hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet • Hacker News Board

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#31

Post by paxys » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

kaycebasques wrote: post #20

This sounds kinda nitpicky but I think it's an important distinction. We're talking about the web, not the internet, right? Or is hcaptcha also used for iOS apps, Android apps, etc.?

That distinction is already blurred beyond recognition. There's nothing that makes a phone app more or less "web" than a SPA, for example.

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#32

Post by TechBro8615 » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

I vastly prefer hCaptcha to recaptcha because it doesn't treat me any differently just because I'm using Tor. Recently (last year or so), Google has started to explicitly refuse service to me when I use Tor (only after forcing me to solve a CAPTCHA for 3 minutes).

Question for dang -- why does HN continue to use recaptcha? It's impossible to signup via Tor, and Google is a user hostile company.

One thing I will note, is that hcaptcha seems to be more loose in what answers it accepts. Sometimes I click random images and it still lets me pass.

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#33

Post by slig » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

alexnewman wrote: post #2

Curious what people think about hCaptcha?

Dislike it, to say the least. Since it doesn't seems to remember that I'm a human (reCpatcha did), now I have to constantly solve captchas on CF sites.

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#34

Post by hombre_fatal » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

abhinav22 wrote: post #17

I really hate all these captcha codes Why can’t they do something like a reverse SSL where we have to authenticate ourselves as humans? For example if I have an Apple account on my Apple devices, why can’t they figure out a way to authenticate me as a human from that information? This doesn’t work for all scenarios (eg throwaway accounts), but it could work for the majority?

Well, the point is to avoid automated abuse.

Your Apple account on your Apple device doesn't stop you from unwittingly being part of a botnet, for example.

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#35

Post by TechBro8615 » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #15

ve55 wrote: post #4

Worth noting that this title is primarily due to Cloudflare having switched to them from ReCAPTCHA, and Cloudflare is... well, relatively popular, to say the least. I'm curious what kind of data may exist on the experience of switching for larger providers; do the users like it? how much more/less time do they spend solving? do they care, let alone even notice that it's not Google's ReCAPTCHA? Regardless, as ReCAPTCH…

For site operators, they don’t like the change since users are more likely to complain to the website than directly to CF. The following community post has 20k views and >100 replies asking Cloudflare to move back to recaptcha in some form. https://community.cloudflare.com/t/stop-using-hcaptcha/15896...

Maybe the user should have the option to choose which CAPTCHA to solve.

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#36

Post by mindslight » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

abhinav22 wrote: post #17

I really hate all these captcha codes Why can’t they do something like a reverse SSL where we have to authenticate ourselves as humans? For example if I have an Apple account on my Apple devices, why can’t they figure out a way to authenticate me as a human from that information? This doesn’t work for all scenarios (eg throwaway accounts), but it could work for the majority?

Forget adding more draconian identity requirements. 95% of CAPTCHA use is simply unnecessary and could be straightforwardly removed or replaced with rate limiting login attempts per IP. Never mind sites that use it to prevent scraping. If serving static pages is that much of a burden that you want to discourage automated means of retrieving information that you're trying to publish, then work on your website performance instead of adding more user-hostile roadblocks.

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#37

Post by eatbots » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

QUFB wrote: post #13

fab1an wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Google, hCaptcha isn't running an ad network "on the side" of their bot management business :) joking aside, hCaptcha is an extremely privacy-conscious operation, Google is not.

I'm not a lawyer, but can you explain how their privacy policy is privacy-conscious now and going forward, and how centralization of network transit with Cloudflare isn't a bad thing? https://www.hcaptcha.com/privacy

hCaptcha is more focused on technical solutions to privacy that minimize required trust. A privacy policy is one thing, but a mathematical guarantee is quite another.

We are working through the IETF and directly with browser makers to support provably private options like Privacy Pass, and are currently the only CAPTCHA service to support this.

Similarly, on the enterprise side we offer various technical options to let our enterprise customers guarantee exactly what data we can and cannot see.

(disclaimer: work there, comments not official, etc.)

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#38

Post by fab1an » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

ve55 wrote: post #4

Worth noting that this title is primarily due to Cloudflare having switched to them from ReCAPTCHA, and Cloudflare is... well, relatively popular, to say the least. I'm curious what kind of data may exist on the experience of switching for larger providers; do the users like it? how much more/less time do they spend solving? do they care, let alone even notice that it's not Google's ReCAPTCHA? Regardless, as ReCAPTCH…

OP here, and full disclosure I work with the hCaptcha team. Yep, Cloudflare is a big part of this, but you'll find our enterprise offering (BotStop.com) running on many many other large sites and apps. If you've used the internet in 2020, you almost certainly interacted with our products :)

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#39

Post by disgrunt » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

gaieges wrote: post #28

ve55 wrote: post #4

Worth noting that this title is primarily due to Cloudflare having switched to them from ReCAPTCHA, and Cloudflare is... well, relatively popular, to say the least. I'm curious what kind of data may exist on the experience of switching for larger providers; do the users like it? how much more/less time do they spend solving? do they care, let alone even notice that it's not Google's ReCAPTCHA? Regardless, as ReCAPTCH…

Disclaimer: I've been an engineer at hCaptcha for a few years now building out the service. I'm just as interested in you as hearing about customer and user success/pain stories! > Worth noting that this title is primarily due to Cloudflare having switched to them from ReCAPTCHA, and Cloudflare is... well, relatively popular, to say the least. That's definitely a part of it, but we also have a number of other large s…

Your CAPTCHA accessibility leaves much to be desired. You require screen reader users to register an account to create a magic cookie that itself requires Safari users to disable security protections in their browser in order to use -- and then it doesn't actually work.

Please do better. You're blocking off a non-trivial amount of the Internet to blind users. You will eventually be sued for this.

Re: hCaptcha now runs on fifteen percent of the internet

#40

Post by amasad » Wed, Nov 25, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

We've moved to hCaptcha from reCAPTCHA after Google surprised us with their pricing (blog[1], hn discussion[2]), and couldn't be happier. We use it in invisible mode and it does a great job at finding bots while getting out of users' way.

Also top-notch customer support. The CEO was personally in the slack channel helping us. Highly recommended.

[1]: https://blog.repl.it/anon

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25004476