Online shopping is getting more and more annoying

[Computer Nerd Kev]

[WARNING: Rant Ahead]

Last year Ebay started forcing me through a Google capcha every time
I log in (actually at first it was _twice_, before and after the
password entry form - as well as when trying to log out sometimes!?),
as well as every time before payment with PayPal.

Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...

I emailed a complaint to Ebay about them, but just got a reply to say
that my email had been detected as spam by some M$ spam filter and
refused. Even though it's the same email address that my Ebay address
is registered with.

Since then PayPal now demands a capcha on every log-in too (though
at least only once, and just an old-fashioned wonky letters one). So
to buy something on Ebay I have to log in, do the capcha, select to
buy the item, select to pay, do another capcha for Ebay, do a capcha
for PayPal, tell them for the 1,000th time that I DO NOT want to link
my PayPal account to Ebay, then finally get the order completed.**

Not to mention I always seem to be getting cheated on postage costs
that are more than advertised lately. Maybe that's just the virus,
but someone (or some website) honest would stick by the advertised
price rather than try to extort me after agreeing to buy.

Then there's Aliexpress and Alibaba that often forces you to enter
a code from a confirmation email just to log in now. Also Aliexpress
doesn't even seem to let you browse for long before demanding that
you log in to continue.

It's happening with the latest Firefox ESR release (even a fresh
install where I hadn't dug into about:config yet), so it's not due
to me using a weird browser. I have NoScript (which Google has to
be let through every time I log in to Ebay now), but turning it off
doesn't stop them. Surely everyone is being driven nuts by this, but
after months they're still doing it!

* How's an Aussie even expected to know what an American fire hydrant
looks like when the ones over here live on fire trucks and only get
inserted ("shipped" is the actual term) into the outlets next to
the road when something is burning down nearby?

Also, strangely, ebay.com (not the .com.au Australian version) uses
a different 3rd party capcha provider instead of Google.

** Ebay are apparantly planning to start handling payments themselves
at the seller's side in place of PayPal soon, allowing more payment
platforms to be supported besides PayPal.
https://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/managed-payments

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> Last year Ebay started forcing me through a Google capcha every time

Insert the "t" in captcha to taste. :)

[Nyssa]

I hear ya!

I've stopped using some sites that insist on using those
aggravating Google recaptchas. I even have most of google's
domains blocked in my hosts file too.

I'm on dialup, and half the time the recaptchas would time
out anyway, and the times they'd actually work, the load
times were simply too long to mess with, especially for
the rinse-and-repeat insistence on the user being forced
to do multiples for one session.

LL Bean (who I've been a customer of for decades) started
requiring recaptchas just to browse products. Nope, ain't
gonna happen! So they've lost a long-time customer (but
probably make it up on all of the customers who just
blindly will do Google's work for free).

From what I've read, it seems that Google is giving some
sort of incentives to sites to use their massively
annoying recaptchas (in order to train their AI system,
it seems). Here we go again with companies and sites
ignoring their *paying* customers and going with the
corporate machine instead.

Revolution! That's what we need. A good old-fashioned
revolution to make it clear to all of these companies
that we dislike (okay, for me HATE) these time-wasting
Google recaptchas that don't really do anything more for
security and WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WON'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE
(nods to the movie Network).

Nyssa, who wonders when all of these online companies
decided making Google happy was more important than keeping
their customers happy

[Rich]

Nyssa <Ny...@logicalinsight.net> wrote:
> LL Bean (who I've been a customer of for decades) started requiring
> recaptchas just to browse products.

This is likely just them being anti-competitive or worried about server
load.

Someone was probably scraping their listings to download price data.

Someone at LL Bean did not like that (IT or VP we don't know) and added
(IT, for 'server load' reasons) or requested (VP, for
'anti-competitive' reasons: "our prices are our proprietary product").

Are you also browsing LL Bean from a non-US IP address? Because I
wonder if the pattern here is based upon the geographical location of
the IP address, because for the OP's initial complaint, I do not see
any google recaptcha when browsing ebay or logging into paypal, from a
US IP address.

So I wonder of the recaptcha's are directed only at visitors who's IP
says they are 'outside' of the US?

Note, none of this makes the recaptchas any less irritating, for those
who have to endure them.

[Nyssa]

Nope, US IP.

As for PayPal, I can get into my account on their website,
but their "new, improved" checkout system simply won't
load over my dialup connection. That means if I really,
really need to buy something through PP, I have to lug
a laptop to a friend's house to use their broadband wifi
to complete the deal.

So I just cleaned out the balance in my PP account to
my bank account and won't use them unless it's the only
way to purchase something I really need.

LL Bean's is especially annoying since I like their shoes
and boots, but now can't even find out what's what as
far as product descriptions. They've stopped sending me
a catalog except at Christmas, but that doesn't help the
rest of the year or for products not considered gift-y
or Christmas-y.

Nyssa, who will instead spend her money on sites that
don't waste my time for the benefit of a third-party
corporation that I *don't* do business with

[Bruce Horrocks]

On 22/04/2020 03:51, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
> when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
> busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...

Change to the sound one, press the 're-send' sound a few times until you
hear one word clearly and type that one word in. Often you can very
nearly type anything in and you get through.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey
England
(bruce at scorecrow dot com)

[The Real Bev]

On 04/22/2020 09:54 AM, Bruce Horrocks wrote:
> On 22/04/2020 03:51, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
>> when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
>> busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...
>
> Change to the sound one, press the 're-send' sound a few times until you
> hear one word clearly and type that one word in. Often you can very
> nearly type anything in and you get through.

