If there’s one thing denizens of the World Wide Web can agree on, it’s that CAPTCHAs suck.
The bot-preventing security measures are time-consuming and confusing—how many times have you struggled to identify all the grainy images containing the tiniest sliver of a bicycle just to satisfy a robotic arbiter of your humanity?
Surely, there must be a better way.
Now there may be. IT giant Cloudflare introduced a new breed of CAPTCHA test called Turnstile that promises to reduce the average test time from 32 seconds to one second.
- 32 seconds might not sound like a lot, but it all adds up: Cloudflare estimates people collectively waste 500 years every single day completing CAPTCHAs.
Instead of presenting a visitor with a puzzle, Turnstile cuts down on times by testing the browser to see if the visitor using it has been exhibiting any non-human behaviours.
- Cloudflare also claims this method is better for user privacy as it does not collect and store data like typical CAPTCHAs.
Yes, but: Critics are concerned the system can be duped, since the method isn’t actually testing if there’s a human user like regular CAPTCHAs do, just making an informed guess.
- CAPTCHAs may be annoying, but they are effective. Machines have only a ~0.01% success rate in passing them, per research from Microsoft.
Why it matters: If the technology works, replacing CAPTCHAs with a test where users don’t have to do anything promises to prevent headaches, boost productivity, and make the web more accessible.