On: You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

[MagicPropmaker]

I wish Hacker News didn't use it. It's a PITA logging in! I don't see it when I'm in the U.S. but when I'm overseas...

[shakna → MagicPropmaker]

From a French IP that usually gets flagged by everybody as potentially a robot, I see exactly 0 JS on the HN login form.

Are you sure it is HN that uses ReCAPTCHA?

[ve55 → shakna]

I've seen multiple comments suggesting HN uses ReCAPTCHA, but I have never encountered it myself, and I even have Javascript disabled and login through 'anonymous' IPs such as tor, so I'm unsure what these users could be doing that is 'worse' to trigger ReCAPTCHAs.

If most users don't even know that ReCAPTCHA is used, that's a good sign that it is being used as little as possible, though.

[jimktrains2 → ve55]

I wonder if it's from CloudFlare and not HN directly.

[briandear → jimktrains2]

It is from Cloudflare. They love reCaptcha. It’s ok to give free user data to Google if it means less work for them.

[meruru → ve55]

Same here. I only log in through Tor and I'd never have imagined HN uses ReCAPTCHA if it wasn't for people suggesting that.

[darkpuma → meruru]

Try creating a new account through Tor, there is a good chance you'll see it then.

[hombre_fatal → shakna]

I've seen it before. In fact, I'd double checked last time I brought it up and it was there on /login in an incognito tab.

Either HN has changed or they now conditionally load it. For example, I encountered it every time I used Tor on HN, though I haven't hit /login in months.

[meruru → hombre_fatal]

I only login through Tor and I never encounter it.

[shakna → hombre_fatal]

Perhaps it's Cloudflare, and not HN directly.

[baroffoos → shakna]

I have seen it sometimes.