Curiously enough, firefox doesn't even see that many captchas exist. I
hit LOGIN (or whatever) and nothing happens. If I do the same thing in
chrome I get the usual craptcha process, which eventually works.

BUT I noticed some of the captchas at the google site actually show up
in firefox.

The stupid impossible-to-see pictures are maddening. What's wrong with
the ones with funny-shaped letters and numbers that actualy work?

And why is it harder to log in to a forum than a brokerage?

--
Cheers, Bev
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet?

[Eli the Bearded]

In comp.misc, The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Curiously enough, firefox doesn't even see that many captchas exist. I
> hit LOGIN (or whatever) and nothing happens. If I do the same thing in
> chrome I get the usual craptcha process, which eventually works.

I don't find that happening to me, but it might be using few sites
that have them.

> The stupid impossible-to-see pictures are maddening. What's wrong with
> the ones with funny-shaped letters and numbers that actualy work?

I think there are two things: one the free captcha service from Google
prioritizes the tests Google wants to use, and Google probably wants
confirmation on their own image analysis tools (see xkcd:
https://xkcd.com/1897/ for a humrous take on that); and two, because
those funny shaped letters are all computer generated, it's become
easier and easier to get computers to reverse the process, see:

https://medium.com/@ageitgey/how-to-break-a-captcha-system-in-15-minutes-with-machine-learning-dbebb035a710

> And why is it harder to log in to a forum than a brokerage?

Brokerages have people who monitor the logs, so they can clamp down on
abuse manually. Forums rely on computers to hinder the abuse.

If you get a captcha you'd rather not do, like identify foreign country
fire hydrants, don't be afraid to hit the reload button. I do. And I
also sometimes answer what I want knowing that the captcha probably
wants something else, it at least marginally fucks with the AI at the
cost of having to do the captcha twice.

Elijah
------
remembers recaptcha before Google bought it

[The Real Bev]

On 04/22/2020 10:52 AM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
> In comp.misc, The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Curiously enough, firefox doesn't even see that many captchas exist. I
>> hit LOGIN (or whatever) and nothing happens. If I do the same thing in
>> chrome I get the usual craptcha process, which eventually works.
>
> I don't find that happening to me, but it might be using few sites
> that have them.
>
>> The stupid impossible-to-see pictures are maddening. What's wrong with
>> the ones with funny-shaped letters and numbers that actualy work?
>
> I think there are two things: one the free captcha service from Google
> prioritizes the tests Google wants to use, and Google probably wants
> confirmation on their own image analysis tools (see xkcd:
> https://xkcd.com/1897/ for a humrous take on that); and two, because
> those funny shaped letters are all computer generated, it's become
> easier and easier to get computers to reverse the process, see:
>
> https://medium.com/@ageitgey/how-to-break-a-captcha-system-in-15-minutes-with-machine-learning-dbebb035a710
>
>> And why is it harder to log in to a forum than a brokerage?
>
> Brokerages have people who monitor the logs, so they can clamp down on
> abuse manually. Forums rely on computers to hinder the abuse.

AFTER some shithead has drawn out all your money...

> If you get a captcha you'd rather not do, like identify foreign country
> fire hydrants, don't be afraid to hit the reload button. I do. And I
> also sometimes answer what I want knowing that the captcha probably
> wants something else, it at least marginally fucks with the AI at the
> cost of having to do the captcha twice.

What I REALLY resent is having to do half a dozen or so of them
APPARENTLY CORRECTLY in order to do something that really needs no
security -- to ask a manufacturer a question about a product before you
buy it, for example.

There used to be a joke about feeding numbers in on your touchtone phone.

Please tap your social security number...
Please tap the opening 4 bars of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony...
And again in C#...


--
Cheers, Bev
"Some people say that when it rains it means that God is crying,
probably because of something that you did." --Jack Handey

[Rich]

The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/22/2020 10:52 AM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
>> Brokerages have people who monitor the logs, so they can clamp down
>> on abuse manually. Forums rely on computers to hinder the abuse.
>
> AFTER some shithead has drawn out all your money...

The dirty secret that makes the financial world work is that most of
the 'security' stuff is just to show that they can check off a box on
some compliance report. Dealing with fraud in the financial world
involves simply cleaning up the mess after the fact rather than trying
to prevent the mess from occurring in the first place.

>> If you get a captcha you'd rather not do, like identify foreign
>> country fire hydrants, don't be afraid to hit the reload button. I
>> do. And I also sometimes answer what I want knowing that the
>> captcha probably wants something else, it at least marginally fucks
>> with the AI at the cost of having to do the captcha twice.
>
> What I REALLY resent is having to do half a dozen or so of them
> APPARENTLY CORRECTLY in order to do something that really needs no
> security -- to ask a manufacturer a question about a product before you
> buy it, for example.

Thing is, if you were on the other end of that "ask a question" page,
you'd see what they see, and likely want the captcha present.

And what they likely see is Chinese bots (often the 'bots' are humans
being paid pennies a day to do 'bot' work) inserting spam into all
those "ask a question" pages hour after hour, day after day, because
they know it goes to some human somewhere who might fall for the
'offering'.

I'm the 'admin' for the web presence for a small society, and one of
their web pages has one of those "ask us a question" forms. It gets a
spam insertion at least once a week, sometimes more. The bigger, and
more well known the company, the more likely they will get loads of
Chinese bots spamming them. The small society also used to host a
bulletin board (think craigslist, thankfully I finally got them out of
that mindset this year, so that's now gone). It got Chinese spam
advertisements daily (rock crushers, mining equipment, you name it,
they advertised it), until I did a reverse lookup on the IP netblocks
the spam was originating from and simply blackholed the entire
subnet(s) from whence they were posting.

