnecessary delays." https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/382039-speed-up-google-captcha https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/382039-speed-up-google-cap...

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
I'm really surprised that works, as I assumed the delay was random and it was looking for bots who were completing the image processing before the image has actually faded in. Huh.

matteopey 7y ago

This is the experience with the `privacy.resistFingerprinting` flag set to true. A while back I made a few try to see how the behavior change with different settings and extensions, you can see the result here: https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-483248998 https://github.com/google/recaptcha/issues/268#issuecomment-... I solved the problem by using an extension that toggle that flag: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toggle-resist-fingerprinting/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toggle-resist...

unixfox 7y ago

The worst part is that fading effect is completely useless because a bot can wait too if it doesn't detect a proper image. When I tried to exploit Google recaptcha for fun it was an easy task for me to implement a timer that will wait for the image to appears correctly.

paradox1234 7y ago

I barely use Edge in Windows 10, but whenever I do and I go to any google site I get constantly badgered about 'downloading chrome' even though, a) I've already downloaded Chrome and have it installed, b) I've click such notices away 1000 times. More than mildly annoying and aggressive.

stcredzero 7y ago

1. Big company browser attains majority market share. 2. Big company browser's quality starts to slip, but they are not so powerful, they don't have to care. 3. Big company browser starts to work against the common good. We've seen this before. We'll probably see it again.

neilv 7y ago

Those storefront photos were remarkably clear/unambiguous, compared to some I've gotten. When logging into an account I needed to log into, maybe a couple years ago, they'd jerk me around in the manner of this grumpy.website example, but more. One time, it went on for several topics, for what seemed around 10 minutes. I pay money for that account. This obnoxious annoyance is in addition to the offense of some company letting third-party code from a mass-surveillance company not only into their pages (which almost every company with a Web site does, sadly) but also into their authentication page. Much more important services on the Web do not need captchas for login to accounts that were paid for. Now, every time I get a hassle to log in to my account I pay for, plus directly leak that info to a surveillance company. It makes me regret paying money for the account, like the company are oblivious or don't care, and I won't have much loyalty when the right competitor appears.

war1025 7y ago

I've never run into these image captcha things before. Where do they get used at?

Raphmedia 7y ago
It's the same widget as the checkbox but it throws the images at you if it has doubts.
- war1025 7y ago
  I guess maybe because I don't have all the privacy extensions installed that some people use?

bluehatbrit 7y ago

I'm from the UK and often get very American questions. Such as "select all the images with cross-walks". This isn't really a phrase we have over here, so when I first got this I had no idea what I was meant to be looking for in the array of random pictures and actually had to look it up to get past it. If you're going to force me to do a captcha, at least localise the damn questions. Do other non-American's get this as well?

GordonS 7y ago
Another Brit here, and yes this does annoy me a bit.
bouke 7y ago
Or fire hydrants, which don’t exist in the NL. I only recognize those from US movies. Or taxi’s which can be any brand, model or color here. Sigh.
izacus 7y ago
American storefronts are always an interesting guesswork for me. "Is this a rundown shack or an actual store?"
josefresco 7y ago
American here: I when given the challenge of "select all the images with storefronts", typically they are not US based. I almost never speak/understand the language, but if there's a big sign on the building, I select it because it's most likely a storefront.
_emacsomancer_ 7y ago
They're zebra crossings, but I suppose you know that by now. The captchas are completely non-localised as far as I can tell; as others have pointed out the 'store-fronts' tend to be non-American.
- bluehatbrit 7y ago
  Generally it's not too hard to find something in a picture that is from another country, but the actual request text should really be localised. I usually go for the audio ones now though rather than the visual ones.

eanzenberg 7y ago

Why are we labeling images for free for google?

krispbyte 7y ago
Not for free. It's a service the owners of the website give to Google in exchange for letting you post. You are the product here.

Chris_Chambers 7y ago

This isn’t Firefox-specific you witch hunting morons. I’ve seen the inexplicably slow captcha in Chrome many many times.

cyphar 7y ago

I find it incredible that modern reCAPTCHA exists and is legal. Aside from the the obviously concerning censorship that happens if you try to access reCAPTCHA-locked sites over Tor, it is literally forcing internet users to do free labour for Google so that can train their AI for whatever project they're doing. So not only is it a tax on using the internet (paid in seconds to minutes of human existence each time -- I bet reCAPTCHA has collectively cost humanity thousands of lifetimes of wasted effort solving stupid puzzles) and it creates censorship, it also is an act of charity on our part that we provide Google free work with no benefit for ourselves. Given that they literally pay people to do (something similar to) what we are doing for free, I wonder it there are labour law arguments to be made (we aren't paid anything for this work which Google clearly is willing to employ people to do).

