Logged in fine early, early this morning, 2019 Aug 02. No reCAPTCHA, and just the usual very minimal cookie alert at the very bottom of the screen, hence ignorable without extra effort.

Then I tried again a few hours later in the morning and was locked out by reCAPTCHA on the login panel. Had to click a checkbox about not being a robot, but then a set of tiled pictures showed up. I immediately closed the browser window because that never works for me, so I no longer try. There was also a new larger alert about cookies, too, covering the lower right corner of the document.

When reCAPTCHA happens, I simply sigh and try to come to terms with never visiting that website again. I absolutely refuse to be tested by a computer program for whether I am human. A computer is supposed to make things easier for us. Using a mouse is too cumbersome, too much arm movement. I use programs to help myself instead of relying on others.

But about a couple hours later I tried logging into GOG again anyway, and the reCAPTCHA was no longer there. I logged in and with no impediments, just like normal. But the cookie thing is still there, and huge.

I use the keyboard to move the pointer, mark a few places on the screen and just jump to those points and then activate. Many websites are consistent with their layouts, like the GOG forum, so my keyboard options work very well for me.

I have just read the cookie options, which was actually easier to read than most other websites I have bothered with reading at all. Didn't seem like it would be, but it turned out okay. It looks like from their listing of cookies that they are using a cookie to remember the cookie options.

*facepalm*

That won't work for me. I start with a fresh web browser every time the computer is booted, because the whole operating system starts fresh. Sort of like a kiosk, but more like what is often available at a university or library. Kind of like loading the system for a network server, but from a local disk plugged in instead.

No matter what happens while I am using the computer, I can just reboot and everything is back to normal, always the same each reboot. So, there are no cookies, because there are no files from the previous startup. It is my computer at home, but that is how it works.

All of my personal files are on a separate disk. Computer account starts from scratch every reboot, no computer account files are ever saved on my personal disk. I save custom preferences for each program separately, on my personal disk, and decide whether to restore those preferences to the computer. Very few programs, so easy to manage.

The people who embed computer programs in HTML documents are complete strangers to me, so I do not allow my personal disk to be used with their computer programs. I don't know those computer programmers and they are not making their programs easy for me to audit, and they seemingly never include documentation of intent for their program functions. They use too many libraries of functions, most of the functions which they never use. It is too much to untangle, especially without their intent documented. That is not particular only to GOG, but instead is every website it seems.

Besides, it is my disk to wear out personally, not theirs, and as such only the RAM is available to strange computer programs. Nothing saved for later.

At least the GOG forum itself is free from the Cookie alert that covers the lower right corner of the document of the GOG store. I hope the reCAPTCHA stays gone, or else no more lurking for me.

I am unlikely to buy any more games ever since I have shifted to a Linux kernel and ARM hardware. Still have lots to work out with the games I do have, because many have worked on such a platform. So, maybe later I will consider my wish list once again. But that is a long time into the future, I think. So, no loss of sales from me if I am locked out since I am unlikely to buy anything soon anyway. But I do like to keep up with things, and Galaxy is not an option with my computer. So, hopefully no more inhumane impediments like the reCAPTCHA.

Wait. Does Galaxy do the reCAPTCHA thing? If so, that would never work anyway.

I don't boycott because I am not a spontaneous buyer anyway, but I can't be bothered to jump hoops to convince someone to take my money. I mean, either you want my money, or you don't. Making me jump through reCAPTCHA says to me you want me to entertain you with my failures before you will accept my money. Ridiculous when that happens at the checkout on other websites, so I just sigh and cancel the order and look elsewhere. I am no entertainer, so ain't happening, not even if they offered a discount for discriminating against my computer, my means for reading documents requested from websites.

That is not boycotting. I would be simply accepting that I am not the type of "human" that they want to accept money from.

I have gotten used to that from all the other websites. This year, it has gradually become that I practically shop nowhere online.

