Use non-obstructive forms of protection and authentication

May 11, 2020

There are many ways to protect your website from malicious activity. Many sites use forms of network checking to ensure there’s not any dangerous activity coming their way. Another common form of control is Captchas, with Google’s ReCaptcha being particularly popular.

Especially if you run a larger site, it’s understandable you’d want protection. But make sure you only use methods that don’t hinder the user experience. I’ve had protectors block me out of websites for no reason (presumably they didn’t like my VPN), or Captchas that simply wouldn’t be accepted. You want to avoid this, as it leads to frustrated users and loss of traffic.

From personal experience. I switched from EmailOctopus, because every single time they showed their Cloudflare Captcha, making me select random cars and bicycles all the time. I've got better things to do!

Only use trusted and established methods of protection, and try them out to make sure they work as intended.