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Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
artie505 #60430 01/01/22 09:56 PM
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I am still puzzled why I have no problems with reCaptcha in Safari and you two (Artie & ryck) are reporting constant problems with sites using it. Although I have encountered reCaptcha a few times recently, I cannot recall one of those sites. If you could suggest a site or two that uses reCaptcha I would like to do some testing.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
I just discovered Captcha is the original technology name and there are numerous versions on the internet. Likely the most common version of Captcha you will encounter is Google's reCaptcha which almost certainly phones home the site you are visiting. A web search turned up one interesting side note, users of Google's own Chrome browser have been reporting problems accessing reCaptcha sites.

ASIDE:
Originally Posted by Artie505
Side note: Wipr Extra installed on my MBP along with the first update that included it, but it disappeared with the next update and has never reappeared, even after I trashed Wipr and reinstalled it.)
WIPR Extra is unique in a couple of ways, first it can read and modify site contents and that function is enabled on a site-by-site basis. I would suspect WIPR Extra of being involved but although it is active, it only has permission to write to FineTunedMac.com and I have no idea why or when I granted it read/write access to this site??? As to its failure to appear after you deleted and reinstalled WIPR, I believe that may be an Option during the Install. In iOS, rather than appearing in Settings > Safari > Extensions among the list of Content blockers it appears under Allow These Extensions along with 1Password and other Safari extensions having Read/Write access to site contents.

Last edited by joemikeb; 01/01/22 10:16 PM.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
joemikeb #60432 01/02/22 02:00 AM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
IMPORTANT NOTE:
I just discovered Captcha is the original technology name and there are numerous versions on the internet. Likely the most common version of Captcha you will encounter is Google's reCaptcha which almost certainly phones home the site you are visiting. A web search turned up one interesting side note, users of Google's own Chrome browser have been reporting problems accessing reCaptcha sites.
I think you've hit on the answer. The reCaptcha window allows you to check their "Terms of Reference" and, if you click on it, you find Google Terms of Reference.

So, if I either uncheck 'Prevent cross-site tracking', or use Opera, Google is sending information from that site back to home base. What would be the nature of the information? Would it be more than the simple fact that I purchased at that site, or would there be more?

Last edited by ryck; 01/02/22 02:00 AM.

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Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
ryck #60433 01/02/22 02:05 PM
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Originally Posted by ryck
I think you've hit on the answer. The reCaptcha window allows you to check their "Terms of Reference" and, if you click on it, you find Google Terms of Reference.

So, if I either uncheck 'Prevent cross-site tracking', or use Opera, Google is sending information from that site back to home base. What would be the nature of the information? Would it be more than the simple fact that I purchased at that site, or would there be more?
I don't know and Google would require a congressional subpoena to tell you what day they collect and sell to anyone that wants it. But, based on reports about what other other Google cookies reveal, it could be enough to identify you as an individual, although probably not by name, what you bought, and where you browsed after you left the site where you got the reCaptcha cookie, even days or weeks later.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
joemikeb #60434 01/02/22 03:21 PM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
....based on reports about what other other Google cookies reveal, it could be enough to identify you as an individual, although probably not by name, what you bought, and where you browsed after you left the site where you got the reCaptcha cookie, even days or weeks later.
Wow! No wonder Safari says "Ixnay on that". Thanks Apple. It looks like the sites that use reCaptcha are forcing a technological step backwards....that is, phone them.


ryck

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Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
ryck #60437 01/02/22 05:53 PM
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Originally Posted by ryck
Wow! No wonder Safari says "Ixnay on that". Thanks Apple. It looks like the sites that use reCaptcha are forcing a technological step backwards....that is, phone them.

This is a war over the ownership and control of our data and the money involved guarantees that while battles can be won, the tactics will shift and the war will continue.

