Does the forum not like us using TOR or privacy applications?

[TheCoinGrabber]

I noticed that the forum is, I don't know how to call it, wonky whenever I use my browser's TOR feature. I'm using Brave BTW. For starter, I get asked a captcha when using the private window with TOR. I never have to do that with the regular window. This captcha also seem to purposely make me repeat it over and over again, even failing me when I answered correctly. Needless to say, it takes quite a while just to login to the forum. I've had sites that require image captchas that I've opened in the regular window and those captchas work normally and I've NEVER had to repeat any.

And then this one which I've encountered for the first time - "Too fast/Overloaded (503)" error message. I've made a post in the Pol section about Ukraine, watched like 20 minutes of news about what's going on there, then when I came back to post on the Economics section regarding that topic, I got that error message. Took me like 3 times refreshing the page before it allowed me to post my comment.

I've only experienced TOR through Brave and haven't used it in other ways and the only thing I knew about it is it's all about privacy but why do I have the feeling that this forum does not like it?

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[PX-Z]

I bet its because of cloudflare interrupting your access.

To get faster login you can use this url^[1] to bypass the captcha including in tor.
About the 503 code error, as the description said, it maybe because lots of users accessing the page at the same time, refreshing it will resolve the error.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/captcha_code.php

[ABCbits]

For starter, I get asked a captcha when using the private window with TOR. I never have to do that with the regular window. This captcha also seem to purposely make me repeat it over and over again, even failing me when I answered correctly. Needless to say, it takes quite a while just to login to the forum. I've had sites that require image captchas that I've opened in the regular window and those captchas work normally and I've NEVER had to repeat any.

If you're referring to reCAPTCHA, it's known hostile against Tor user. All you could do is following @PX-Z to avoid reCAPTCHA.

I've only experienced TOR through Brave and haven't used it in other ways and the only thing I knew about it is it's all about privacy but why do I have the feeling that this forum does not like it?

Read this warning.

Can I use Tor with a browser besides Tor Browser?

We strongly recommend against using Tor in any browser other than Tor Browser. Using Tor in another browser can leave you vulnerable without the privacy protections of Tor Browser.

[Welsh]

It isn't the forum per say, it's the service that's being used as a captcha service, so Google's  reCAPTCHA. I do believe theymos has expressed his hesitancy to use  reCAPTCHA before, but explained that it's probably the only one that's good out of the options, which I'd probably agree with, and because of that it's unlikely to change anytime soon unless a better alternative pops up. Though, most alternatives at the moment just do text captcha's which aren't very effective against protection of automated sign ups.

The too fast error code your getting, you'll come across that even without Tor occasionally. It depends on what your doing when you get that error. If your submitting a lot of requests, your more likely to run into it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The solution for the captcha has been described above.

In terms of the too fast message, I believe this is IP based, so you can trigger it on Tor if other people on the forum are using the same exit node and also sending requests for new pages or whatever to the forum at the same time you are. Either wait a few seconds and refresh the page, or if a recurrent problem, then use a new Tor circuit.

Using Tor via Brave is bad for your privacy. In fact, using Brave at all is bad for your privacy.

[Findingnemo]

Brave is not a privacy browser anymore if I am not wrong, you can use the TOR browser itself and yes the pain is there when login via TOR but there is a way to bypass captcha code which you can save it once you logged in for later purpose.

And about the error while using TOR sometimes it happens even I like to have privacy but it doesn't load too fast so I use the normal browser to browse even bitcointalk.

[taufik123]

Brave Browser is just a custom browser with some updates and Brave collects user data like search history, cache & cookies like most browsers. for people who maintain their privacy of course it will be very disturbing.
Brave browser is also built on the chromium platform,
Better to use TOR without any other browser.

privacy becomes very important to some people who are in "Paranoid" quotes, but also becomes unimportant to those who do not care about the security of their privacy on the internet.

[dkbit98]

I noticed that the forum is, I don't know how to call it, wonky whenever I use my browser's TOR feature. I'm using Brave BTW.

Don't use Brave as Tor browser replacement, and captcha issues are more or less expected if you are browsing forum while logged in.
This can be mitigate with captcha code when you want to post something, and for regular browsing you don't need to log in.
Alternative option is to use separate browser (Librewolf is a good firefox fork) with vpn connection and use it only for bitcointalk forum.

