What Is Captcha?

Do you people really like going for a test? Particularly when that test is going to decide, whether you can proceed further or not. Obviously, your answer will be NO. However, there are some tests which are quite necessary. Today we are going to discuss one such test, i.e. Captcha. All of you have come across many such captchas and often find them quite annoying. You always try to look for a way so that you can avoid that captcha.

You often think that why the website has placed such an annoying captcha or why can’t you just skip this process of filling captcha. All these sorts of questions surely have arisen in your mind. In this article, we will try to answers all such question. Before proceeding further, first, we have to learn that what exactly captcha is.

Captcha stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. In simple words, it is a challenge or a test to distinguish between humans and automated computer programs. It is a simple test that only a human can pass successfully. If a computer tries to take this challenge, then it will surely fail. All of you have often come across some garbled letters, simple mathematical calculation or some distorted texts while filling some online forms. These garbled or distorted letters are captchas, which ensures that the response is generated only by humans and not by a computer.

Also Read: What Is CAPTCHA Verification And Its Advantages

What is the Need of Captcha?

Many a time you have surely found these captchas annoying and thought that why they are implanted. However, in this world of hackers and spammers use of captcha is quite important. The technology has now become so advance that a machine can almost do all sorts of tasks that a human can do. Also with the growth of Artificial Intelligence machines are now made so advance that they can operate without user intervention. Therefore, to block spammers from spamming any site or generating fake traffic these captchas are used.

Let’s take a common example, when we try to make an account on Gmail or Yahoo, there at the end of the form we find captcha, with an image of some garbled letters. Our account will only be going to create if we fill that captcha correctly. Generally, these captchas are so simple that they can be easily filled by a human. However, it is nearly impossible that a computer can fill that captcha correctly. In this way, captcha prevents spammers from creating fake accounts. A website can be overloaded by creating fake accounts if not prevented by captcha. If a captcha is not used, then the hackers will create several fake accounts over Gmail/Yahoo mail and then spam anybody with these fake accounts. These and many other such problems raise the need of captcha.

Also Read: How To Solve ‘Couldn’t Sign You In’ Google Accounts Error?

How can be Captcha useful for Us:

Captcha plays its role in almost every field, whether to prevent a spammer from creating fake accounts or to keep online polls or opinions authentic. Some common uses of Captcha are listed below:

1. Protecting fake registration on websites which offers free e-mail service. Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail these are some common e-mail service providers, which provide free e-mail services. A captcha is provided at the end of the registration form which prevents hackers to create fake accounts in bulk.
2. The credibility of online polls can be maintained by using captcha as if captcha is not used that fake polls can be easily generated.
3. Preventing Spam Comments in Blogs is also one of the effective use of captcha. By using a captcha, only humans can comment on a blog.
4. Captchas can also be used to prevent dictionary attacks in password systems.

Now from today onwards whenever you think that these captchas are annoying and you become frustrated while distinguishing 0 from O, then just remember that these captchas are made only for our security.