Google has developed a new recognition system to let humans and not automated ‘bots’ access websites with a single click, replacing the hated “captchas” that have plagued the web for over a decade.

Somewhat fittingly called the “No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA”, the system alows humans to effortlessly click a single tick box to prove they are flesh and blood, rather than try to decipher some annoyingly distorted text. But Google has designed it in such a way that spam bots are still fooled by the system and get stuck on the page, whereas people can get past it.

CAPTCHAs have existed for almost as long as the Internet itself. Webmasters use them to protect their sites from spammers by weeding out the robots whose job it is to do precisely that. CAPTCHAs have done their purpose, but they’re incredibly annoying for people like you and me, and more than that, they’re no longer as effective as they once were.

“CAPTCHAs have long relied on the inability of robots to solve distorted text,” explains Google’s Vinay Shet, product manager of reCAPTCHA, in a blog post. “However, our research recently showed that today’s artificial intelligence technology can solve even the most difficult variant of distorted text at 99.8 per cent accuracy. Thus distorted text, on its own, is no longer a dependable test.”

To solve this problem Google has decided to use what it calls a “risk analysis” engine to ascertain if it thinks you’re a robot or not. If it decides the chance is low, all users need to do is click the reCAPTCHA once and they’ll be allowed through. If it thinks you might be a robot then there will be harder test, though this will probably happen less often.

The reCAPTCHA is smart. It carefully examines every clue a user provides, checking your IP address and cookies stored on your computer to ensure you’re the same person it’s identified elsewhere on the web. Even the way in which the mouse cursor moves is examined to decide if you’re human.

Besides this Google has come up with an alternative system for mobile users, in a nod to the fact that many more of us use tablets and smartphones these days. For mobile devices, Google’s reCAPTCHA presents us with image problems to solve, such as clicking on various images to match a clue it provides, such as kittens.

CAPTCHAs will still be around when necessary – for example if you browse the web in private mode or use Tor, Google will want to double check – but they’re set to become much less common than they are now. We’ll also see more pictures of cute, fluffy kittens, which can only be a good thing :)

Main image credit: Vaedri1 via photopin cc