←back to thread

I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

(michaels.world)
410 points blindgeek | 1 comments | 18 Nov 24 10:13 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
RobMurray ◴[18 Nov 24 15:43 UTC] No.42173434[source]▶
I am also blind. hCaptcha is the worst. Their stupid cookie expires so I have to go through their getting an email to set the cookie almost every time I encounter one. It's a horrendous UX, especially when using different devices and browsers. I imagine others just give up instead of dealing with the crap. They shouldn't use the word accessibility when their whole service is the exact opposite.

The bots can probably solve them easier than blind people anyway, or they can outsource them to third world workers for next to nothing. E.G. Anticaptcha [0]:

> Starting from 0.5USD per 1000 images, depending on your daily spending volume

[0] https://anti-captcha.com/

replies(4): >>42173518 #>>42175602 #>>42176473 #>>42179253 #
nmarinov ◴[18 Nov 24 18:51 UTC] No.42175602[source]▶
What's the best captcha regarding accessibility?
replies(2): >>42175814 #>>42176132 #
burningChrome ◴[18 Nov 24 19:12 UTC] No.42175814[source]▶
None.

There are no "best" version of captcha. I've worked on several large scale projects where captcha was floated and then quickly abandoned in favor of other methods like Honeypot or using other methods to weed out bots and other 3rd party agents.

If you have to use captcha the least worst are probably reCaptcha V2 and hCaptcha for accessibility.

replies(2): >>42179318 #>>42180232 #
Gud ◴[19 Nov 24 05:05 UTC] No.42180232[source]▶
What were the chosen choices? Curious to know
replies(1): >>42233236 #
1. consteval ◴[25 Nov 24 04:23 UTC] No.42233236[source]▶
By far the most effective way to prevent bots is to charge for an account or service. Facebook, for example, banned billions of bots. At just 1 dollar an account, such a situation would be completely untenable. Not to mention most views are worth fractions of a cent - paying for bots wouldn't be a return on investment, so nobody would do it.

Bots are an inherent problem with free, advertisement-fueled web. If you want to get rid of them, it's trivial, but requires an re-understanding of how we use the web.