cameronbrown 7y ago
You're barking up the wrong tree here. reCAPTCHA is a free service that developers implement. If you don't like that, complain to them. Companies aren't compelled to use Google services - they have no choice because the bot issue is untenable without it.
- cyphar 7y ago
  Yes it's a free service which developers choose to use (though many sites use it without knowing through CloudFlare), but that doesn't change the fact that Google has decided to use it as a method of getting free labour out of internet users. reCAPTCHA used to be far more reasonable and ethical when it was being used to digitise books. And when you got reCAPTCHA'd constantly as a Tor user, it wasn't so bad. These days I have to spend several minutes of my life giving training data to Google on every site which uses reCAPTCHA, with nothing in return except for the privilege to be able to access the internet.

snek 7y ago

I've had this a lot, thought this was a bug in firefox's rendering or something. Glad to know it isn't, but now I'm somewhat more annoyed to know the real issue.

jedberg 7y ago

I think what most people don't realize is that you don't need a good captcha to stop most abuse. Even the crappiest of captchas will stop 95% of the bots out there. Unless your site is a high value target, you don't really need a great captcha.

dawnerd 7y ago

Happens to me in chrome every single day. I think it's a bug in how they're detecting potential bots. Of course no one at Google will listen when you submit reports. Especially the one about selecting street lights/stop lights/crosswalks.

tsjq 7y ago
the concern here is about super-slow loading and more tiles to verify when you use Firefox than when you use Google Chrome browser
- dawnerd 7y ago
  All of which I see in Chrome as well. Literally the same experience in the linked post.

user764743 7y ago

Sometimes it's stairs, and they ask you to click all the stairs, but there's an inch of stairs overlapping one window, so you aren't sure if you should click that window because of the pixel or not. This whole captcha joke and firefox made me hate Google more than anything else.

LeoNatan25 7y ago

It's simple; any shitty website that uses this garbage—don't use it. If there is a "contact us" page or email, tell them why you will no longer use it. If it's your bank's site, move a bank. You say "oh, it's a lot of work just for some captcha"; yes it is, but this is the only way this clowns will learn. When 1000 people leave a bank for a competing one and say "I left because your site employs captcha", it will magically disappear. I've seen it happen.

yathern 7y ago
Are you against all captcha then? How do you suggest websites deal with automated spam or other attacks?

crazygringo 7y ago

I've never understood what happened to reCAPTCHA, it was originally so great and is now just so, so toxic. Originally it was an awesome solution based on OCR'ing books that usually worked quickly on the first try, and almost never took more than two. Then it turned into a single checkbox (analyzing mouse movement) so it was even faster... and I remember some simple image-based like "select the images of cats" that were also easy to get right. So even better. But THEN... in the past couple of years, the image-matching started asking exclusively for analysis of street images, that has two huge problems: 1) The images are so blurry and ambiguous it's really hard to get right, it feels like a test designed to make you fail 2) You never know how far you have to go -- you keep clicking items, they keep replacing them with new ones, and there's zero indication of if you're almost done or if you're getting better or worse. Once I did one for three minutes straight, neither passing nor failing, until I just gave up and left the page... if it's a bug, that should never happen. If that's supposed to be able to happen, that's the apex of asshole design. Either way, it's a failure in every way.

fimdomeio 7y ago
Originaly it didn't belong to google, it was an aquisition. I remember seeing a ted talk about it. To me it constantly feels like I'm working for google for free for their AI projects which is very annoying comparing to help a smaller company OCR books.
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  You aren't working for free. You get access to a website and the publisher gets bot protection. It's a 3 way win-win-win transaction.
- rhino369 7y ago
  Trying to convince a robot that you aren’t a robot by teaching a robot how to look at pictures is a pretty absurd state of the world. When they reboot the Matrix, instead of being used as batteries, the machines will keep humans around for machine learning test sets.

AshleysBrain 7y ago

This fits the pattern of Google consistently going "oops we broke Firefox" (or otherwise made it worse than Chrome) to the extent it raises suspicion of a deliberate strategy, as described by this former Mozillian: https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871246510264320 https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871246510264320

willtim 7y ago

My company proxy kept triggering endless Google captcha games. I switched to DuckDuckGo.

tsjq 7y ago

i shifted from Chrome to Firefox a few months ago. been facing this super-slow Captchas. I simply assumed this is due to some network slow / server slow / browser slow. I didn't even bother to go back to Chrome to compare this. After reading comments in this thread, now I realize this is intentional thing against Firefox. Damn Google. what happened to your "Don't be evil" beginnings ?

