Your Captcha plugins are used to help prevent spam submissions of your forms such as registration, contact, login, forgotten password, forgotten Username.
Captcha is an acronym for: completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart.
Captcha | |
C |
Completely |
a |
automated |
p |
public |
t |
turing* test |
(to tell) |
|
c |
computers |
(and) |
|
h |
humans |
a |
apart |
* turing: The turing test is named after Alan Turing a computer scientist and founder of the Turing Test.
Captcha is a test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human.
Captcha software can help because it can block robot software from falsely submitting forms - although, like anything, some unscrupulous people endeavour to create programs that can cheat (or beat) captcha with varying degrees of success. Perhaps a bit like a lock picker.
Your basic installation of Joomla!® includes one Captcha plugin which leverages the ReCaptcha® service but you may install other plugins connecting to different Captcha systems if you desire.
Default state on:
- ReCaptcha
Note: ReCaptcha® is a the trademark of Google Inc. and is an independent product not associated with or endorsed by the Joomla!® Project. Complete instructions are available if you edit the ReCaptcha plugin in the Plugin Manager.
In order to use ReCaptcha® you will likely need to create an account with Google and obtain two domain specific "keys" - one Site key, and one Private (secret) Key and enter these keys in their respective place within your ReCaptcha plugin in order for captcha-Recaptcha to work.
There are various "forms" of Captcha that you can choose from. One example, as we use here on usingjoomla.com is shown in the images below. Your user clicks the "I'm not a robot" checkbox (first image below) a popover then appears (second image) and your user then answers the puzzle.
The puzzle will be different in so far as there are about a dozen different items you are asked to select, for example: Pedestrian crossings, fire hydrants, buses, bicycles, palm trees ,shops, motorcycles.
The Google reCatpcha version 2 gives you some choices:
- Size
- Normal
- Compact
- Theme
- Light
- Dark
Within your Joomla captcha / Recaptcha plugin you can choose between Normal or Compact plus between Light or Dark
Below are the images of Normal Dark as used here on usingjoomla.com
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Size: Compact Theme: Dark |
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Size: Compact Theme: Light |
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Size: Normal Theme: Dark |
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Size: Normal Theme: Light |
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In Joomla version 3.10.x Plugins are managed via the administrator area menu 'Extensions' tab.
In Joomla version 3.10.x Plugins are managed via the Administrator area 'Extensions' tab and then selecting the 'Plugins' tab.
In Joomla version 3.10.x Plugins are managed via the Administrator area 'Extensions' tab and then selecting the 'Plugins' tab.