Path: csiph.com!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!reader5.news.weretis.net!news.solani.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richmond Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: [LINK] Google begins requiring JavaScript for Google Search Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2025 21:02:54 +0000 Organization: Frantic Message-ID: <86bjvsynpd.fsf@example.com> References: <678ebba8@news.ausics.net> <87y0z45m1l.fsf@example.com> <67900a10@news.ausics.net> <9H4-xv0RRHnQ3Eof@violet.siamics.net> <86frl4yo0g.fsf@example.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: solani.org; logging-data="616764"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@news.solani.org" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/28.2 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:A/eV/Qe6EKOmngkr8xEk2Cq5McY= sha1:pjUp2QZsicm0KN0IC7i7aoedQiE= X-User-ID: eJwFwQkBwDAIA0BLywi0yOH1L6F3KgarQ1Ojri7HwwWDOhP8IdLh7f4RY54keHUj9WZl5z4XLBFk Xref: csiph.com comp.misc:26408 Richmond writes: > Sylvia Else writes: > >> On 24-Jan-25 3:33 am, Ivan Shmakov wrote: >>>>>>>> On 2025-01-21, Computer Nerd Kev wrote: >>>>>>>> Salvador Mirzo wrote: >>>>>>>> Sylvia Else writes: >>> >>> How is this going to '"better protect" Google Search against >>> >>> malicious activity, such as bots and spam'? >>> >> I believe the idea is that if the robot doesn't speak >>> Javascript, >>> >> it's an easy denial by the web server. And making bots speak >>> >> Javascript is one step up. And with Javascript they can likely >>> >> monitor things like mouse movement to detect whether the user >>> >> is a human or a robot. >>> > Which of course is one of Google's main businesses, with their >>> > Captchas that don't always need to show a puzzle in order to >>> > validate users as humans. So if anyone _thinks_ they can achieve >>> > that, you'd expect it to be Google. >>> And they don't even need it to be perfect: a robot that >>> implements the relevant browser APIs, while possible, /will/ >>> be costlier to run and maintain, thus reducing the profits of >>> the robot operators, in turn disincentivizing them. >>> Even if that doesn't solve the problem altogether, it will >>> still likely result in less load for their servers. >>> Not that it invalidates any other reasons they might want to >>> require Javascript / APIs regardless, mind you. >> >> A bot only needs to be able to send the correct data to the >> server. how difficult that is obviously depends on the details of the >> Javascript's interactions with the server, but frequent interactions >> themselves create a higher server load. >> >> One example would be the mouse-movement based human detection. If the >> script just sends a yes/no message to the server, then the bot doesn't >> need to try to emulate a human at all. >> >> Sylvia. > > That's useful. I set my Seamonkey user agent string to a Lynx user agent > string and now google search works without javascript. Sorry, I replied to the wrong article.