CAPTCHA is a Necessary Evil

You ever notice those little words that you have to type in in the box on a website to prove that you are a human. I’m sure you have had if you have been on the Internet for any amount of the time. If you have signed up for anything at all ever. They are the bane of many Internet users, as sometimes they can be difficult to read under certain circumstances. They are called CAPTCHA.

CAPTCHA-A frustrating but necessary component to any website.

Sometimes to make a post, to edit a post, to sign up, to sign in, you are required to type in letters. Letters which an automated system cannot read. These automated systems or bots can post spam, that contain links that may be potentially malicious. Links to malicious content reflect badly upon any website, as they get tarred with the same brush and often times blocked by many search engines if they are proven to host or link to malicious content.

Once the spam floodgates are open, it can be a doozy of a time to delete all of that spam. Often times so much is posted, in the form of fake articles, fake profiles, or fake comments that it can crash the website. Therefore CAPTCHA is introduced in an attempt to stop those who wish to spam, rather personally or through automated programs.

Naturally this can frustrate the average user but let’s say you are an article writing website, that is flooded with a great deal of spam, as was the case with a website I am on recently, before they administrations introduced CAPTCHA before posting articles in a way to weed out the spam. Would you rather just strain to read those letters or would you rather just have your article buried in a flood of spam? Buried that would it cause any revenue or readings to be lost. I personally would stick with the CAPTCHA but your mileage may vary.

Note that there are many websites that pay users to just to type in CAPTCHA. These websites may pay money, but they are also as a front, where human users crack the CAPTCHA so spam can be posted to websites, fake profiles can be created to send spam, pretty much everything that goes along with that. So steer clear of these websites that offer payment for CAPTCHA as they can be shady at best, and from a certain point, kind of aiding and abetting criminal activities. It is like giving a criminal a tool. You might not be committing the crime but still offering valuable aid.

You might scream and want to pull your hair out regarding CAPTCHA, but they are going to be in your best interest in the long run, even if they are an adventure to read.