A reader emailed me saying that he had been prevented from entering a comment by my captcha plugin (Simple Cloudflare Turnstile); he got a message saying he had to verify he was human but was not given a problem to solve. Reading the online forum for this plugin on WordPress.org reveals that others have had this problem, too. Then today I got shut out of logging in by exactly the same problem. That did it. I logged in from another computer, and disabled the Simple Cloudflare Turnstile plugin.
Most captcha plugins for Wordress use Google’s recaptcha service. I refuse to use Google products because of their evil practice of stealing user data. However, there are now WordPress captcha plugins using the hCaptcha service, which has a much better privacy policy: “Our systems are designed from the ground up to minimize data collection and retention while maintaining class-leading security. The best way to protect user data is not to store it at all.”
It’s too bad I had to do this. Simple Cloudflare Turnstile has a lot of potential — keeping bots at bay without making everyone solve a stupid captcha puzzle. But when it blocks me from logging into my own blog — well, that’s something I just can’t accept.
I apologize in advance for making you (and making myself) solve a stupid captcha puzzle.