Sometimes things that seem silly singly make more sense when one walks
a mile in the other guys shoes.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Bruce Horrocks <07....@scorecrow.com> wrote:
> On 22/04/2020 03:51, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
>> when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
>> busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...
>
> Change to the sound one, press the 're-send' sound a few times until you
> hear one word clearly and type that one word in. Often you can very
> nearly type anything in and you get through.

Thanks, I never thought to try that and it seems like it is quicker
(judging from my first try at it).

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Rich <ri...@example.invalid> wrote:
>
> Are you also browsing LL Bean from a non-US IP address? Because I
> wonder if the pattern here is based upon the geographical location of
> the IP address, because for the OP's initial complaint, I do not see
> any google recaptcha when browsing ebay or logging into paypal, from a
> US IP address.
>
> So I wonder of the recaptcha's are directed only at visitors who's IP
> says they are 'outside' of the US?

That might be the case for PayPal, but with Ebay I'm usually trying
to log in to the Australian ebay.com.au site so obviously almost all
of the users there will be from Australian IPs. I do use an IP
address that's commonly identified as Australian. I can't remember
whether it happens when using another internet connection (normally
I'm on mobile broadband), but I probably would if it did make a
difference.

I'm not travelling to the sort of people/places where I can use their
wifi at the moment, so it will be a while 'till I can double check
that.

[The Real Bev]

On 04/22/2020 02:58 PM, Rich wrote:
> The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 04/22/2020 10:52 AM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
>>> Brokerages have people who monitor the logs, so they can clamp down
>>> on abuse manually. Forums rely on computers to hinder the abuse.
>>
>> AFTER some shithead has drawn out all your money...
>
> The dirty secret that makes the financial world work is that most of
> the 'security' stuff is just to show that they can check off a box on
> some compliance report. Dealing with fraud in the financial world
> involves simply cleaning up the mess after the fact rather than trying
> to prevent the mess from occurring in the first place.

I believe that. I'm perfectly happy with a password and don't know why
they demand a voiceprint of both me and my husband in order to do a
transaction with far less potential peril than one which requires
nothing more than the normal login. I flatly refuse to do anything
involving a phone fingerprint -- I know how well those units work at the
gym :-(

...

> Sometimes things that seem silly singly make more sense when one walks
> a mile in the other guys shoes.

I believe that, but the need for security theater at MY expense is annoying.

--
Cheers, Bev
"You can make a signature quote seem authoritative by
attributing it to a famous person." --- Sun Tzu

[Rich]

The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/22/2020 02:58 PM, Rich wrote:
>> The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 04/22/2020 10:52 AM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
>>>> Brokerages have people who monitor the logs, so they can clamp down
>>>> on abuse manually. Forums rely on computers to hinder the abuse.
>>>
>>> AFTER some shithead has drawn out all your money...
>>
>> The dirty secret that makes the financial world work is that most of
>> the 'security' stuff is just to show that they can check off a box on
>> some compliance report. Dealing with fraud in the financial world
>> involves simply cleaning up the mess after the fact rather than trying
>> to prevent the mess from occurring in the first place.
>
> I believe that. I'm perfectly happy with a password and don't know why
> they demand a voiceprint of both me and my husband in order to do a
> transaction with far less potential peril than one which requires
> nothing more than the normal login. I flatly refuse to do anything
> involving a phone fingerprint -- I know how well those units work at the
> gym :-(

This can usually be traced back to the need to check several checkboxes
on quarterly compliance reports indicating that they are using
"industry best practices".

Note, I made no comment re. the effectivness of the 'practices' at
anything, just that they need to be able to "check off the box" that
they are 'compiant'.

> ...
>
>> Sometimes things that seem silly singly make more sense when one
>> walks a mile in the other guys shoes.
>
> I believe that, but the need for security theater at MY expense is
> annoying.

Yup, *very* annoying for the individual, esp. when you know you are who
you say you are.

But from their side, they likely see a flood of crap on a daily basis,
and anything that reduces the crap flood is seen as a good thing, even
if it individually annoys every single real user.

[Mike Spencer]

Nyssa <Ny...@LogicalInsight.net> writes:

> I'm on dialup, and half the time the recaptchas would time
> out anyway, and the times they'd actually work, the load

> times were simply too long to mess with...

Yes, I've encountered that. Total PITA.

> ...especially for the rinse-and-repeat insistence on the user being

> forced to do multiples for one session.
>

> [snip]

>
> Revolution! That's what we need. A good old-fashioned
> revolution to make it clear to all of these companies
> that we dislike (okay, for me HATE) these time-wasting
> Google recaptchas that don't really do anything more for
> security and WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WON'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE

> (nods to...

Howard Beale, in

> ...the movie Network).

>
> Nyssa, who wonders when all of these online companies
> decided making Google happy was more important than keeping
> their customers happy

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale,
and I won't have it! Is that clear?....There are no
nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are
no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is
only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane,
interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion
of dollars. -- Arthur Jensen, in _Network_


Commerce rules. If you care to tell "all of these online companies"
what you think, _Network_ has the lines:

You are [commerce] incarnate, ...indifferent to suffering,
insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble
of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as
bottles of beer. The daily business of life is a corrupt
comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into
split-seconds and instant replays. You are madness... virulent
madness, and everything you touch dies with you.

