Google Captcha on Search, absurdities beyond belief

#1

Post by b112 » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 8:04 AM UTC

We all know how horrible Google search has become. Yet beyond the issues with results, the need for quoting every search to find relevance, the nonsense shown without 'web' being used as an option? It is now exceptionally slow.

Searches, especially at 2am Eastern (a favourite time for night owls to work) take upwards of 10 to 15 seconds to return. Yet these are also peppered with endless capchas, which sometimes require a checkbox but also 'what is a car', and 'is that a bike' nonsense.

Yet we've seen over and over again, how LLMs can easily pass these tests. I feel what I'm seeing here is more of Google's collapse. Creating horrible search experiences for humans, without actually resolving any possible issues they're having with bots. And it wouldn't be so bad, except these are repeatedly shown to the end user. Each search. With slow results, each search.

What used to be beautiful, a sub second result, is now and endless break in workflow. And you know what Google? If I'm going to be handed this, why would I think "Gee, Google is exceptionally competent, I should use Gemini!".

No. I see a company barely able to manage its infra. I see, frankly, pathetic response times. I see an inability for a company which has the assets, and personnel, incapable of resolving immensely simple issues. So why on Earth would I trust an LLM from a company that's devolving into "the screw up king".

Re: Google Captcha on Search, absurdities beyond belief

#2

Post by eesmith » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 8:27 AM UTC

I nearly always use DDG in noai mode. A couple of hours ago I failed to find information about the origin of 'click piano' - a setting on my electronic piano - so I decided to try Google Search, only to be hit with the "click here to prove you are a human" then the "select the boxes containing a ... to prove you are a human".

I closed the window rather than waste my time more, which is my increasingly common response to CAPTCHAs.

I'm also seeing issues with Google Scholar. A few days ago I was at the local college library to look up some papers. The same Google Scholar search on the library terminal, reloaded, would bring up anywhere between 3 and 17 citations. I also got CAPTCHA'd on Google Scholar, only to find the CAPTCHA triggered the library terminal's URL filters, which prevents anyone from actually doing the CAPTCHA.

I showed it to the librarians. They had not seen it before. It is, after all, between sessions. The fall term starts soon. I wonder what will happen.

Re: Google Captcha on Search, absurdities beyond belief

#3

Post by A_D_E_P_T » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 8:38 AM UTC

Yeah, you're not the only one to notice this. Cory Doctorow wrote a long post on it just earlier today: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/

We're increasingly in a post-Google-Search world. Pay for Kagi or use an LLM. Honestly, I find that Sol-5.6-Medium returns much better results than Google, and it's quicker because it sorts them for you.

Re: Google Captcha on Search, absurdities beyond belief

#4

Post by b112 » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 8:53 AM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

Yeah, you're not the only one to notice this. Cory Doctorow wrote a long post on it just earlier today: https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/ We're increasingly in a post-Google-Search world. Pay for Kagi or use an LLM. Honestly, I find that Sol-5.6-Medium returns much better results than Google, and it's quicker because it sorts them for you.

Unfortunately, Kagi relies heavily on Google for search data. All do.

Alternatives such as Kagi seem less cpgent too. At least no capchas though.

Re: Google Captcha on Search, absurdities beyond belief

#5

Post by HackerThemAll » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 9:57 AM UTC

"We all know how horrible Google search has become."

Say thank you to all the commercial rubbish out there, generic spam, AI agents/chats spawning dozens to hundreds of Google Search requests on every prompt, and on top of that the SerpApi leeches and others.

Shooting the messenger is easy, and gaining attention on the back of Google is certainly still working.

Although it is netizens' fault that search can't find anything sensible in this amount of trash, and that everybody's overflowing search engines with loads of useless requests.