Cap­t­chas: smart pro­tec­tion for your

on­line forms

It’s a familiar routine. You just want to fill out the online form. Instead, you’re suddenly faced with having to decode fuzzy letters or solve an endless series of picture puzzles. Just to prove you aren’t a robot. Frustrating, to say the least. Nevertheless, these little road bumps – called ‘captchas’ – are essential to stop forms from being misused. And now the good news: there are user-friendly versions! In this post, we show you how modern captcha systems can securely protect your form without driving your users around the bend.

Captchas – spam protection for online forms
Captchas are like digital bouncers for your online forms: they make sure that access is granted only to real people, rather than bots. This offers many crucial benefits.

1. Protection against spam: You prevent automated programs from filling out your forms with unwanted content.
2. Data protection: You protect confidential information that is sent via your forms.
3. Preventing data theft: You make it more difficult for automated systems to collect information from your websites.
4. Lightening the load on your servers: You reduce the volume of unnecessary requests, which helps to keep your systems stable.
   

Care is needed, however: your users won’t thank you if your captchas are too complicated. Studies have shown that cumbersome security mechanisms make it much more likely that people will give up on a form – a disaster for conversion-oriented websites!

How captchas have developed – an overview of modern solutions
As a technology, captchas have seen some key developments over the last few years. The earlier, hard-to-read characters have now been replaced with user-friendly alternatives:

1. Improved image matching tasks: Clear and clearly understandable tasks instead of jumbled-up characters
2. Background checks: Captchas that work ‘under the hood’ and analyse user behaviour
3. Behaviour-based algorithms: Identifying bots by recognising unusual usage patterns
4. Accessible options: Audio captchas for people with visual impairments

Your captcha options in Formcentric
Formcentric gives you the option of using a wide range of modern captcha solutions – and none of them need any programming knowledge:

JCaptcha – the proven, industry-standard solution
Activated by default and ready to use in every form, JCaptcha offers reliable basic protection. The solution offers highly legible characters for humans but still makes life difficult for automated programs.

Friendly Captcha – the user-focused alternative
This user-friendly solution works mostly in the background and generally avoids forcing users to deal with visible security checkpoints.

reCAPTCHA – the versatile Google solution
This well-known Google variant offers various security levels and can also be seamlessly integrated into Formcentric.

Just around the corner: hCaptcha
hCaptcha will soon be available in Formcentric. This is another user-friendly option with a strong focus on security.

And, best of all: with just a few clicks, you can change your captcha provider across your entire workspace whenever you want to. When you make the change, all your forms will then use your selected security solution automatically. Find out more by reading our Help Centre article: “Changing my captcha provider.”

Some handy tips for making the most of your captchas:

1. Pick the variant that works best for you: Think about what kind of captcha is the best fit for your users and your security requirements.
2. Placement is everything: Put your captcha just before the form submission section, so that it doesn’t interrupt the completion process.
3. Keep your users informed: Add a short note about why you are using a captcha – your users will appreciate the heads-up.
4. Let you users give your feedback: Collect feedback on the captcha solution you’re using – and change it out if it’s not working.

Summary: good security doesn’t need to be at your users’ expense
Captchas are a very useful tool for protecting your online forms. By choosing one of the modern solutions now available, you’re not forced to accept trade-offs between security and user-friendliness. Formcentric offers you a choice of captcha options that are easy to integrate and which provide effective protection for your forms.

Try it out for yourself! Start using smart captcha solutions to secure your forms in Formcentric.

Register your free account and give your forms the protection they need