I’m getting really tired of “verify you’re not a bot” checks everywhere.

I understand these checks help prevent bots, but they seem to appear on so many websites now. Does anyone else find them frustrating?

  • froh42@lemmy.world
    112·
    3 days ago

    I’m even more annoyed by anubis. Letting me wait in the browser for an enternity for some check that a bot with a native implementation can solve in milliseconds.

    Proof of work my ass.

    • dev_null@lemmy.ml
      7·
      3 days ago

      It sure can, instead of doing 50 requests. A slowdown is all that’s needed to make random scraping uneconomical.

      • froh42@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 days ago

        https://github.com/mikenrafter/anubis-fast.mirror

        This is a sample of a much faster anubis solver (end user facing).

        There’s versions. of this for people running bot networks - it’s just a few cheap cloud cpu cycles to invest. Proof of work is an ineffective defense against spam in the age of cheap and scalable cloud compute - and even moreso if the botnet runs on residential proxies.

        My point is, the slowdown is NOT making random scraping uneconomical anymore, it does hurt legitimate users a lot more.

    • Axolotl.cpp@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      4·
      3 days ago

      Tbh I never had to wait much with anubis, neither with my phone or computer; websites that make me wait a lot (like the arch wiki IIRC) then give ya access without having to do the check again;
      Also, Anubis unlike Cloudflare does not block me just cuz i have NoScript installed

      • froh42@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 days ago

        How modern is your phone? Anubis is killing my old Samsung A72 from 2020 - long waits, draining battery. On the laptop it’s less of an annoyance, I’ve got the laptop connected to mains anyway and it is fast enough.