TheKarateKid 7y ago

I get this all the time with Safari. It’s because Google can’t read as much about you in more privacy based browsers, so you have to prove yourself. Not saying it’s right, but that’s the reason. It needs to be changed.

N0RMAN 7y ago

Someone explain to him that you have to click the Verify button on both browser.

stunt 7y ago

I don't have this issue.

shanth 7y ago

nah i just need to use tor with chrome to get the same effect as firefox.

neya 7y ago

This happens even on Chrome. If you're logged into a Google account, it seems to know that you're not a bot since your Google Account is tightly integrated within Chrome. If you try the same captcha on an Incognito page on Chrome, you will have the same experience as on Firefox. Atleast, that's the case for me.

somebodythere 7y ago

The latest captchas are so hard that when I encounter one, it really feels like I am engaged in an unpaid labor relationship with Google. It makes me sad that they are so pervasive or I would categorically refuse to engage with any site that uses reCaptcha.

hosteur 7y ago

I consider putting the following on my cv: 2016-2019: working for google - analyzing street footage for implementing AI for self driving cars. Maybe I should also invoice google for the effort.

emiliobumachar 7y ago
Would a class action lawsuit for unpaid wages be plausible?

bussiere 7y ago

Human seems able to see face on anything. WOuldn't be a good idea to use this as a way to make a captcha ?

dpcan 7y ago

I never use Firefox, but I'm pretty sure I've seen this same format before in Chrome. No?

NelsonMinar 7y ago

Do websites get paid to run reCAPTCHA? I keep seeing reCAPTCHA installed on very low security sites that don't seem like targets for automated bots. I'm wondering if they have some external incentive to install it.

quwert95 7y ago

As a developer who has worked with reCAPTCHA in the past and as a diehard Firefox user, what likely happened here is a form of shadow banning. You're moving too fast; your mouse and mouse clicks are "too good" to be human. Try solving the reCAPTCHA slower and you'll see wildly different results, or, purposely fail one reCAPTCHA to get easier ones. reCAPTCHA tech is crazy; reCAPTCHAs are not simple web forms and Javascript, they're a sandboxed and monitored 'window' to a Google server. If you solve too many reCAPTCHAs too quickly (ie. when you are testing a web page, or are rotating your passwords on many websites) then Google's servers will try to rate limit you with slow animations and harder reCAPTCHAs.

resoluteteeth 7y ago
> reCAPTCHA tech is crazy; reCAPTCHAs are not simple web forms and Javascript, they're a sandboxed and monitored 'window' to a Google server. If you solve too many reCAPTCHAs too quickly (ie. when you are testing a web page, or are rotating your passwords on many websites) then Google's servers will try to rate limit you with slow animations and harder reCAPTCHAs. Google should absolutely not be in a position where it can be inadvertently rate limiting your attempts to rotate passwords on different websites across the internet.
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hhjinks 7y ago

This is bullshit. I regularly experience the "Firefox" example in Chrome, but only in incognito mode. Either way, it's not something Google does deliberately to disincentivize other browsers.

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DrJaws 7y ago

The thing that happens to him in firefox, it also happens to me in chrome. misleading

simias 7y ago

I'm a Firefox user and I did encounter some issues with reCaptchas in the past but this video doesn't convince me at all. For reference I post regularly on 4chan (not compulsively but maybe a dozen comments a day on average) and if you don't have a pass you have to fill the captcha every time. I only use Firefox. I definitely experienced what this video shows on Firefox in the past (the super-slow loading images) but it felt more like a bug than anything else and it doesn't represent the typical experience. Maybe I tripped one of Google's bot filters somehow and I ended up with a reinforced captcha, or there was a bug somewhere. The Chrome section of the video is a lot closer to what I see usually, but they make me go through two challenges in a row typically (although that might be 4chan's settings at play). I'm all for the Chrome hate if it means that people switch to Firefox but I think we need harder data than a short video to call shenanigans on that one. Off topic rant: the fact that a post with such lack of substance manages to reach 700 votes in 3 hours is frankly depressing, it has no place on this website IMO.

seieste 7y ago

I believe this is part of a greater Google strategy of using their monopoly power. I’ve noticed that in the last week, Google no longer provides a link to the non-amp version of pages. Previously, you could press two button taps to get to the non-amp page, but now that ability has been removed. This sucks because Amp doesn’t always support all the features of a normal site, like Reddit or blogs (commenting). I worry how Google will abuse this in the future. Right now they control the first page you visit after leaving Google through AMP, but you can usually find a link to the home page of a site. In the future, they may restrict it further.