-- Network

[ Saw Network for the first time this past winter. Late-blooming
cineast, me.]

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[Nyssa]

Thanks for the flash from the past. Great movie.

I loaned my DVD of it to friends who had never seen it
and they were blown away...and finally understood my
references to Howard Beale's famous line.

Nyssa, who probably could use another viewing of it herself

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Mike Spencer <m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

> Nyssa <Ny...@LogicalInsight.net> writes:
>>
>> Revolution! That's what we need. A good old-fashioned
>> revolution to make it clear to all of these companies
>> that we dislike (okay, for me HATE) these time-wasting
>> Google recaptchas that don't really do anything more for
>> security and WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WON'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE
>> (nods to...
>
> Howard Beale, in
>
>> ...the movie Network).

Speaking of which, a few nights ago I was watching TV and heard the
programme announcer say:

"Coming up next, a brutal murder is broadcast live on Van der Valk."

I guess that was a plot summary rather than experimentation in
"Network" style programming, but I tuned out so I guess I'll never
know for sure. :)

The same channel does run a comedy news satire show called "Mad as
Hell".

[Eli the Bearded]

In comp.misc, Nyssa <Ny...@LogicalInsight.net> wrote:
> Mike Spencer wrote:
> > Howard Beale, in
[Network]

> > You have meddled with the primal forces of nature,
> > Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that
> > clear?....There are no nations. There are no
> > peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs.
> > There are no third worlds. There is no West. There
> > is only one holistic system of systems, one vast
> > and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate,
> > multinational dominion
> > of dollars. -- Arthur Jensen, in
> > _Network_
> >
> >
> > Commerce rules. If you care to tell "all of these online
> > companies" what you think, _Network_ has the lines:
> >
> > You are [commerce] incarnate, ...indifferent to
> > suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is
> > reduced to the common rubble of banality. War,
> > murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of
> > beer. The daily business of life is a corrupt
> > comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and
> > space into split-seconds and instant replays. You
> > are madness... virulent madness, and everything you
> > touch dies with you.
> >
> > -- Network

> Thanks for the flash from the past. Great movie.
>
> I loaned my DVD of it to friends who had never seen it
> and they were blown away...and finally understood my
> references to Howard Beale's famous line.
>
> Nyssa, who probably could use another viewing of it herself

Rentable / buyable from various internet services in the US:

https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/network

but not currently just "streaming". Shame, because, yeah, another
viewing would be good.

https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/network

Shows that Canadians can stream it from Crave Starz, so Spencer could
rewatch it, possibly. (He is, as I recall, in Nova Scotia.)

Elijah
------
didn't check other countries at justwatch

[Mike Spencer]

Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> writes:

> Rentable / buyable from various internet services in the US:
>
> https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/network
>
> but not currently just "streaming". Shame, because, yeah, another
> viewing would be good.
>
> https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/network
>
> Shows that Canadians can stream it from Crave Starz, so Spencer could
> rewatch it, possibly. (He is, as I recall, in Nova Scotia.)

Hah! Yes, if I were in Halifax with fiber or even cable or even
on/near a major highway.

No cable on this road, no telco cabinet close enough for ADSL, never
mind glass. Only "high-speed" is "rural wireless" which turned into a
financial fiasco for the contracting cableco and isn't all that great
anyhow (Motorola Canopy technology) or cellco SIM card. I have a SIM
card in a "wireless gateway device" that works fine but the bits are
too pricey to do video.

Since all the DVD stores began to fold and the industry began to dump
DVDs into bargain bins, I've been stalking the bins. Maybe 400 DVDs
now, at bargain bin prices, maybe 50 of them classics or really great
movies. Network is one of them

Haven't had a TV for 40 years but can't suppress a movie jones when
typical DVD price is CAN$5. (+4/-3, depending on the bargain bin vendor.)

When I was in high school, a 40 year old movie wasn't even a talkie!
We just watched Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven back to back, both
60+ years old.

ObCompMisc: Watched with MPlayer on a Linux box.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

Late-blooming cineasts, us.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

The problem that I've found is that up to 50% of the time you click
the "headphones" button and it just pops up with a message saying
that your connection looks suspicious, so you'll have to try again
later.

In practise, after immediately reloading the page the captcha still
comes up normally and you can do the visual one (or try the audio one
again though usually it seems to keep blocking every time, once it
has done so on the first try).

The funny thing is that last time this happened when logging into
Ebay, I reloaded the page to try again and it just let me through
(loaded the next page) without completing any captcha at all!

Also, I'm now wondering if this is some underhanded way to pursuade
people to use the "log in with Apple/Google/Facebook" option. Not a
chance of me doing that though, not least because I don't have an
account with any of those evil empires.

[Kenny McCormack]

In article <r8fkl2$1u0r$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

...

>Also, I'm now wondering if this is some underhanded way to pursuade
>people to use the "log in with Apple/Google/Facebook" option. Not a
>chance of me doing that though, not least because I don't have an
>account with any of those evil empires.

Of course. In other news, water is wet.

The thing is, somebody needs to bring this to court on the basis of the ADA.

Clearly, all this captcha nonsense is a gross violation of the ADA.

--
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

- Maya Angelou -

[The Real Bev]

On 04/30/2020 04:41 PM, Kenny McCormack wrote:
> In article <r8fkl2$1u0r$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,
> Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> ...
>>Also, I'm now wondering if this is some underhanded way to pursuade
>>people to use the "log in with Apple/Google/Facebook" option. Not a
>>chance of me doing that though, not least because I don't have an
>>account with any of those evil empires.
>
> Of course. In other news, water is wet.
>
> The thing is, somebody needs to bring this to court on the basis of the ADA.
>
> Clearly, all this captcha nonsense is a gross violation of the ADA.