But again, there is very much for me to do before I get to the point of buying any more games, pointedly more testing with VNC to other computers that have different operating systems for playing other games. So, my lack of purchases at GOG would be no indicator of discontent, but impediments with the front door to the GOG store would be like all other websites I no longer consider. I know my position, I know my status, I have no interest in forcing or pleaing, and instead make it a practice to just accept I do not fit in.

But...

What about some ideas of what to do about poorly designed human relationships with computer programs from websites, especially when using a web browser that is made for computer programmers instead of for the everyday person? That seems to be every web browser. I know, too much freedom to ask for. We should just accept whatever the benevolent computer programmers give us, especially the benevolent free-software computer programmers who are no different.

*sigh*

Two decades into the 21st century, and this is where we are at. Open for lamentations of "where is my flying car" and the such.

But especially why do computer programmers keep making everything so difficult for themselves? Is it just to make sure everything stays difficult for us, too? Job security for them, or are they trapped in layer after layer of prior generations of program libraries?

Is the computer no longer a tool? Is there no possibility of refinement in computer programming, no way to restore the use of a simple computer instruction or two? When will computer programmers be able to explain to the everyday person how to do something with a computer without having to teach computer programming?

Or are you just fine with whatever command is in the menus? Everything needs to be checkbox or radio button, and no interest in typing? Just keep everything point-and-click, even the games?

Is it really cheating to make a computer easier to use? I have no problem with admitting I using a computer for that, I have no care of it being called cheating to not use a mouse, or to have the computer do what I just did without my having to do the whole sequence yet again. But is that fair? It is for me, so I am fine with it.

Holy guru alert, Batman!

Lemme see if I can skim any information of use. Do you want someone to snap your suspenders and tug on your beard to prove it's real?

TL;DR: You're upset because GOG has a slightly weird cookie policy and then your eyes glazed over as you told an onion story.

I don't like those recapchas any more than you, but I do appreciate they are very clever.

They are used by Google to help train their visual AI systems. The ability of an AI to identify objects in a scene is still hugely inferior to a human. You are proving you are not a machine by doing what a machine can't do, and at the same time you are helping to train a machine to do it. I find that poetic.

Engineers have been trying to figure out how the human brain works, so they can replicate it, for decades, with little success. The new paradigm is to train an AI instead, using many examples. This works pretty well (Watson, Alpha Go etc.) but it has its limitations. You get an inscrutable black-box for your trouble. Its inner workings far beyond any mortal to pick apart and analyse, you just have to test it and test it until you trust it. But no-one can predict how the AI will react when faced with a situation for which it has not been trained. This is why using AI in mission critical situations is folly. And why using AI in military hardware doubly so.

You can train it with a million images of cars, and it will be fairly good at identifying cars, but what will it do when you show it a bicycle? So you train it with a million images of bicycles, but what happens when you show it a tree? And so on. It's not possible to train an AI with every possible example, but the more examples you use, the better it will be.

I think crowdsourcing the training is a smart idea.

This is also useful when applied to other ideas as well; imbuing color to photos which never had them in the first place, for example.

As a joke, I once took the Turing test.

I failed it. :( So now I am trying to learn to live as a computer. Fjuck!

I fail the tests, or I don't understand why some tests go on longer than previous tests. It feels like I learn nothing from it, that I am having some sort of random experience. That is different than my specific pursuit when requesting a document, so it feels wrong, like maybe I am not allowed.

As for the cookies, I am fine with those when I can inspect them and edit them as I please, because it is on my computer disks and not theirs.

The web browsers should offer better document introspection. For example, reveal a file is going to be created, show me what has been written, provide a means for editing it when I want to, and so forth. Right now, I have no idea where these files are kept. I sometimes look for them and fine some files, but never have they seem editable.

It is fine that a document has a notice that it has computer programs embedded that will use my computer disks, f.e. for "cookies" which are just files. But how about just putting the message in an HTML comment instead? The web browser developers oughta coordinate better with website developers, especially for the sake of providing introspection of the HTML documents and even more so for the programs embedded in them. I would know when the web browser itself warns me, instead of message built into a document that obscures its own content.