[TheCoinGrabber]

I bet its because of cloudflare interrupting your access.

To get faster login you can use this url^[1] to bypass the captcha including in tor.
About the 503 code error, as the description said, it maybe because lots of users accessing the page at the same time, refreshing it will resolve the error.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/captcha_code.php

TY, never knew this existed. I'll try it the next time I log-in to see if it would get rid of it.

Brave Browser is just a custom browser with some updates and Brave collects user data like search history, cache & cookies like most browsers. for people who maintain their privacy of course it will be very disturbing.
Brave browser is also built on the chromium platform,
Better to use TOR without any other browser.

Wasn't really initially for privacy reasons. I just got pissed off at Google for banning my 10+ y/o Youtube channel last year so decided to use a different browser. Since I was already using Brave for background music play for Android I ended up using it on my laptop as well. I'll look into the TOR itself since I'm not really using Brave's crypto feature that much (and I've stopped receiving ads to open anyway).

[The Cryptovator]

This isn't a forum issue I think. Because once I visit some other site using Tor where need to fill captcha face same issue. So the problem with the privacy browsers is not to the forum. You may ignore the captcha as described above. I use special link for Tor to avoid annoying captcha. Just secure your link with captcha code to avoid brute force your password.

[Mometaskers]

Also looked this up now and glad to know there's a way around it. It has become very annoying already where the solutions are all obviously correct but it takes multiple rounds to login. Funny enough there seem to be days where it just goes through fine without a hitch.

This isn't a forum issue I think. Because once I visit some other site using Tor where need to fill captcha face same issue. So the problem with the privacy browsers is not to the forum. You may ignore the captcha as described above. I use special link for Tor to avoid annoying captcha. Just secure your link with captcha code to avoid brute force your password.

Agreed. The captcha isn't this horrible in "normal" browsers like Chrome. Sometimes it don't even ask for a captcha though that made me uneasy so I looked up Tor and then got the opposite response. 

[decodx]

The captcha isn't this horrible in "normal" browsers like Chrome. Sometimes it don't even ask for a captcha though that made me uneasy so I looked up Tor and then got the opposite response. 

There is nothing wrong with a website not showing a captcha every time you visit it. It just means that Google's reCAPTCHA is recognizing you as a human, so there is no need for any further verification. The captcha system uses algorithms to recognize human-like behavior in certain circumstances.

[Welsh]

There is nothing wrong with a website not showing a captcha every time you visit it. It just means that Google's reCAPTCHA is recognizing you as a human, so there is no need for any further verification. The captcha system uses algorithms to recognize human-like behavior in certain circumstances.

The main contributing factor being somewhat similar to how the forum implements points of evil. Google or whatever Captcha provider basically assigns how problematic a certain IP has been, and based on that presents the captchas. Tor being particularly problematic for them, tends to result in some frustrating captchas that tend to go on forever. So, on a home / virgin IP you won't be presented with them, whereas the more people that use a IP basically increases the chances of triggering the captcha.

To be honest, if you aren't using a connection which has proven problematic it would be rather tedious. Obviously, with Tor or VPNs which has a lot of users you expect it. However, I'm not a fan of websites requiring a captcha regardless of your "points of evil" assigned to your IP.

[LoyceV]

Google or whatever Captcha provider basically assigns how problematic a certain IP has been, and based on that presents the captchas. Tor being particularly problematic for them, tends to result in some frustrating captchas that tend to go on forever.

I've seen other captchas lately, but didn't look at the name. They work much better, also on Tor.
The main problem with Google captcha is that it indeed takes forever. I've had cases in which I spend 5 whole minutes clicking, after which it times out or tells me it fails. It seems to load images a slow as possible, which I assume is meant to do all kind of tracking. A robot doesn't care, for humans it's terrible.

[Welsh]

I've seen other captchas lately, but didn't look at the name. They work much better, also on Tor.
The main problem with Google captcha is that it indeed takes forever. I've had cases in which I spend 5 whole minutes clicking, after which it times out or tells me it fails. It seems to load images a slow as possible, which I assume is meant to do all kind of tracking. A robot doesn't care, for humans it's terrible.