A recent survey conducted by DuckDuckGo of the top IIRC 10,000 web sites (It may have been 100,000) found that 86% of them use tracking cookies, and the number of those sites that will not work unless you permit the tracking cookie is growing. I find Safari's Privacy Report interesting reading. If you haven't looked it shows a 30 day history including:
  • How many trackers were prevented from tracking you
  • The percentage of websites you visited that contacted trackers
  • The most contacted tracker
  • For each website: the number of trackers and clicking on the reveal arrow (>) specifically which trackers
  • For each tracker: the owner, and number of websites it occurred on


My current Safari Privacy Report indicates that 69% of the web sites Have visited in the past 30 have had one or more tracking cookies and 77 trackers different trackers; 7 are from Google; 3 each from Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, & Salesforce.com; 2 each from Microsoft & Verizon Media; and the remaining 54 are owned by individual companies. Of the top ten most often encountered, three owned by Google and two by Facebook.

NOTE: this is just the number of trackers that Safari has prevented from phoning home their data. There may have been other, more subtle or sophisticated trackers Safari missed.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
joemikeb #60444 01/03/22 02:00 AM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
Originally Posted by Artie505
Side note: Wipr Extra installed on my MBP along with the first update that included it, but it disappeared with the next update and has never reappeared, even after I trashed Wipr and reinstalled it.)
WIPR Extra is unique in a couple of ways, first it can read and modify site contents and that function is enabled on a site-by-site basis. I would suspect WIPR Extra of being involved but although it is active, it only has permission to write to FineTunedMac.com and I have no idea why or when I granted it read/write access to this site??? As to its failure to appear after you deleted and reinstalled WIPR, I believe that may be an Option during the Install. In iOS, rather than appearing in Settings > Safari > Extensions among the list of Content blockers it appears under Allow These Extensions along with 1Password and other Safari extensions having Read/Write access to site contents.
I don't remember seeing a site by site option in Wipr Extra. How does it work?

I briefly thought Wipr Extra was involved in the re/Captcha issue, but that turned out to not be the case.

I get Wipr from the App Store. The is no installer nor are there any "install" options. There is this, however...
Originally Posted by Wipr FAQ
If you can see Wipr Part 1 2 and 3 in Safari’s Preferences under Extensions, but not Wipr Extra, you’re being bit by a bug. Safari can’t seem to reliably index Web Extensions like Wipr Extra.

Note that this affects all Web Extensions, not just Wipr, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Hmmm... I wonder if I've actually got Wipr Extra but can't see it? Find Any File finds WiprBlockerMacExtra.appex, WiprBlockerMacExtra, and wipr-extra.js, all of which are located in /Apps/Wipr/Contents/Library/LoginItems, which suggests that that's the case, but since it doesn't appear in /Users/artie/Library/Safari/Extensions/Extensions.plist, only parts 1, 2, and 3, I guess it's not.

The only site I can remember on which I've run into the re/Captcha issue is eBay, but I can't reproduce it. It seems to happen only under limited unusual conditions such as clicking on a link in an email.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
ryck #60445 01/03/22 02:03 AM
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Originally Posted by ryck
So, if I either uncheck 'Prevent cross-site tracking', or use Opera, Google is sending information from that site back to home base.
It seems like Google must be doing that in every browser, with Safari being the only one that offers an option to block it, although it sounds as if Chrome may have functionality similar to Safari's.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
joemikeb #60446 01/03/22 02:16 AM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
I find Safari's Privacy Report interesting reading. If you haven't looked it shows a 30 day history....
I've found that it relies on Safari's history, which I clear every time I quit Safari, after which it tells me that I haven't browsed enough in the last 30 days to generate cross-site tracking statistics.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
artie505 #60449 01/03/22 02:00 PM
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Originally Posted by artie505
The only site I can remember on which I've run into the re/Captcha issue is eBay, but I can't reproduce it. It seems to happen only under limited unusual conditions such as clicking on a link in an email.