For some reason I can't even SEE captchas at most sites with
firefox/linux, probably because of some essential extension (I have lots
but have pared them down to those I can't live without.). It's been
that way for at least a year now. I really don't like using Chrome, but
I have to every once in a while.

--
Cheers, Bev
"Attention: All virgins report to Paradise immediately!!
This is not a drill." --MWilliams

[Eli the Bearded]

In comp.misc, The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> For some reason I can't even SEE captchas at most sites with
> firefox/linux, probably because of some essential extension (I have lots
> but have pared them down to those I can't live without.). It's been
> that way for at least a year now. I really don't like using Chrome, but
> I have to every once in a while.

My fix is to create (and destroy) temporary profiles with no add-ons.

alias newfirefox='firefox -ProfileManager -no-remote'

I usually have three profiles: a general every day one, a second one
with a different config, and a disposable one named after the month.
If the disposable one is too old, I delete it and create another. It
is the first of May today. I might still use an April profile, for
example, but a March one would be right out.

My bank is the only site I have to do that regularly for, and I don't
usually need to log in to that more than once a month. So it's not
too much hassle for me. YMMV.

Elijah
------
was forced to use Chrome for other reasons in April

[The Real Bev]

On 05/01/2020 10:54 AM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
> In comp.misc, The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> For some reason I can't even SEE captchas at most sites with
>> firefox/linux, probably because of some essential extension (I have lots
>> but have pared them down to those I can't live without.). It's been
>> that way for at least a year now. I really don't like using Chrome, but
>> I have to every once in a while.
>
> My fix is to create (and destroy) temporary profiles with no add-ons.

I was just thinking that that's too much trouble. BUT I have a lot of
old versions and profiles still available, and I could have one of those
running separately from my REAL firefox just as easily as I can have a
chrome running. OTOH, I switched out of old versions because for some
reason they got REALLY slow or crashed a lot :-(

Feh.

> alias newfirefox='firefox -ProfileManager -no-remote'
>
> I usually have three profiles: a general every day one, a second one
> with a different config, and a disposable one named after the month.
> If the disposable one is too old, I delete it and create another. It
> is the first of May today. I might still use an April profile, for
> example, but a March one would be right out.
>
> My bank is the only site I have to do that regularly for, and I don't
> usually need to log in to that more than once a month. So it's not
> too much hassle for me. YMMV.
>
> Elijah
> ------
> was forced to use Chrome for other reasons in April
>

--
Cheers, Bev
"You know that I could go on the Internet right now under my
alternate screen name, "CherryXXX69," and get complete strangers to
email me a picture of their scrotum. I tell you, this country gave
the finger to privacy a long time ago." -- Bill Maher

[Rich]

The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/01/2020 10:54 AM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
>> In comp.misc, The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> For some reason I can't even SEE captchas at most sites with
>>> firefox/linux, probably because of some essential extension (I have lots
>>> but have pared them down to those I can't live without.). It's been
>>> that way for at least a year now. I really don't like using Chrome, but
>>> I have to every once in a while.
>>
>> My fix is to create (and destroy) temporary profiles with no add-ons.
>
> I was just thinking that that's too much trouble.

It is trivial when you automate it....

I have this little bash script named "firefox_temp":

---cut---cut---
#!/usr/bin/bash
dir=$(mktemp -d -p /dev/shm)
export HOME=$dir
if [[ $# -eq 1 ]] ; then
/opt/firefox-latest --no-remote --profile ${dir} "$1"
else
/opt/firefox-latest --no-remote --profile ${dir}
fi
rm -rf ${dir}
---cut---cut---

And I have the script wired to a menu entry in my Fvwm2 root menu to
launch it. So anytime I want a temp firefox profile, I poke the menu
entry, and a few seconds later a fully isolated firefox with a fully
separate profile appears. When I'm done, and I close the tab from the
temp copy it cleans up after itself and nothing is left lying around.

The if wrapper is to allow the script to be passed a URL on the command
line. Firefox seems to want to open a 'files view' if passed an empty
parameter on its command line, so I worked around that by using the if
and only calling it with a parameter when a parameter was provided.

[The Real Bev]

I have a .fvwm95rc (the most completely configured WM when I started and
I just kept on with it) with a number of entries of the form "exec
/stuff/FF63/firefox//firefox -P FF63&" going back to FF52, which I
remember liking a lot until something nasty happened. I've got a number
of virgin profiles too. When FF insisted on web extensions there was a
rapid decline in niceness.

BUT somehow I can no longer see a lot of videos with even older versions
of FF that used to work; easier to just use Chrome and feel dirty.

> The if wrapper is to allow the script to be passed a URL on the command
> line. Firefox seems to want to open a 'files view' if passed an empty
> parameter on its command line, so I worked around that by using the if
> and only calling it with a parameter when a parameter was provided.

--
Cheers, Bev
Not all cultures are equal. If they were, we
would have a lot more cannibal restaurants.

[Rich]

The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> BUT somehow I can no longer see a lot of videos with even older versions
> of FF that used to work; easier to just use Chrome and feel dirty.

If by "videos" you mean youtube and/or the other video websites, then
youtube-dl (downloads from way more than just youtube) solves that
problem.

http://www.yt-dl.org/

Just download them, then play them with the native player of your
choice instead of all the different crapola web players that every
different site dreams up that all have a different way of working.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> For some reason I can't even SEE captchas at most sites with
> firefox/linux, probably because of some essential extension (I have lots
> but have pared them down to those I can't live without.).

