How to Bypass CAPTCHAs: The Ultimate Guide 2024
So, there you are, casually surfing the net, when… a CAPTCHA appears out of the blue, interrupting your flow. Yes, it’s that little test making sure you’re not a robot, and let’s face it – it can really slow down your processes. The great news? You don’t have to be stuck. It’s possible to bypass CAPTCHAs. So, buckle up, and let’s dive into the tricks that make these roadblocks the past.
What’s a CAPTCHA test?
CAPTCHA, short for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”, plays a crucial role in security by distinguishing human users from bots. It prevents automated bots from accessing websites and online services, and it may be triggered by various reasons, such as including unusual traffic, a high number of connections from a single IP address, using low-quality IPs, and more. However, it comes with a trade-off: slowing down on tasks that need automation.
What are different types of CAPTCHAs in web pages?
Different types of CAPTCHAs demand diverse activities to prove human identity. These include:
- Image-based. Identification and selection of objects, characters, or patterns within images.
- Text-based. Entering distorted or obscured text from an image.
- Audio-based. Listening to an audio clip containing spoken text and typing the words heard to pass the test.
- Math-based. Solving simple mathematical problems, such as addition or subtraction.
- ReCAPTCHA. Utilizing behavioral analysis and interaction patterns developed by Google.
- Checkbox-based. Clicking a checkbox with additional verification steps triggered for suspicious activity.
How to bypass CAPTCHA tests?
When a CAPTCHA challenge is triggered, it blocks any access to the desired data until the test is passed. We offer a range of solutions to help you bypass it; one of them is using Site Unblocker. It’s a powerful scraping solution with automatic proxy pool management and automated unblocking capabilities that enable you to access any website with even the most sophisticated anti-bot system. It’s the ideal choice for saving time and money on development and infrastructure maintenance.
With Site Unblocker, you can bypass CAPTCHAs, geo-blocking, IP blocking and other similar challenges. Enjoy success-based payment, automatic proxy rotation, worldwide geo-targeting, and session control. Get proxy-like integration, advanced browser fingerprinting, human-like browsing, results in raw HTML with Javascript and more.
How rotating proxies can help to overcome CAPTCHAs?
Rotating proxies automatically change your IPs at your preferred rate, making it more difficult for websites to detect and block your access since your IPs are constantly changing. These rotating IPs enhance your anonymity, helping you avoid restrictions, such as CAPTCHAs or bans.
How to bypass CAPTCHAs with Site Unblocker?
1. Install the prerequisites
Install the requests library, which will be used to send HTTP requests to the target website. We’ll also use the Beautiful Soup library to get the information we need from the scraped data and parse it to present it in a nice, clean format. You can install these libraries using the package manager pip, which comes automatically installed with Python.
You can install both of them by running the following command in your Terminal:
pip install requests beautifulsoup4
2. Choose a target website
The best way to bypass a CAPTCHA is to avoid anything that would trigger it in the first place. In this example, we’ll use a website that doesn’t have any CAPTCHAs; however, it will be a great example of how to write a simple scraping code in a way that dodges them with ease. With Site Unblocker, you’ll create a powerful script that will avoid any detection of an automated process.
We’ll target a website called https://quotes.toscrape.com/, an example website to scrape data from, so it is a perfect playground for us. We will extract quotes from the first page and list all of them in the Terminal.
3. Write the script
Now that we have a clear goal of what we need to use and what information we need, it’s time to write the code.
Begin by importing the two libraries we installed previously. Requests will scrape the data from the website, and Beautiful Soup will parse the HTML and extract only what you need.
import requestsfrom bs4 import BeautifulSoup
Create variables for the target website and what proxies you’ll use for HTTP and HTTPS requests. Get your username and password from the dashboard.
website = "https://quotes.toscrape.com/"proxies = {'http': 'http://{username}:{password}@unblock.smartproxy.com:60000','https': 'http://{username}:{password}@unblock.smartproxy.com:60000'}
4. Send a request to the target
With the help of the request library, make a GET request to the target website and tell it to use the Site Unblocker to access it.
response = requests.request('GET',website,verify=False,proxies=proxies,)
Ensure you include verify=False, as Site Unblocker requires users to ignore the SSL certificate.
5. Parse the desired data
If we inspect the page, we see that each quote is under a <span> with a class text. There’re no other elements with this class; therefore, we simply find all instances of it inside the HTML.
quotes = soup.find_all(class_="text")
Finally, create a loop to go through the quotes array and print them.
for quote in quotes:print(quote.text)
The final code looks like this:
import requestsfrom bs4 import BeautifulSoupwebsite = "https://quotes.toscrape.com/"proxies = {'http': 'http://{username}:{password}@unblock.smartproxy.com:60000','https': 'http://{username}:{password}@unblock.smartproxy.com:60000'}response = requests.request('GET',website,verify=False,proxies=proxies,)soup = BeautifulSoup(response.content, "html.parser")quotes = soup.find_all(class_="text")for quote in quotes:print(quote.text)
As you can see, it only takes a few lines of Python code to incorporate Site Unblocker. Using the above code, you should expect the following output:
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
Visit our documentation to learn more about its parameters and general integration steps.
6. Authentication
Once you have an active Site Unblocker subscription, you can try sending a request right from the dashboard Site Unblocker > Proxy Setup tab simply by entering the desired website URL and clicking on Send Request. You’ll also see an example of cURL request, a response in JSON format, and a live-rendering of the HTML website you targeted.
You may also click on the Advanced Parameters tab to access all available parameters for your request, such as custom cookies, custom headers and a JavaScript rendering toggle.
Conclusion
To sum up, bypassing CAPTCHAs isn’t overwhelming if you use the right tools and methods. By using smart solutions, you can ensure a smoother online journey and help maintain the security of your online activities.
About the author
Martin Ganchev
VP Enterprise Partnerships
Martin, aka the driving force behind our business expansion, is extremely passionate about exploring fresh opportunities, fostering lasting relationships in the proxy market, and, of course, sharing his insights with you.
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