In my experience, it is relatively common to have problems with links from advertisers;tising in emails. Typically my router reports too many re-directs and blocks the site. Adding a Captcha/reCaptcha link could easily be the straw tat broke the camels back on re-directs.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
artie505 #60450 01/03/22 02:16 PM
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Originally Posted by artie505
It seems like Google must be doing that in every browser, with Safari being the only one that offers an option to block it, although it sounds as if Chrome may have functionality similar to Safari's.
Yes Google does phones home in every browser. It is how Google earns enough money to pay premium salaries to their developers. And yes Chrome does have a blocker, but given that is cutting Googles own financial throat, I suspect there may be hidden exceptions for Google's own trackers.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
artie505 #60451 01/03/22 03:21 PM
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Originally Posted by artie505
Hmmm... I wonder if I've actually got Wipr Extra but can't see it?
I rechecked my Safari Preferences and Wipr Extra is the one called V1.31. The other three were V 1 1.31, V 2 1.31, and V 3 1.31

Last edited by ryck; 01/03/22 03:24 PM.

ryck

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Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
ryck #60453 01/03/22 05:36 PM
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Originally Posted by ryck
Originally Posted by artie505
Hmmm... I wonder if I've actually got Wipr Extra but can't see it?
I rechecked my Safari Preferences and Wipr Extra is the one called V1.31. The other three were V 1 1.31, V 2 1.31, and V 3 1.31
Yeah, I've got the last 3...had the first at one point, but haven't seen it in months. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
artie505 #60811 02/09/22 01:14 PM
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I've run across a new wrinkle with the Safari/reCaptcha issue. I was at Blue Mountain, an eCard site, and when I pressed send a reCaptcha "I am not a robot" verification request appeared. Safari, of course, just started the perpetual rotating symbol.

I couldn't use Opera on that page, as I was inside a logged-in account, so I signed out. Then I logged in with Opera and, when it came time to send the eCard, it just went. There was no reCaptcha "I am not a robot" verification requirement. Is it possible that it is Safari, not the sites, requiring the reCaptcha process?


ryck

"What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits" The Doobie Brothers

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Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
ryck #60812 02/09/22 01:27 PM
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Originally Posted by ryck
I've run across a new wrinkle with the Safari/reCaptcha issue. I was at Blue Mountain, an eCard site, and when I pressed send a reCaptcha "I am not a robot" verification request appeared. Safari, of course, just started the perpetual rotating symbol.

I couldn't use Opera on that page, as I was inside a logged-in account, so I signed out. Then I logged in with Opera and, when it came time to send the eCard, it just went. There was no reCaptcha "I am not a robot" verification requirement. Is it possible that it is Safari, not the sites, requiring the reCaptcha process?
I'm pretty sure it's not a browser thing, but 3rd party verification wouldn't hurt.

As an experiment, maybe try quitting Safari and then logging in from Opera to see if the reCaptcha still doesn't come up.

Now that I know what's going on in Safari, when I get to a Captcha/reCaptcha pane I just uncheck/recheck "Prevent cross-site tracking."


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
artie505 #65923 03/24/24 02:08 AM
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I just ran into this issue on my ipad in Safari. ReCapcha works fine in Chrome, but the Next button was greyed out (disabled). I did not have the VPN on, and I did not want to lose auto-fills by deleting the cache. I went to Settings - Safari and I tried toggling Cross-check Sites, content and ad-blockers on and off; nothing. What finally resolved it was turning off Block IP Address.
I set up an account just to share this, in case any one else comes across this frustrating problem in Safari and ends up reading this forum!

Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
Mina #65924 03/24/24 02:24 AM
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Hi, and welcome to FineTunedMac. smile

Thanks for your input, but actually, it's been so long since I've run into/heard of a Captcha issue that I've forgotten that the problem ever existed.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: reCaptcha a no-go with Safari
Mina #65928 03/24/24 08:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Mina
I set up an account just to share this, in case any one else comes across this frustrating problem in Safari and ends up reading this forum!
Ditto artie's "Welcome to FineTunedMac"".

Your post caused me to think about the last time I had a Captcha issue and I can't recall. Actually I'm finding more and more sites using the "I'm not a Robot" with an image divided into sections and the instruction: "Find all the pictures that have....."

Last edited by ryck; 03/24/24 08:21 PM.

ryck

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