I find that they're invisible until I allow "google.com" and at least
one other Google domain through NoScript. Strangely, the exact
combination of domains that are required seems to vary between
different sites. I could do with a way to tell NoScript to allow
them on just one specific page, because I disallow them afterwards
so that Google can't spy on me later (not doing this doesn't prevent
getting a second captcha when I go to pay for something on Ebay
though).

The post service's parcel tracking site uses an "invisible reCaptcha"
that works in the background to somehow figure out if you're human.
Often that tracking page goes into an endless reload loop for me,
which may be due to reCaptcha. Maybe it works by detecting the user
swearing while that's happening? :)

This is an automated solver for the audio reCaptcha:
https://github.com/dessant/buster
The existance of that is probably why they block me from using
the audio option half of the time.

> It's been
> that way for at least a year now. I really don't like using Chrome, but
> I have to every once in a while.

Right now I no longer have Chrome/Chromium installed on any of my
own computers. Will see how long I can last...

[The Real Bev]

On 05/01/2020 10:00 PM, Rich wrote:
> The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> BUT somehow I can no longer see a lot of videos with even older versions
>> of FF that used to work; easier to just use Chrome and feel dirty.
>
> If by "videos" you mean youtube and/or the other video websites, then
> youtube-dl (downloads from way more than just youtube) solves that
> problem.

No. Facebook, and various news sites. It's bad enough downloading .pdf
files before I can see them (and forgetting to delete them and then
having to look at them again to figure out whether or not I should save
or delete them....), much less having to do that with huge video files.
Easier to just copy the URL to chrome.

Youtube works fine.

> http://www.yt-dl.org/
>
> Just download them, then play them with the native player of your
> choice instead of all the different crapola web players that every
> different site dreams up that all have a different way of working.

--
Cheers, Bev
"My life outside of USENET is so full of love and kindness that I have
to come here to find the venom and bile that I crave." --R. Damiani

[Computer Nerd Kev]

The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/01/2020 10:00 PM, Rich wrote:
>> The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> BUT somehow I can no longer see a lot of videos with even older versions
>>> of FF that used to work; easier to just use Chrome and feel dirty.
>>
>> If by "videos" you mean youtube and/or the other video websites, then
>> youtube-dl (downloads from way more than just youtube) solves that
>> problem.
>
> No. Facebook, and various news sites. It's bad enough downloading .pdf
> files before I can see them (and forgetting to delete them and then
> having to look at them again to figure out whether or not I should save
> or delete them....), much less having to do that with huge video files.
> Easier to just copy the URL to chrome.

Personally I don't agree at all (though I also don't watch videos on
Facebook or news sites). But nevertheless I couldn't resist seeing if
you could pipe the output of youtube-dl to a player to have it work
like playing a video in browser. Sure enough this works:
youtube-dl -q -o - [vid URL] | mplayer -

Seeking forwards works too, though not backwards (presumably there
would be ways and means to configure some players to allow for that
too).

A little jerky for me, but my internet isn't really fast enough for
video streaming at Youtube's current minimum quality setting
("-f 18" in youtube-dl).

> Youtube works fine.

I can't even stand the Youtube website for browsing videos. It's
vastly better in Dillo compared to Firefox, but for a long time
now there's been a note warning that "We'll stop supporting this
browser soon". Yeah as if they ever supported it to begin with,
but if that means that even browsing soon won't work at all without
Javascript, then I'll have to look into some of the dedicated Youtube
browsers that exist for some reason. Though at first they'll probably
all get broken too after the website changes.

All of the videos that I ever watch from the internet get permanently
archived for viewing on my TV. I like to imagine that come the
apocalypse when internet infrastructure is permanently knocked out,
I'll have a unique archive of very obscure nerdy videos to watch
while other people fight over old scratched DVDs. :)

That's not the real reason of course, I just mainly watch things
likely to be worth watching again sometime later. Cheaper and easier
if you don't have to find and download them again. It's surprising
how much stuff does seem to disappear from Youtube as well.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>

> Seeking forwards works too

Actually, not really.

[RS Wood]

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> writes:

> All of the videos that I ever watch from the internet get permanently
> archived for viewing on my TV. I like to imagine that come the
> apocalypse when internet infrastructure is permanently knocked out,
> I'll have a unique archive of very obscure nerdy videos to watch
> while other people fight over old scratched DVDs. :)
>
> That's not the real reason of course, I just mainly watch things
> likely to be worth watching again sometime later. Cheaper and easier
> if you don't have to find and download them again. It's surprising
> how much stuff does seem to disappear from Youtube as well.

Smart thinking. One of these days a new accountant/manager will show
up, decide youtube needs better monetization, and all the obscure, cool,
niche stuff will be discarded in favor of the latest popculture stuff.
Goodbye DEC and VAX restoration videos, hello some Kardashian inanity.

Save 'em while you got 'em. Lord knows they're not worth much money,
but to the fans they're irreplaceable.