Yeah, there are some alternatives that work better for users, I don't know what their effectiveness is for the website owners though. Bot protection over the last few years has been dominated by Google's captcha system. So, while it might be objectively better for users, it might not catch or prevent as many bots as Google's. Obviously, the trade off for that is a terrible user experience for legitimate users using a shared connection.

 The only option with the Google one is to request a new identity from Tor, but even then that can be hit or miss, due to most connections/identities falling to the same fate.

[Welsh]

Your browser and whether you login to google also contribute decently. In my experience, i face decently less reCAPTCHA when i use Chromium based browser and login to google account rather than Firefox with "Strict" option.

Right, can't say I've noticed it with reCAPTCHA or any other captcha for that matter, however I know that the privacy settings on Firefox can be fairly invasive. I've broken a few sites with the strict option on Firefox, I do believe it does warn you that can be the case though. I've had problems with cookies with the strict option, which logs you out of a website even when you don't want it too. Although, no problems with captcha systems on my end with it, at least that I've noticed.

I assume that Google is attempting some sort of browser fingerprinting, as there'll be configurations which are more likely to be bots, than humans. So, I expect that browser does play a part, and having strict enabled might just be a little more restrictive than that of Chromium's features. I can't say for definite since I don't run Chromium.

Luckily the forum seems to work without any issues with strict privacy enabled on Firefox.

[Lucius]

I've broken a few sites with the strict option on Firefox,
...
Luckily the forum seems to work without any issues with strict privacy enabled on Firefox.

Maybe the question is a bit off topic, but when you mention Firefox I noticed that over a long period (at least 1 year) I have problems with some sites that Firefox and Opera refuse to open and give me the error :

Code:

SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

The page you are trying to view cannot be displayed, as it is not possible to verify the authenticity of the received data.

On the other hand, all those pages work without any problems in Tor. I thought there was a problem with my security software blocking individual sites, but wouldn't that be the case with Tor? A specific example -> https://bitcoinelectrum.com/

[Pmalek]

Maybe the question is a bit off topic, but when you mention Firefox I noticed that over a long period (at least 1 year) I have problems with some sites that Firefox and Opera refuse to open and give me the error...

I remember someone was talking about this a while ago, I guess that was you. I am sure you have googled the error, but did none of the suggestions help at all?

From Mozilla support:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1222739

Other things you can try:
https://www.thesslstore.com/blog/ssl_error_rx_record_too_long/
https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/ssl_error_rx_record_too_long/

[PrimeNumber7]

However, I'm not a fan of websites requiring a captcha regardless of your "points of evil" assigned to your IP.

captcha's are ultimately a way to reduce costs associated with running a service. If we didn't require captcha's to create accounts and login, the forum would need to invest more resources in anti-spam moderation, and in recovering hacked accounts.

Both of the above would need to be handled via automation without captchas because the volume would be so high, however, I understand that theymos is generally against using automation for most moderation decisions and for account recoveries. So it is a little bit more difficult to use TOR in exchange for being able to ensure that human judgment is used for most moderation decisions, and for account recoveries.

[Welsh]

captcha's are ultimately a way to reduce costs associated with running a service. If we didn't require captcha's to create accounts and login, the forum would need to invest more resources in anti-spam moderation, and in recovering hacked accounts.

Yeah, I understand the need for them, I just wish there was a better way to go about it. I'm generally not a fan of punishing normal users, because of the minority. Although, it might be the case that spammers/malicious users might just be the majority of the users registering these days.

I wouldn't change it currently, I'm just hoping someone can come up with a better way than the captcha's. I'm particularly not a fan of Google's service, since I try to avoid Google as much as possible, however I'll also admit they're simply the best, and no other service really compares with them.

So, don't get me wrong. I understand they're a requirement for any website these days, I'm just not a fan of the systems, and ideally I'd like to see some new ideas thrown around, that could ultimately end up replacing them or potentially just a competitor to Google's.

I've personally had to implement captcha's for the benefit of myself, and begrudgingly that was also Google's reCAPTCHA, since at the time of me comparing, and testing a few it was leaps, and bounds better. Ultimately, that's why we've become so reliant on Google services though, they are generally better than the competitors.