Jennifer Gillman
Teacher, Writer, and Editor in London, UK
More and more sites require captcha entry to access certain functionality. As a rule, the actions of entering characters or selecting pictures are not time-consuming. Nevertheless, most users have a negative attitude towards such solutions.
Why do I need a captcha?
No matter how sophisticated and competent would be the development of the site, from the subsequent access to the resource programs, masquerading as real users, to be protected from rather difficult. These programs can be used to automatically post messages to multiple resources. Usually, they publish advertising messages, but there are also materials with meaningless or extremely unpleasant content. Such verbal garbage irritates users, which causes visitors to leave the site.
To prevent access to the site and spammer programs and uses a captcha - an automatic test, easy for a man, but difficult to pass his program. Also, entering a captcha may be required when registering on the site, the use of search resources, as well as for some programs.
What are captchas?
Most often the visitor is required to enter letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. In some cases, a captcha may be a selection of one or more images that match the query displayed on the screen. Often you can meet a captcha in the form of a simple question. But I would advise you to visit the site https://captchathecat.com/, which has reviews of the best services for solving captchas, and see them all for yourself.
The alphanumeric combination can be as meaningful as a random set of characters. If a wrong entry is made, the user must either repeat the entry or type another combination that appears on the screen.
Particulars of the captcha application
Captcha protection is effective only if applied in moderation. Confirming the majority of actions on the site with a captcha will only alienate the user, thus facilitating his switch to a competitor's resource. It should be taken into account that the captcha is not a guarantee of protection against automated programs, as the technology to bypass this protection is constantly being improved. Nevertheless, today the captcha is considered one of the most effective ways to pass to the site of real users, rather than software robots.