[Stormy]

On Mon, 4 May 2020 08:48:09 +0000 (UTC)
Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

> The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 05/01/2020 10:00 PM, Rich wrote:
> >> The Real Bev <bashl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> BUT somehow I can no longer see a lot of videos with even older versions
> >>> of FF that used to work; easier to just use Chrome and feel dirty.
> >>
> >> If by "videos" you mean youtube and/or the other video websites, then
> >> youtube-dl (downloads from way more than just youtube) solves that
> >> problem.
> >
> > No. Facebook, and various news sites. It's bad enough downloading .pdf
> > files before I can see them (and forgetting to delete them and then
> > having to look at them again to figure out whether or not I should save
> > or delete them....), much less having to do that with huge video files.
> > Easier to just copy the URL to chrome.
>
> Personally I don't agree at all (though I also don't watch videos on
> Facebook or news sites). But nevertheless I couldn't resist seeing if
> you could pipe the output of youtube-dl to a player to have it work
> like playing a video in browser. Sure enough this works:
> youtube-dl -q -o - [vid URL] | mplayer -
>
> Seeking forwards works too, though not backwards (presumably there
> would be ways and means to configure some players to allow for that
> too).
>

Try simply "mpv [url]" (whatever the URL to the video is). I believe mpv uses youtube-dl automatically to play it this way, so there is no need for piping. This also works for twitch and other sites supported by youtube-dl.

> A little jerky for me, but my internet isn't really fast enough for
> video streaming at Youtube's current minimum quality setting
> ("-f 18" in youtube-dl).
>
> > Youtube works fine.
>
> I can't even stand the Youtube website for browsing videos. It's
> vastly better in Dillo compared to Firefox, but for a long time
> now there's been a note warning that "We'll stop supporting this
> browser soon". Yeah as if they ever supported it to begin with,
> but if that means that even browsing soon won't work at all without
> Javascript, then I'll have to look into some of the dedicated Youtube
> browsers that exist for some reason. Though at first they'll probably
> all get broken too after the website changes.

I'd recommend using a site like invidio.us to browse through youtube videos without JS. It basically takes the video stream from google's servers and presents it to you in a nice, no-nonsense website.

If you don't mind not being able to see thumbnails (Goodness knows I'm sick of seeing surpised-faced moron techtuber thumbnails) than Lynx can search through invidio.us and you can just plug the desired URL into mpv.

[Johann Klammer]

On 04/22/2020 04:51 AM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> [WARNING: Rant Ahead]
>
> Last year Ebay started forcing me through a Google capcha every time
> I log in (actually at first it was _twice_, before and after the
> password entry form - as well as when trying to log out sometimes!?),
> as well as every time before payment with PayPal.

>
> Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
> when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
> busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...
>

> I emailed a complaint to Ebay about them, but just got a reply to say
> that my email had been detected as spam by some M$ spam filter and
> refused. Even though it's the same email address that my Ebay address
> is registered with.
>
> Since then PayPal now demands a capcha on every log-in too (though
> at least only once, and just an old-fashioned wonky letters one). So
> to buy something on Ebay I have to log in, do the capcha, select to
> buy the item, select to pay, do another capcha for Ebay, do a capcha
> for PayPal, tell them for the 1,000th time that I DO NOT want to link
> my PayPal account to Ebay, then finally get the order completed.**
>
> Not to mention I always seem to be getting cheated on postage costs
> that are more than advertised lately. Maybe that's just the virus,
> but someone (or some website) honest would stick by the advertised
> price rather than try to extort me after agreeing to buy.
>
> Then there's Aliexpress and Alibaba that often forces you to enter
> a code from a confirmation email just to log in now. Also Aliexpress
> doesn't even seem to let you browse for long before demanding that
> you log in to continue.
>
> It's happening with the latest Firefox ESR release (even a fresh
> install where I hadn't dug into about:config yet), so it's not due
> to me using a weird browser. I have NoScript (which Google has to
> be let through every time I log in to Ebay now), but turning it off
> doesn't stop them. Surely everyone is being driven nuts by this, but
> after months they're still doing it!
>
> * How's an Aussie even expected to know what an American fire hydrant
> looks like when the ones over here live on fire trucks and only get
> inserted ("shipped" is the actual term) into the outlets next to
> the road when something is burning down nearby?
>
> Also, strangely, ebay.com (not the .com.au Australian version) uses
> a different 3rd party capcha provider instead of Google.
>
> ** Ebay are apparantly planning to start handling payments themselves
> at the seller's side in place of PayPal soon, allowing more payment
> platforms to be supported besides PayPal.
> https://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/managed-payments
>


Heh. Lucky you. All I ever get is their 'Your mobile device is not supported. download some app.' screen
(on a PC with an iceweasel=old version of firefox)

But there's other platforms you know.. amazon, alibaba..

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Johann Klammer <klam...@nospam.a1.net> wrote:
>
> Heh. Lucky you. All I ever get is their 'Your mobile device is not
> supported. download some app.' screen (on a PC with an
> iceweasel=old version of firefox)

If I really had my way then I'd be able to use Dillo.

> But there's other platforms you know.. amazon,

Since they appeared in Australia I've been checking occasionally
whether they're any competition for things that I'm looking for.
So far the results have always been laughably off the mark.

Plus most of the stuff I look for on Ebay is second-hand anyway.
The fact that they're so successful seems like evidence of how out
of touch I am with normal consumers.

> alibaba..

I can complain all day about them and their more Ebay-like Aliexpress
website as well. Already did a little bit in the first post.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> [WARNING: Rant Ahead]
>
> Last year Ebay started forcing me through a Google capcha every time
> I log in (actually at first it was _twice_, before and after the
> password entry form - as well as when trying to log out sometimes!?),
> as well as every time before payment with PayPal.
>
> Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
> when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
> busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...

It turns out Google/users don't know what a tractor looks like!
http://www.imagevenue.com/ME121WVP

Cadbury "owns" their colour purple. It looks like Google is helping
John Deer to build a similar case for Green.