caconym_ 7y ago

The mainstream internet of today exists to serve the advertising industry (including but not limited to Google) and things that don't so serve will be marginalized like an organism rejecting a foreign body or disease. It's funny, because really the thing that makes users "more significant" than bots for the average website operator is that showing ads to real people has a monetary value attached to it. That is the only reason you prove your humanity to a machine: to validate your suitability as a target for ad spend.

hollander 7y ago

I've noticed this effect as well. The white boxes, waiting and waiting, four or five different consecutive tests. All in all a terrible user experience. I thought it was because I used VPN, but this is another explanation.

mikejb 7y ago

I'm not sure what the comparison is on Chrome vs. Firefox. I've had the pain of these slow animations, with a follow-up captcha, and it's infuriating - On Chrome. Is it better on Firefox?

tootahe45 7y ago

I decided to test this for a good hour once. I was suprised how little it actually matters whether you're on a cheap VPN (although i do think they limit TOR) or are actually getting the answers correct. Load up chrome or brave, and it almost instantly solved, whereas Firefox on default privacy settings is a total pain. The worst thing is how they purposely try to just waste your time with the fading images, like in OP.

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r00fus 7y ago

I use a site frequently and am on the latest FF and I don't see this behavior - the refresh is quite quick. Does this mean that Google knows enough about me (ie, privacy leak) that it's choosing to not having infuriating UI?

teekert 7y ago

Oh, I thought it was me... seems like it was my choice of browser. In any case, perhaps Google has a harder time telling me apart from a computer. I guess that is a plus for FF then.

realcr 7y ago

I experienced a similar problem. I'm using Firefox. Two websites I have great difficulties logging into are twitch.tv and italki.com, both require solving a google captcha that can sometimes take more than a minute to solve. I am working on a micro-payments system (based on mutual credit) that should allow to pay something like $0.001 instead of solving a captcha. If this would introduce zero extra friction, would you consider using this kind of solution over the traditional captcha?

cloud_thrasher 7y ago

From my experience, it's the "Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *" response header that causes the problem. So, it's in the way Chrome uses/enforces cross-origin HTTP request/response headers.

7six 7y ago

Google does this often, it makes Firefox bugs on purpose to make them look bad, down with the Google monopoly I say

elagost 7y ago

reCAPTCHA is malware. If a site uses it, I (usually reluctantly) stop using the site. It's not even a privacy issue anymore - I'm logging into the site, usually so I can give them some money (bandcamp, humble bundle) - I just don't want Google all up in my business. Is that too much to ask these days? In order to not have some creepy giant corporation overseeing everything I do, I guess I just have to not use the Internet.

make3 7y ago

this is just unacceptable

anticensor 7y ago

A class action for drudgery needs to be started.

superasn 7y ago

The Recaptcha 3 is even worse. For example go to truecaller.com and enter a phone number to lookup in Firefox (android). You won't be able to, it will say Recaptcha had failed. Now do the same in chrome on Android and it works. It's because on ff it gives a low score (i. e user is a bot) while on chrome it passes without a hitch. Funny thing is I haven't used chrome in months so it should be the other way round!

taf2 7y ago

I can replicate this same thing in a chrome incognito window...

glenngillen 7y ago

If you’re looking for a good commercial alternative that isn’t turning you into a mechanical Turk to train/classify ML: https://funcaptcha.co/ https://funcaptcha.co/ If you’re primarily trying to stop bots and similar take a look at https://www.kasada.io/ https://www.kasada.io/

miohtama 7y ago

reCaptcha v3 fixes this behavior. Instead of having one gateway test to determine if you are a human or a bot, it collects data on a background on your browsing behavior. Thus, it has a longer browsing behavior sample for heurestics. https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3 Of course, you need to have cookies enabled. If you do any browser in ignonito mode and/or use VPN or Tor you are going to get persona no grata treatment because it is likely your source network and IP address have caused a lot of problems before. The only way to go around is to have some permacookie on your browser saying you are a good citizen.

floatingatoll 7y ago

HN previously, when Google released RCv3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18331159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18331159 Has anyone posted a technical analysis of the changes? I’d love to read more about it.

