PLEASE consider dropping reCaptcha and using something that sucks less.

[Felton The Squirrel]

In the unlikely event that anyone who has leverage to make decisions over such things, I'd like to complain about reCaptcha. I just spent 35+ minutes choosing motorcycles and buses to repeatedly have it decide I was a bot, reducing a) the amount of free time I have for gaming this afternoon and b) my overall willingness to buy more stuff.

I know this is probably going to fall upon deaf ears, but I urge you to find a better way of discouraging bots; this pointless (and ablist, and possibly ADA-violating) mechanism not only blocks legitimate users, but isn't even guaranteed to work against modern image recognition anymore.

[Satoru]

People really need to understand what the ADA does because it seems like everyone thinks it’s some blanket “do what I want” card for anything.

[SLG]

You might want to do a Google search about reCaptcha. There is news from Google.

[[N]ebsun]

Originally posted by Felton The Squirrel:

I'd like to complain about reCaptcha. I just spent 35+ minutes choosing motorcycles and buses to repeatedly have it decide I was a bot

Where are you getting a Captcha ?? I have never seen a single one on Steam

[Watermelon {JESUS IS LORD}]

Originally posted by Nebsun:

Originally posted by Felton The Squirrel:

I'd like to complain about reCaptcha. I just spent 35+ minutes choosing motorcycles and buses to repeatedly have it decide I was a bot

Where are you getting a Captcha ?? I have never seen a single one on Steam

same im confuzzled myself

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Nebsun:

Where are you getting a Captcha ?? I have never seen a single one on Steam

Nor have I. But a friend from Europe used to get them constantly when trying to log in, and like the OP, it's a huge problem for him as he's legally blind.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by GhostBear:

100%. It's privacy invasion since it gives more information to G***le to correct accuracy on tracking who you are if they haven't already depending on your usage on the internet.

You might want to take off that tin foil hat

[SLG]

Originally posted by GhostBear:

Originally posted by Satoru:

You might want to take off that tin foil hat

Sorry if you aren't aware of data mining and selling. A vast majority of people aren't based off of US surveys that can be accessed through the US general attorney website on the CCPA page. It's not directly a government organization that conducted the research but it is directly linked by the government so they approve of it.

You do know that everything is tracked om your computer by search engines, etc.?

[myriarc]

I just went through this exact problem. Over and over again, saying I failed every time. Bots are already faster and more accurate than humans at captchas, why are we still using this outdated tech?!

[Satoru]

Originally posted by GhostBear:

Sorry if you aren't aware of data mining and selling. A vast majority of people aren't based off of US surveys that can be accessed through the US general attorney website on the CCPA page. It's not directly a government organization that conducted the research but it is directly linked by the government so they approve of it.

You do realize that this entire paragraph of nonsense just makes you look even more silly and just solidifies you have basically no idea what you're talking about.

[76561199565567905]

This topic needs to come back. There doesn't seem to be a newer thread, but Steam is still using reCaptcha for password resets.

This is a problem. This is the laziest form of bot protection. It's so lazy nobody apparently even did a simple search for how bad reCaptcha is, or they'd realize it's completely a no-go. A simple search will show so many blog posts, Reddit threads, and even published white papers on the topic. Google makes no money off reCaptcha, and so expends no money or resources trying to actually fix it.

It's actually gotten worse over time. There was a point where I started using the audio verification button when the crosswalks and buses became too frustrating, but then security researchers found that they could exploit audio as a weakness. Rather than fix the problem, Google apparently just killed the audio button functionality. For a couple of years now anytime I've tried clicking on it, I immediately am told that I must be a bot. Google apparently doesn't want to acknowledge they did this, as their FAQs on the subject have never been updated. I weep for those people with genuine accessibility issues that need to get past a reCaptcha.

This isn't a problem with my web-browser. I'm not using any kind of VPN. This is happening within Steam's own dedicated client.

You may notice the account I'm using to write this post is rather new. That's because it's not my actual main account, it's one I created because there appears to be no way to get any kind of help or recognition from Steam without logging in, and when the problem you're having is with logging in, then you're SOL. I don't currently have access to the computer with my account's password saved on it (long story but I'm in another state for another month or so). The only way to reset the password is going through a reCaptcha, but even after going through a dozen pages of buses and crosswalks, once reCaptcha has finally decided there might actually be a brain behind these fingers and granted access, it apparently took so long that the Steam client doesn't think I passed.

People try to divert the blame from Steam (or whoever else is still using reCaptcha) to Google, but that's not going anywhere. Google gave up on reCaptcha. All the websites still using reCaptcha need to give up on it, too.

Gaben, if you're reading this, we all know reCaptcha is badly broken, if it ever worked at all. It's so lazy, there's better alternatives out there. Maybe try hCaptcha if you need to spend absolutely no effort finding a better solution altogether than using captchas. hCaptcha appears to be a drop-in replacement, it's free, and I've never seen the kind of frustration from users to it that reCaptcha gets. At this point not finding a better solution than reCaptcha is downright hostile to your customers.

If this needs to stay at the top of the discussion threads, so be it. If I need to log in and post another reply often enough to keep it there, so be it. I'll try to keep it going for as long as I can sustain it until Steam makes at least the tiniest miniscule effort to try to implement something else.

For anyone else still reading at this point, I invite you all to participate to continue to try to get Steam's attention on this. Even if you never see a reCaptcha at all when dealing with Steam, know that it is still there. It is still blocking people. If you've ever felt the frustration of identifying a crosswalk, please chime in until we can prove that something has been done.

[Xautos]

my nephew tried to register on steam and had this captcha. considering the types of things he is into i was not inclined to help him because he will almost certainly cheat in multiplayer shooter games and likely get himself VAC banned. since i moved into the family household, i'm at risk of taking his nonsense if he don't learn to stop.

[Insignia]

Originally posted by Felton The Squirrel:

I'd like to complain about reCaptcha. I just spent 35+ minutes choosing motorcycles and buses to repeatedly have it decide I was a bot.

35 minutes? You sure you're not a bot? Takes me 10-20 seconds max..

[Tim]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.