Anyone else getting captchas when they do a Google search?

In the past couple of days when I’ve tried to use Google, I keep getting sent to a captcha - I need to click “I’m not a robot”, and then fill in a series of those annoying “check the traffic light” boxes. Not fast either - there are several of them to go through.

Google tells me “Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it’s really you sending the requests, and not a robot.” Um … any ideas what’s going on? I’m not aware of having changed anything with my computer (MacOS 10.14.6, Safari), and this is quickly getting very annoying.

Oh, looks like this is happening on my phone too - so this’d be a home network thing? Help?

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I get those occasionally, but often enough that it is super annoying. I’ve assumed it is related to my VPN. Are you using one?

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All the time, and it’s annoyed me so much I’ve started using crappy Bing.

I despite captchas. Especially “check the store front” when it’s impossible to tell if something is a storefront or an apartment or something else.

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Yep, getting them all the time for a few days already. Happening both on my home wifi and mobile network too. Very annoying.

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Yup all the time since the past week.

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Never get them

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No, I’m not, but when I search online I do see the solution of “Turn off your VPN.”

The cats have been especially good at turning off the wifi router lately. I wonder if the router repeatedly going on and off is a factor. It is password protected, so there shouldn’t be anyone else using it. Argh, maybe I should change the password, but then I’d have to do that for so many other devices!

So @tarvi and @DesiInTaipei, for you this just started recently as well? What about for others? For me the first time I noticed it was yesterday: right now I’m at the stage of trying to figure out if this is a Taiwan thing, and there’s nothing I can do, or if it’s a my-apartment thing, and there’s some trouble-shooting I should try.

Damn, I may even start navigating the internet with bookmarks again.

Yes it started about recently. There’s nothing much you can do. As google explains it depends on your outward facing IP address.

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It doesn’t seem to be related to your apartment or specific local network. A couple of my friends are reporting the same issue. Not sure exactly when it started but I think sometime late last week, maybe Friday?

I use VPN from time to time. I just tested again. It does not happen when I use Google on VPN… either on a foreign IP or Taiwan IP. It only happens when I am using my original IP. So I guess it might be related to specific Internet providers, or wide IP ranges (but not all in Taiwan), maybe?

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Not for me, neither on PC nor phone :crossed_fingers:t3:

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Assuming this isn’t Google messing up I can think of multiple reasons why this might be happening. It could be adblockers, VPNs, browsers or viruses.

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Happens for me on my dormitory wifi (started late last week), not at the office or on my phone. Since I’m sharing wifi with students I thought they were up to some shenanigans that Google had flagged, but it seems to be pretty widespread…

edit: now I’ve seen it twice on my work computer as well…

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Yeah, based on posts above I’m wondering if one of the Taiwanese internet providers (?) is being blacklisted. But I’m not entirely sure how to figure out what provider I’m using! Er, China Telecom?

Just did a quick check: I get the captcha on my iPhone when using my home wifi; I do NOT get it with a 4G connection.

None of these cause the issue. The issue is caused by irregular traffic seen at google end from an entire IP group. It could be as explained by them, caused by not running web scraping mining algos, weird requests hitting google causing it to classify those requests as robotic.

VPNs change your IP address, so they can and often do cause the issue. I agree that the other things listed above should not be a factor, though.

Sure. But I’ve used VPNs 1000s of times and it doesn’t trigger this check.

It does for me, and apparently for many others. Either you’ve been lucky or you have a really good (or unpopular? Ha) VPN.

Haha maybe. I’ve used standard ones. Ultra, proton, tunnel bear. Never had any check triggered simply due to the use of VPNs

Viruses could generate weird traffic sue to a variety of reasons for one. You might be acting as be a VPN node without even knowing it or your device could be used for DDOS attacks.

Browsers might have old ass plugins that are not supported or using incognito mode can also make make the Captchas pop up.

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Good points. I stand corrected.

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