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| Dork Tower by John Kovalic |
Click the caption below the picture to see the whole strip.
Every website with a forum or online shop now needs you to register and set up a password. Every blog requires you to decipher a Captcha before submitting a comment...and its doing my head in! I understand that security online is as necessary as locking the front door of your house. It's a sensible precaution to keep the hackers, spammers and phishers out in the cold. But I also think that sometimes our security precautions can become just a little bit paranoid and over zealous.
I disabled the Captcha feature on BLMA about two years ago and since then I can count on one hand the number of genuine Spam comments that have bypassed the filters (and that includes the brief period of Trolling I suffered). I check my comments several times a day so none of the bogus comments that have been posted stayed visible for long!
I'm not advising everyone to turn off their security features en-masse, I understand that for some sites these are valuable and vital precautions. But it might be worth asking yourself if your Blog really needs such high level security. I have definitely seen an increase in the number of comments to my posts since I disabled Captchas, maybe because its now a lot easier and quicker to do so.
I also have my Captcha disabled for a few years now. I ones turned it back on because I thought that it would help solving problems with blogger. When it turned out that that wasn't the case I quickly disabled it again. I check my comments once a day and I never found a spam message. Can be because my blog ain't so popular as yours. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThey seem to have got a bit more complicated recently..especially sites / blogs that are polish/russian/ greek..they now include symbols as well as high and low case letters. I´m keeping mine on though..I like your simale..the front door. I can´t look often to check so having some sort of control is for me a bit odf a safeguard. Also..sometimes it´s a good test of my eyesight to see if I can actually decipher them sometimes :-D
ReplyDeleteCheers
paul
No captcha on mine, no spam comments either.
ReplyDeleteI think I will try this as well, my ASL blog though gets regular spam which is always in the spam box but I assumed it was because of the captcha
ReplyDeleteWill see I guess
Ian
Captcha be gone! I dropped it from my blog after reading a previous post. Not had any problems because of doing that.
ReplyDeleteCheers
"Every website with a forum or online shop now needs you to register and set up a password."
ReplyDeleteThis isn't true. Setting up an account is common but not every online shop requires it. In general it's a positive disincentive to purchase.
I know that most fora require accounts; especially those based on phpBB. This is due to the spam bots about. Sadly, Captcha alone doesn't prevent spam bots gaining access you have to require the user to answer a questions that a bot can't guess.
For my blogs I have simply switched to manual moderation which is 100% effective. It even helps spot trolls.
Capthca makes me sigh, not on mine anymore!
ReplyDeleteIt does seem to have made a comeback again, my advice to anyone out there who's got it is, dump it!!! Its a pain in the arse for your followers!!!!
ReplyDeleteCaptcha can be annoying, but it's maybe 1% of the time that I don't get it right first time.
ReplyDeleteI've had it disabled on my bog for a couple of months now and have only had a couple of spam messages, 1 actually got through the other 2 went to the spam folder. I've had a few genuine comments which did go to the spam folder as well.
Certainly disabled on my own blog and has been for the exact same reasons you state above. I still make an effort to comment on nearly ever blog I follow if its required. But this latest round of captchas is aright pain in the harris.
ReplyDeleteLee
ReplyDeleteI think it may be a negative option sort of thing - it's there unless you choose not to have it!
Regardless, my cut on many "security" features is that they are the modern day equivalents of the cone of silence. My personal favourite is an additional code on our MonsterCards that is only used when we book airline tickets online - you should she my wife and I scrambling to find or reset the #$^%* password within the 10 minute window the airline gives you!
I took your advice and took the capcha off. I kept the ability to moderate comments.
Cheers
PD
Didn't even realize I had it on as I thought it had to be turned on manually, not on by default.. but after getting the comments a while back, I have also disabled it. No real spam to report at this time, and honestly the only real spam now is the odd Ray comment here and there ;)
ReplyDeleteI detest Captcha with a passion but doesnt really stop me posting to a blog with it on but just as well they cant hear my verbals as I type comments :-)
ReplyDeleteNot a fan either and like many have disabled it on my blog. That said every once in a while I see a captcha that makes me chuckle.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the Captcha thing is very frustrating, especially when you get non english letters turning up, or stuff with dipthongs etc, just stupid!
ReplyDeleteI have had about 3 spam messages, which are easy to delete and are usually caught by the blogs spam filter anyway.