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How to deal with CAPTCHA when using a VPN

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What is CAPTCHA, why is it used and how to deal with it when using a VPN.

Does Google keep asking you to select traffic lights or bus pictures that never end every time you use it while connected to a VPN?

Then you are dealing with CAPTCHA requests. You may be used to seeing them on web pages and forums, but do they appear on Google too? Usually not. But you’ll start seeing them more and more often if you’re using Google under a VPN.

We offer you a translation of a quick guide from the technical media resource TechNadu about what CAPTCHA is, why it is used and how to deal with it when using a VPN.

What is a CAPTCHA and why is it used?

CAPTCHA comes from "Completely Automated Public Test (to Tell) Computers and Humans Apart", which translates as "A fully automated public test to separate computers and humans." As the name suggests, CAPTCHA is a test that is easy for humans to pass but difficult for computers. The goal is to help sites distinguish real visitors from bots.

Websites typically use CAPTCHAs when users want to open an account, post a review, leave a comment, or buy a product. The goal is to detect and prevent automated scripts and bots from performing these tasks so that the site is not bombarded with spam. In addition, CAPTCHAs are also used to protect websites from cyber threats. For example, they can act as an effective barrier against DDoS attacks.

As for why Google uses CAPTCHA, it’s very likely that their servers are protected from malicious traffic this way. Also, according to them, they use CAPTCHA to prevent unauthorized access to the account.

Why do you see CAPTCHA when using a VPN?

This is because almost all VPN services use shared IP addresses. This means that you share an IP address with many other VPN users.

And from Google’s point of view, multiple searches from the same IP address indicate suspicious traffic. Thus, the search engine marks the IP address as suspicious and prompts you to complete CAPTCHA queries to prove that you are a real person and not a bot.

The frequency of appearance of captcha for all users is different. It is difficult to say exactly what it depends on. According to Reddit users, if you make 15-20 Google searches in a row, then you will have to solve a CAPTCHA on average every 5-6 searches.

How to deal with CAPTCHA when using a VPN

Use Dedicated IP Addresses

Unlike shared IP addresses, a dedicated IP address is only used by you. Thus, you are less likely to get a CAPTCHA because Google will not detect multiple traffic sources from the same IP address.

Unfortunately, VPN services do not offer dedicated IP addresses, or they are paid. For example, on NordVpn, a dedicated IP costs $70 per year. However, you can create your own VPN service many times cheaper using our instructions.

Connect to another server

This is not a guaranteed solution, but it might work sometimes. You may also receive CAPTCHA requests if you have really bad ping, or the server’s IP address has been flagged as suspicious by Google because it has received too many search queries from it. If you’re using a VPN with a large network, finding an alternate server is easy.

Various extensions

Buster is the best option. It is a free and open source tool that solves reCAPTCHA problems. Buster is pretty fast and can process CAPTCHAs in less than 30 seconds.

"I’m not a robot CAPTCHA clicker" is also mentioned in discussions on this topic, including on Reddit. It is available in Chrome and Firefox. But, as the name suggests, this extension is only useful for the CAPTCHA where you need to click "I’m not a robot." It will not work for CAPTCHAs where images need to be recognized.

unCAPTCHA

The unCAPTCHA tool can also help. Developer research shows that this tool can solve reCAPTCHA problems through audio with an 85% success rate. However, this is not for everyone. You cannot install it as a browser extension. Instead, you will need to use the command line.

In addition, the developers have clearly stated that reCAPTCHA now includes additional protections that limit the success of their application. Therefore, they unfortunately no longer support this code. If it doesn’t work, there’s nothing you can do to fix it.

Don’t clear cookies

We can’t say for sure if this helps or not as we haven’t seen any improvement from it. However, some VPN users on Reddit say they don’t clear cookies on their browsers, which helps them get fewer CAPTCHA requests.

If this really works, it’s probably because Google, like every other site you visit, sees you as a returning user with a different IP address if you have cookies in your browser than as a new user with different IP address. If you have already passed captcha before, then the system is more likely not to ask you to do it again.

Use different search engines

If you don’t want to sign into your Google account when using a VPN, in order to reduce the risk of encountering CAPTCHAs, you’ll have to switch to another search engine that doesn’t use CAPTCHAs as often. Some decent alternatives include DuckDuckGo, StartPage, and searX.

Try another browser

There’s a chance you won’t get as many CAPTCHA requests if you use a more privacy-focused web browser when connecting to a VPN. So instead of Chrome or Opera, try Firefox for example .

Try less popular VPN providers

Less popular VPNs have fewer users, so Google is less likely to flag their server IP addresses as suspicious. If you frequently use Google while connected to a VPN, it might be worth purchasing a paid plan to use as a fallback. However, before using such a VPN provider, you must first make sure that it is secure and does not collect data.

Sourced from TechNadu .

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