I use Firefox and Firefox Mobile on the desktop and Android respectively, Chromium with Bromite patches on Android, and infrequently Brave on the desktop to get to sites that only work properly with Chromium (more and more often - another whole separate can of worms too, this…) And I always pay attention to disable google.com and gstatic.com in NoScript and uBlock Origin whenever possible.
I noticed something quite striking: when I hit sites that use those hateful captchas from Google - aka “reCAPTCHA” that I know are from Google because they force me to temporarily reenable google.com and gstatic.com - statistically, Google quite consistently marks the captcha as passed with the green checkmark without even asking me to identify fire hydrants or bicycles once, or perhaps once but the test passes even if I purposedly don’t select certain images, and almost never serves me those especially heinous “rolling captchas” that keep coming up with more and more images to identify or not as you click on them until it apparently has annoyed you enough and lets you through.
When I use Firefox however, the captchas never pass without at least one test, sometimes several in a row, and very often rolling captchas. And if I purposedly don’t select certain images for the sake of experimentation, the captchas keep on coming and coming and coming forever - and if I keep doing it long enough, they plain never stop and the site become impossible to access.
Only with Firefox. Never with Chromium-based browsers.
I’ve been experimenting with this informally for months now and it’s quite clear to me that Google has a dark pattern in place with its reCAPTCHA system to make Chrome and Chromium-based browsers the path of least resistance.
It’s really disgusting…
It’s not necessary targeted like that. Remember Chrome sends a lot of information about the user, allowing them to more easily gauge if it’s a bot. Firefox hides a lot of information, blocks a lot of third party scripts by default, and even sends fake information for some things. For all intents and purposes, Firefox looks much more like a bot than Chrome.
With that said, I use Firefox exclusively and don’t have anywhere near as many issues as you seem to.
Remember Chrome sends a lot of information about the user
Remember, I use the equivalent of Bromite on Android and Brave on the desktop. Those are not Chrome: they’re heavily privacy enhanced. By your theory, those browsers too should serve you more annoying reCAPTCHA more often, just like Firefox. But they don’t: even on those privacy-respecting Chromium forks, you can get past reCAPTCHA much easier.
I use Firefox exclusively and don’t have anywhere near as many issues as you seem to.
Try using Chromium side by side and the subtle extra difficulties of sailing through the Googlespace become quite apparent. As long as you stick to Firefox, you don’t realize that the Chromium experience is ever-so-slightly slicker on many websites.
Brave is a chromium based browser, so maybe chromium sends out something that let’s recaptcha know what’s going on.
maybe chromium sends out something that let’s recaptcha know what’s going on.
Maybe. But in that case, that’s not a great sign that Brave respects your privacy. But I wouldn’t put it past Brave: they too are a for-profit and I don’t quite trust them either.
However, the Bromite fork I run on my deGoogled phone almost certainly doesn’t make any privacy compromises and it solves reCAPTCHAs more easily than Firefox Mobile.
I know google sites (especially Google search) are a much more polished experience on Chrome, but I haven’t had an unusable experience on Firefox, I don’t notice a problem.
I think I missed that that isn’t your point. You’re saying google streamlines things for people on Chromium to make it a nicer experience, making it harder to switch away. And I think you’re right about that.
but I haven’t had an unusable experience on Firefox, I don’t notice a problem.
There are quite a few online web stores I patronize in which the shopping cart is broken, or the checkout is broken and there’s no way of paying in Firefox.
My bank’s online banking site is broken too in Firefox. It’s okay to pay for things and display basic checking account information, but more detailed personal finance pages are unusable.
My company’s ERP is half broken in Firefox.
And quite a few porn sites I download stuff off of are broken too in Firefox.
And that’s with NoScript, uBlock Origin and Ghostery fully disabled.
Obviously all those sites are streamlined to work well with Chromium or Chromium-based browser because - surprise surprise - it’s the most common browser type, which is exactly the position Google wanted to place itself in. It’s was very same problem when websites were designed to work primarily with Explorer, when Microsoft dominated the browser space many years ago.
I disagree. reCAPTCHA requires the use of non free JavaScript that is pretty much spyware. Such software should never be force on a user.
The other issue is that you are forcing users to do work. If I’m going to improve google maps then pay me
How often are you going to a site that has a reCAPTCHA but doesn’t use JavaScript?..
Keep in mind that basic bots don’t render or process certain page elements - like javascript. So VPN plus noScript/uBlock plus obscured data plus no preexisting cookies and possibly unique fingerprint from all your previous interactions (depending on your privacy settings)… It all adds to possible bot behavior. In my mind, getting caprcha’d is a good thing. It may mean google has low confidence that it knows who I am.
In my mind, getting caprcha’d is a good thing. It may mean google has low confidence that it knows who I am.
That is possibly the most unique outlook I’ve read about today.
There’s nothing good about captchas: it’s an insult to human intelligence, it’s forced unpair labor and each time I get one, I want to murder someone.
In a normal world, your statement would be utterly insane. But in our dystopian surveillance economy society, it’s actually a rational and interesting point of view, and one that turns captchas into a useful indicator of how well you manage to evade said corporate surveillance.
Interesting. Thank you for that.
However, If you’re right and Googles serves fewer captchas to those they can track better and not just those who run Chromium as I suspect, it also means privacy-enhanced Chromium-based browsers don’t hold a candle to Firefox. That’s not great news considering Chromium is the new de-factor standard and some websites only work okay in Chromium.
You’ve never operated a public-facing website, have you?
In the past 24 hours alone, I’ve had at least 344 bot attempts on my personal site. A handful are harmless crawlers but most are hoping to hit a vulnerability.
Captchas are necessary to prevent malicious bot activity. It’s unfortunate that it also means it’ll be a pain for users.
You may have turned on a setting in Firefox that is meant to obscure your browser fingerprint. For me, it seems to force more captchas for me.
I kept the feature on though, because when I signed into Google and got the notification of a new sign-in on my phone, it thought my OS was Windows NT (it’s Linux) so it seems to at least kind of work.
I forget what the setting was off the top of my head (in about.config I think), but could look into it if anyone is curious.
Edit: went and found info on it. It is not just “Enhanced Tracking Protection.” It is specifically about blocking your browser fingerprint: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-protection-against-fingerprinting
It’s probably enhanced tracking protection you’re talking about. I keep it on as well but damn those captchas are annoying. I’d prefer to go back to the unreadable distorted text over the endless AI training ones.
Nope, this is something else: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-protection-against-fingerprinting
I just use captcha buster extension in Firefox, captchas are just stupid and it makes more problems for humans than for robots.
