Wouldn’t it be interesting if every email had a verified sender, making automated spam a thing of the past? What is too complicated in an electronic communication is used daily on websites: the captcha.
Explanation
A captcha is a test that is used to distinguish between humans and computers. This can, for example, look like several characters in a graphic are blurred and distorted. Since computers cannot scan and recognize these automatically, only humans can type the characters correctly. Another possibility are questions like “What is in the sky at noon?”. Because computers are unfamiliar with this question, they cannot provide an automatic answer either.
Captchas are used in forums, comment fields and contact forms. They prevent automatic entries from being created. Captchas can be exhausting for you as a user, but they ensure a cleaner Internet and save website operators work.
The disadvantage of captchas is that they are difficult or impossible to use for visually impaired people. If a graphic with confused characters is displayed, it cannot be read automatically. Accordingly, a related function remains inaccessible.
Frequently asked Questions
Where are captchas used?
Captchas are often used in the comment functions of blogs, forums or under contact forms. Services for querying information are also provided with captchas to avoid overloading with automated queries.
What should I do if I cannot solve a captcha?
Some captchas seem insoluble. You can work around them by reloading the page or looking for your link like “Load New Captcha”. Some website operators insert this because they know about the difficulty of some captchas.
Can I bypass captchas?
Some captchas are only shown to you under certain conditions. You can create an account in forums so that captchas are no longer shown to you. Some websites also secure your IP and only show captchas on the first comment. After that, your computer has been trusted. You can post comments directly.
How do I embed captchas on my blog?
If you get too many spam comments, you can also include a captcha on your blog. To do this, take a look at the extensions available for your blog software. Search for “Captcha”. For WordPress, for example, you can use SI Captcha Anti-Spam, where the function is integrated.
Also Read: What Is FTP?