goblin89 7y ago

In my experience[0], the captchas are rotated regardless of the browser. The captcha shown each time seems to be chosen based on some sort of hidden “trust level”, which fluctuates across attempts based on your choices. The starting level, I suspect, is heavily influenced by browser settings and many other factors. With that in mind, and assuming that 1) trust inversely correlates with anonymity, 2) people using Firefox tend to be more tech-savvy and careful about their privacy, and 3) tech-savvy people using Chrome probably won’t bother locking it down, since it “talks to Google anyway”, I’d be disinclined to believe Google actually discriminates against browsers—no matter how compelling a narrative this may seem—until I have a complete picture of OP’s setup (from browser settings to OS and connection). [0] Last year there was a period I was getting many captchas (either my location or AWS VPN caused me to be considered “untrusted”); I actively tried to figure out how to get past it without giving the algorithm what it wants, so I could go through a dozen of these captcha screens in one browser window. I use Safari, Firefox and Chrome routinely.

joshfraser 7y ago

I absolutely hate CAPTCHAs and have done my best to persuade developers to never use them (1). But in fairness to Google, the promise of their new Captcha system is that it uses all of your previous browsing history across the web to determine how likely you are to be a bot. You can't do a fair apples to apples comparison unless the browsing history and behavior is the same across both browsers. 1) https://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never-use-a-captcha/ https://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never...

driverdan 7y ago

Based on some CAPTCHA solving sites it costs about $3 per 1000 ReCAPTCHAs solved. That shows you how worthless adding ReCAPTCHA to your site is. All it'll do is slow bots down a bit and cost $0.003. Here's an extension to use those services in the browser so you never have to solve one again: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/recaptcha-solver/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/recaptcha-sol... That's assuming you can't get Buster to work.

gouh 7y ago
Or even pay, I wouldn't mind paying 0.003$ at each Captcha as long as I have an anonymous payment system.

napsterbr 7y ago

That's exactly what happens to me on an almost daily basis. But then I decided to change my feeling from rage to revenge. Here's how: I get the first few selections right, so the algorithm knows I'm trustworthy. Then I purposefully get the last ones wrong. This way, I'm still validated by the captcha and I get to show the middle finger to Google. Now I smile every time I'm faced with reCaptcha :) Highly recommend. It does take some time to figure out the patterns (when to get it right and when to get it wrong), but once you do, it just works.

terrycody 7y ago

I got same thing in Chrome too, so I guess its related trackers, not just for firefox lol.

NamTaf 7y ago

Oh wow, I assumed it was just my combination of ublock origin + privacy badger + accelereyes + privacy-first settings in FF (block all 3rd party cookies, containers, resist fingerprinting, etc.) that caused many hits. I'm not sure whether I'm glad to find out it's (also? only?) because they hate Firefox.

m463 7y ago

Google chrome can already identify who you are and it knows you're not a robot. That said, it still forces you do to work for its self-driving car effort.

camgunz 7y ago

Antitrust investigators should look into captcha stats for at least browser, ISP, mobile device, IP address, and referer header. It would be better if they could just get Google's algorithm, which I assume is based on more data. I'd be very surprised if Google popped captchas less for non-Google IPs, devices, and browsers.

ashaikh 7y ago

Does Google use this data to help train its self driving cars and maps for identifying information? I feel like every captcha is about a street scene of some sort... house numbers, cars, motorcycles, hydrants, stop lights etc.

627467 7y ago

My default approach is to leave site that require reCaptcha (meaning, when ticking the box triggers the challenge) but when I do need to take the challenge I make sure I sprinkle my results with subtle errors.

vageli 7y ago

I'm frankly surprised there has not been an ADA-based lawsuit against Google. I can't tell you the number of times the audio captcha has been unavailable for "reasons".

nilsocket 7y ago

Google search results page in Firefox mobile browser looks like it is from 2010. I filed a bug report, only one version of it is fixed, later versions were just displaying same old pages.

piyush_soni 7y ago

There have been many discussions on HN about this before. Google is making us its free slaves, when they can clearly know in the first click that we are not a robot (it used to work perfectly! How can it unintentionally become that worse?) Is there no Google employee here that sees how absurd this is and get this message sent across?

tyler_larson 7y ago

Congratulations, you played yourself. It's not Firefox that's the problem; reCAPTCHA works just fine on Firefox. It's all those anti-tracking measures you installed and enabled -- they work by making your browser indistinguishable from a low-quality bot, kicking the website into self-defense mode. The slow fade is a rate-limiting measure. It's annoying to you, but it's more annoying to people trying to automate login attempts. The site is attempting to protect your account by preventing automated attacks against it. Meanwhile your browser is doing it's best to look like a shell script, refusing to send any sort of behavioral feedback or distinguishing characteristics that might give away the fact that you're a human. So the question is: is it really worth alienating those quirky, paranoid users who take extraordinary anti-tracking measures, just to protect your normal users from automated attacks? Yes. Of course it is.

lousken 7y ago

Can someone from recaptcha team respond to this? Because this happens to me all the time and it's ridiculous