Google's 'No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA' makes it easier to prove you're not a robot
The CAPTCHA is a truly annoying creation. It prevents robots and scripts from pulling content from websites, or spamming them, which is great for website owners and hosts, but irritating for site visitors because it forces them to "prove they are human" by solving a challenge. This usually involves reading and entering some distorted text into a box, although there are other variations.
I personally find them hugely irksome as sometimes they fail to recognize when you get the words right, and sometimes they let you through when you get the words wrong. More importantly, they waste your time. Thankfully, the days of the CAPTCHA are numbered, as Google has come up a human-friendly solution.
No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA doesn’t ask you to prove you are human by completing a challenge, instead it makes use of a new API with an advanced risk analysis engine that allows visitors to easily prove they aren’t robots.
The video below shows how it works, but essentially the first time you encounter a No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA you enter your name, email address and favorite color then select 'I’m not a robot'. In future you just need to check the box.
Google does say that this won’t entirely do away with CAPTCHAs -- there may still be times when you’ll be asked to enter some text as well. But at least it’s a step in the right direction.
The new API will also let Google experiment with different types of challenges.
No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA is already in use on the web. According to Vinay Shet, Product Manager, reCAPTCHA, "Early adopters, like Snapchat, WordPress, Humble Bundle, and several others are already seeing great results with this new API. For example, in the last week, more than 60 percent of WordPress’ traffic and more than 80 percent of Humble Bundle’s traffic on reCAPTCHA encountered the No CAPTCHA experience -- users got to these sites faster".
Anything that can keep websites safe without inconveniencing visitors has to be a good thing, and a replacement for the standard CAPTCHA is long overdue -- advanced Artificial Intelligence can already correctly identify distorted text with 99.8 percent accuracy.