Difficult image verification images

It may just be me, but I have a hard time with some of these (depending on the image). Some of them are seriously tricky to tell if that's a 1, i, l, etc. and it can take me up to 5 tries or so just to successfully join a site, lol.

Can anyone assure me I'm not just an idiot? Or am I?

 

You're not an idiot - I hate these with a passion. It's almost as if they are deterring you from registering successfully (or registering at all).

 

I rarely have a hard time with them. And most of the time, you can easily refresh the image and get a new one, so it's no big deal.

But the few times I have had a hard one, it really did become frustrating.

 

Sometimes it isn't a matter of i, l, or I, but the color choices make it almost impossible to make out the letters. It's like those tests for color blindness where you can barely make out the outline. Whenever possible, I prefer to have the user answer a simple question. Better for accessibility anyway.

 

True.

And does it even make a difference how hard it is to read? If it's an image, isn't it unreadable by the bot regardless of how it looks? And aren't actual questions much easier and safer (no bot will ever be able to answer a specific question)?

 

Some bots can scan the images, I guess. Otherwise regular Captcha should have been enough to stop them. That's why they recommend you use custom fonts, shapes, and jumbling combinations if you use regular captcha.

Some questions can also be answered by bots, I think. They must be pre-programmed to answer common questions ("What color is the sky")... which is why they recommend you use a unique question, like "If all instances of the letter 'd' were removed from 'AdminAddict', how would it be spelled?"

 

I use ReCAPTCHA for this reason. I can't make out the letters with ridiculous colors in the original CAPTCHA, so I make life easier with the 2nd generation spam bot software. If Facebook uses it (I think) and they're a multi-million dollar site, then I can use it it too. *slams fist down onto table*

 

I usually have to load captchas 5 or 6 times before I can find one that is possible to decipher.

 

I'm the same way. Some of them are almost impossible to read.

 

I tried doing that once (used the font I used in the logo for that extra touch of branding!) but couldn't figure out how to adjust the width of the CAPTCHA image to accommodate the wide font. Did anyone else have that problem?

 

"You tell 'em, Boss!"