I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha. I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like. IP address: 198.134.98.50 Time: 2026-02-05T20:03:35Z URL: https://www.google.com/ FIx it, eh? Regards, Bill Herrin
Am 05.02.2026 um 12:06:09 Uhr schrieb William Herrin via NANOG:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
I use 4get.ca (or other instances) in that case, works most of the time and proxies the stuff to the search engine. -- kind regards Marco Send unsolicited bulk mail to 1770289569muell@cartoonies.org
I searched using that URL and immediately got a page saying "IQ test has been enabled due to bot abuse on the network. Solving this IQ test will let you make 100 searches today. I will add an invite system to bypass this soon..." Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I guess that's what happens when I let my kids use Microsoft's toy OS on my network. -A On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 12:12 PM Marco Moock via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Am 05.02.2026 um 12:06:09 Uhr schrieb William Herrin via NANOG:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
I use 4get.ca (or other instances) in that case, works most of the time and proxies the stuff to the search engine.
-- kind regards Marco
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Am 05.02.2026 um 12:20:43 Uhr schrieb Aaron C. de Bruyn:
I searched using that URL and immediately got a page saying "IQ test has been enabled due to bot abuse on the network. Solving this IQ test will let you make 100 searches today. I will add an invite system to bypass this soon..."
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
That captcha is much easier to solve and will not prompt you with tens of pages. I also run such a proxy and that is presenting that captcha to all users - I need to avoid bots using the form because then the search engines will block all requests. -- Gruß Marco Send unsolicited bulk mail to 1770290443muell@cartoonies.org
On 2026-02-05 12:06, William Herrin via NANOG wrote:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like. Browser bigotry. Always a treat. My interpretation; we're too cheap to hire real developers. So we just test with the browser that's on the system we're making this thing on. does https://thestart.page work for you?
IP address: 198.134.98.50 Time: 2026-02-05T20:03:35Z URL: https://www.google.com/
FIx it, eh?
Regards, Bill Herrin _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/ECBKHASY...
Hilariously, it didn't at first. I forgot I was on an IPv6 only network for a second wondering if it was supposed to be a real page or not before doing an nslookup on it. That out of the way, I would strongly suspect the airport network of faulting/interfering with the traffic first before google issues, because reCAPTCHA (while still a google product/service) by nature usually 'just works' in almost every supported browser today, and has to for adoption/usage purposes. If it were a firefox issue, there would be a whole lot more noise going around about it, but in this case, it seems very location/network specific. I suspect cellular tether or a different network would not have had the same issue at the time this occurred. -----Original Message----- From: Chris via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2026 3:49 PM To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Chris <nanog@hrcommunications.net> Subject: Re: Hey Google - Recaptcha sucks On 2026-02-05 12:06, William Herrin via NANOG wrote:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like. Browser bigotry. Always a treat. My interpretation; we're too cheap to hire real developers. So we just test with the browser that's on the system we're making this thing on. does https://thestart.page work for you?
IP address: 198.134.98.50 Time: 2026-02-05T20:03:35Z URL: https://www.google.com/
FIx it, eh?
Regards, Bill Herrin _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/EC BKHASYMABWJ7QVL35FFAHNX2KZ633F/
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On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 12:25 PM Marco Moock via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I also run such a proxy and that is presenting that captcha to all users - I need to avoid bots using the form because then the search engines will block all requests.
Captchas don't generally offend me, especially from a public wifi where there's no practical way to enforce good behavior at the source. But Recaptcha... they've let themselves become the absolute worst. I can't tell you the number of times I get hit with recaptcha on my home Centurylink (Quantum) fiber line. Where I know for absolute certain there has been no malicious traffic from the IP for at least the months I've held that IP. And it's always the same.. click the images with sidewalks or busses or bikes. And then you're "wrong," try again because our database is so thoroughly corrupted that we haven't the faintest clue what's actually in our images. Usually it's on some rando web site though, not https://www.google.com/. Seriously Google, if you can't do better than this you should shut the Recaptcha service down. Regards, Bill Herrin
It appears that William Herrin via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> said:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
It shouldn't be surprising that they're sceptical of connections from an airport public wifi.
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like.
If you're ever there again, it would be interesting to try some of the other chromium browsers like Edge or Opera. Maybe there's something that handshakes with the CAPTCHA. Or if you're on an Apple device, try Safari which is the other non-chromium browser. R's, John
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like.
A company's product sends more signals back that can streamline usage of the same company's services? What's next? Dogs and cats living together.. mass hysteria!! On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 12:07 PM William Herrin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like.
IP address: 198.134.98.50 Time: 2026-02-05T20:03:35Z URL: https://www.google.com/
FIx it, eh?
Regards, Bill Herrin _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
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You're being silly about it, but this is the core of anti-trust. You can't enter two different markets with two products and make sure they work better with each other than with any other product in the opposite market. Or rather, you can, but it's illegal and the government is meant to come after you. Of course, the government hasn't been enforcing this for decades, ever since it was bought by companies that do this. On 06/02/2026 16:04, Tom Beecher via NANOG wrote:
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like.
A company's product sends more signals back that can streamline usage of the same company's services? What's next? Dogs and cats living together.. mass hysteria!!
On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 12:07 PM William Herrin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like.
IP address: 198.134.98.50 Time: 2026-02-05T20:03:35Z URL: https://www.google.com/
FIx it, eh?
Regards, Bill Herrin _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
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It has long been known that open public wifi ( such as at airports ) heavily impacts the reCAPTCHA score. There are tons of perfectly plausible technical explanations that could explain what happened, and none of them involve any sort of preference solely because Chrome was used. On Sat, Feb 7, 2026 at 4:32 PM Kevin Tillery via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
You're being silly about it, but this is the core of anti-trust. You can't enter two different markets with two products and make sure they work better with each other than with any other product in the opposite market.
Or rather, you can, but it's illegal and the government is meant to come after you. Of course, the government hasn't been enforcing this for decades, ever since it was bought by companies that do this.
On 06/02/2026 16:04, Tom Beecher via NANOG wrote:
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like.
A company's product sends more signals back that can streamline usage of the same company's services? What's next? Dogs and cats living together.. mass hysteria!!
On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 12:07 PM William Herrin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I'm at SEATAC airport trying to access www.google.com via the public wifi with Firefox. Apparently you really don't like that because it's stuck in a Recaptcha loop displaying captcha after captcha after captcha.
I can't help but notice that Chrome works. It's your _competitor_ Firefox that you don't seem to like.
IP address: 198.134.98.50 Time: 2026-02-05T20:03:35Z URL: https://www.google.com/
FIx it, eh?
Regards, Bill Herrin _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
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participants (8)
-
Aaron C. de Bruyn -
Chris -
Gary Sparkes -
John Levine -
Kevin Tillery -
Marco Moock -
Tom Beecher -
William Herrin