mCaptcha: Open-source proof-of-work captcha for websites
I recently conducted an experiment - I removed client side CAPTCHAs from a form that had reCAPTCHA V2 and a ton of spam was getting through and instead sent the content to Akismet for scanning. It cut the spam getting through to 0.<p>It made me think, are client side CAPTCHAs really worth it? They add so much friction (and page weight - reCAPTCHA v3 adds several hundreds KBs) to the experience (especially when you have to solve puzzles or identify objects) and are gamed heavily. I know these get used for more than form submissions, to stop bot sign ups etc…<p>I feel like it’d be just as/more effective to use other heuristics on the backend: IP Address, blacklisting certain email domains, requiring email validation or phone validation, scanning logs, analyzing content submitted through forms