In return for messing about to get that pic (and so presumably
looking suspicious), Ebay made me go through two more Captchas
and do and Email confirmation on top.

[Spiros Bousbouras]

On Thu, 21 May 2020 07:15:30 +0000 (UTC)

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> > [WARNING: Rant Ahead]
> >
> > Last year Ebay started forcing me through a Google capcha every time
> > I log in (actually at first it was _twice_, before and after the
> > password entry form - as well as when trying to log out sometimes!?),
> > as well as every time before payment with PayPal.
> >
> > Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
> > when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
> > busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...
>
> It turns out Google/users don't know what a tractor looks like!
> http://www.imagevenue.com/ME121WVP

I'm not sure I understand. If we number the images as

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

it seems that you only chose 8 and the system was happy. Is that what you're
saying ? Anyway , I see tractors in 1 and 8 and I'm not sure about 3. One
thing which annoys me about such captchas is that I'm not sure how closely
I'm supposed to look. For example 9 seems to be a picture in the country.
Could there be a tractor there half hidden by the trees ? Am I supposed to
examine each picture with a magnifying glass before making my choices ? And
what about pictures which have several vehicles at a distance like 5 and 6 ?

> Cadbury "owns" their colour purple. It looks like Google is helping
> John Deer to build a similar case for Green.
>
> In return for messing about to get that pic (and so presumably
> looking suspicious), Ebay made me go through two more Captchas
> and do and Email confirmation on top.

Serves you right for whinging on usenet instead of appreciating how all those
big companies constantly work hard to keep us safe from scammers ;-)

--
vlaho.ninja/prog

[Eli the Bearded]

In comp.misc, Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> It turns out Google/users don't know what a tractor looks like!
> http://www.imagevenue.com/ME121WVP

"select all images with tractors", with nine images, two with green
lift trucks and one with a green tractor.

This is an interesting moral dilemma. Does one answer correctly,
and then hit reload button if Google disagrees, or does one lie to
further break Google's image classifier.

I had a similar case with "identify crosswalks" recently. Not all sets
of parallel stripes are crosswalks. I helped break the classifier.

> Cadbury "owns" their colour purple. It looks like Google is helping
> John Deer to build a similar case for Green.

John Deere already took that one to court. 2017 story:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/court-sides-with-john-deere-in-barring-farm-equipment-rivals-use-of-green-and-yellow-2017-10-17

The "ownership" of the color is in a very limited farm machinery
context, with yellow also needed, so lift trucks are in the clear
using it.

Elijah
------
UPS has trademarked "brown", too, but only for package delivery context

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Spiros Bousbouras <spi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 May 2020 07:15:30 +0000 (UTC)
> Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>> >
>> > Those Google capchas drive me nuts and waste some significant time
>> > when they want to send me in circles clicking on endless cars, bikes,
>> > busses, trees, stairs, traffic lights, crossings, fire hydrants*...
>>
>> It turns out Google/users don't know what a tractor looks like!
>> http://www.imagevenue.com/ME121WVP
>
> I'm not sure I understand. If we number the images as
>
> 1 2 3
> 4 5 6
> 7 8 9
>
> it seems that you only chose 8 and the system was happy. Is that what you're
> saying ?

No, the red text appeared telling me to keep going.

> Anyway , I see tractors in 1 and 8 and I'm not sure about 3. One
> thing which annoys me about such captchas is that I'm not sure how closely
> I'm supposed to look. For example 9 seems to be a picture in the country.
> Could there be a tractor there half hidden by the trees ? Am I supposed to
> examine each picture with a magnifying glass before making my choices ? And
> what about pictures which have several vehicles at a distance like 5 and 6 ?

8 is the only one that you'd see ploughing a paddock, the others are
just machines painted green (1 is a big forklift / small
front-end-loader or "lift truck", 2 is a cherry picker AKA boom
lift).

I'm also always either being too pedantic about these pics, or not
pedantic enough. I don't think there's a balance to be found.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
> In comp.misc, Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Cadbury "owns" their colour purple. It looks like Google is helping
>> John Deer to build a similar case for Green.
>
> John Deere already took that one to court. 2017 story:
>
> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/court-sides-with-john-deere-in-barring-farm-equipment-rivals-use-of-green-and-yellow-2017-10-17

Guess I'm not surprised.

> The "ownership" of the color is in a very limited farm machinery
> context, with yellow also needed, so lift trucks are in the clear
> using it.

Except that if Captchas are a measure of common public definitions,
then every big machine painted green seems to be a tractor, and
therefore farm machinery.

[Scott Alfter]

In article <ra59qi$1971$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>It turns out Google/users don't know what a tractor looks like!
>http://www.imagevenue.com/ME121WVP

I don't see the problem there. The machine at the upper right is not a
tractor; it's a cherry picker. The machine at the upper left probably isn't
a tractor either, but not enough of it is visible to tell for sure. The
profile of what we can see hints at it possibly being a forklift.

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

[Scott Alfter]

In article <7TozG.192721$Oi4.1...@fx43.iad>,

Scott Alfter <sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us> wrote:
>In article <ra59qi$1971$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,
>Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>>It turns out Google/users don't know what a tractor looks like!
>>http://www.imagevenue.com/ME121WVP
>
>I don't see the problem there. The machine at the upper right is not a
>tractor; it's a cherry picker. The machine at the upper left probably isn't
>a tractor either, but not enough of it is visible to tell for sure. The
>profile of what we can see hints at it possibly being a forklift.

...and on a second look, I see what you were getting at: you gave it the
correct answer, and it rejected it. Never mind. :|