this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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I use Firefox and Firefox Mobile on the desktop and Android respectively, Chromium with Bromite patches on Android, and infrequently Brave on the desktop to get to sites that only work properly with Chromium (more and more often - another whole separate can of worms too, this...) And I always pay attention to disable google.com and gstatic.com in NoScript and uBlock Origin whenever possible.

I noticed something quite striking: when I hit sites that use those hateful captchas from Google - aka "reCAPTCHA" that I know are from Google because they force me to temporarily reenable google.com and gstatic.com - statistically, Google quite consistently marks the captcha as passed with the green checkmark without even asking me to identify fire hydrants or bicycles once, or perhaps once but the test passes even if I purposedly don't select certain images, and almost never serves me those especially heinous "rolling captchas" that keep coming up with more and more images to identify or not as you click on them until it apparently has annoyed you enough and lets you through.

When I use Firefox however, the captchas never pass without at least one test, sometimes several in a row, and very often rolling captchas. And if I purposedly don't select certain images for the sake of experimentation, the captchas keep on coming and coming and coming forever - and if I keep doing it long enough, they plain never stop and the site become impossible to access.

Only with Firefox. Never with Chromium-based browsers.

I've been experimenting with this informally for months now and it's quite clear to me that Google has a dark pattern in place with its reCAPTCHA system to make Chrome and Chromium-based browsers the path of least resistance.

It's really disgusting...

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[–] vegetarian_pacemaker@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Jeez, just faced the forever recaptcha a couple of days back. I used Firefox web and the recaptcha was a sold 5+ kinds (select cars, buses, motorcycle, signals...). I kinda half thought that it was some sort of gag after seeing it go on for what seemed like forever. Thankfully I made it through and it will not change my decision to stick with Firefox.

[–] skycat@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The thing that annoys me so much is why every damn website has to depend on gOoGle scripts to function. E.g : most of website depend on googleapis or ajax.googleapis. why don't you just stop hotlinking everything to 3rd party shits. This is basically spread Google's domination on web. Remember, those 3rd party libraries are not Free. They take visitors data and make you dependent on their services. So Google has become the gatekeeper of many websites.

I have a website and I coded everything by hands. No 3rd party JavaScript and other 3rd party BS. It makes my website run so damn fast

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[–] veloxization@yiffit.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I read that the "level of annoyance" (phrasing mine) has to do with your score (i.e. how likely Google thinks you are a bot). And I wouldn't be surprised if using any browser other than ones in their ecosystem reduces your score more.

Anyway, there are other captcha systems websites could use but choose not to.

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[–] grilled_cheese_eater@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

Oh, you said your blocking google.com and gstatic.com? Try privacy badger, Google uses a million other domains to track as well (Google Fonts for example) and privacy badger will let you find and block those kinds from domains from tracking or at least from leaving cookies if they are required for the site to work.

[–] xuxebiko@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Re: rolling captchas, I've noticed that when I select one wrong image in addition to or excluing one of their right images, I don't get rolling captchas. Maybe it a fluke, but its happened times that its become regular practice.

[–] newIdentity@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You just have to select exactly three correct images. When there are 4 correct images you only have to select 3

[–] xuxebiko@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I know. my point is I have been able to avoid rolling captchas by selecting one incorrect image & 2 correct ones. I have no idea if that's a glitch a fluke or something else.

It works for me, I haven't dealt with a single rolling captcha since March'23.

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