We didn't tolerate email viruses, and those were just programs that were included in an email. There is nothing harmful about the existence of a computer virus because it just a computer program that can do nothing until it is started. The email programs were made to no longer automatically run programs that were included in an email.

HTML documents are just plain text, but can have computer programs included (also as plain text). It makes no sense to automatically run those programs without confirmation from the person who is viewing the document, as that is the same thing made the programs in emails hazardous.

Anyway, as for the cookie files, it seems to me there is no point in having cookie alerts built into each and every document when the web browser can do that fine on its own. Just have to have a good web browser, one which has developers that care about knowing and revealing that for a document.

Using a cookie to remember the preferences for having cookies at all seems too circular, sort of self defeating. It makes more sense to me that would be stored in the account information kept by the company in their own computer memory. It oughta be in the preferences or settings section for an account, then it won't matter what web browser I am using at the moment.

Instead, I have to set it for every single web browser I ever use. That is nonsensical data management by the company of a website. But again, if web browsers provided helpful introspection of documents, then such cookie file management would be possible regardless of limited settings a website company might provide in their documents.

I don't care about the cookies, but it is ridiculous having a warning notice about them built into every document in such a way that it obscures the content of the document itself. Like I said, just put in an HTML comment hidden out of the way. I will notice when I look at the document itself instead of the alternate HTML view of it. In other words, I will notice when I care to notice it.

Though, I will also notice it more readily whenever web browser developers become interested in making it easier to manage the use of personal computer memory instead of just giving my computer resources away to whatever program has been embedded in a plain text document, like the email viruses of lore.

Nice they have a "standard" for "safe" JavaScript, but that only works well with trusted sources. I don't like relying upon brand names as means of trust. FTP was safer because the document was simply downloaded. There seems to be no way to incrementally execute the embedded programs, and conveniently for a non-programmer. Two decades into the 21st century, and this is where it seems we are at.

I love cookies, especially with chocolate chips.

What about oatmeal or peanut butter?
.

Best solution - raise a ticket with support to complain about it.

I've encountered reCAPTCHA prompts on login very occasionally which don't display any pictures at all (making it impossible to login) so it should be a concern for others too. Plus reCAPTCA is Google-owned so giving Google a(nother) way to track people's online activities.

Google have apparently started charging for reCAPTCHA so you may start seeing it less widely used. Keeping a bookmarked list of CGI proxies and accessing any CAPTCHA-demanding websites via these is my suggestion - but don't use them for sites that you have a login for. It is however useful for viewing GOG Support pages which, for some ridiculous reason, are *all* reCAPTCHA protected.

It seems the site has already changed some settings on their version of reCaptcha two days ago. Now I only see the #3 style I mentioned in my earlier post, with the 3 fixed images. Due to this change, I've been able to log in sucessfully after the very first try.

I don't know what made them make the change after 4 months lol and I don't think my last call about quiting the service did the trick. I'm only one customer after all. Either way, I'm thankful the reCaptcha issue is finally over and I hope it stays that way.

If Google is charging for it and the service cancels it, I won't shed many tears. :)
.

When faced with a reCAPTCHA, I usually just cancel it and go some place else. This behaviour is recorded. It's likely that many people did the same thing, and GOG techs decided they would rather you stayed.

told you robots are evil
and even these small ones are ruining things for us humans

It wasn't the GOG site. It was another site (paid monthly subscription) and they fixed it. The last 3 reCaptcha attempts over the last 3 days have all been successful for the first time it what feels like a lifetime.

Anyway, of the 3 image styles, only the 16-individual image version (style #3) show up with 3 non-refreshing squares containing the required image. So, 3 mouse clicks, click verify and I'm past it to my login screen. Style #1 and Style #2 have not made an appearance so far, these past 3 days.

Today will be day 4. I'll update this post after two more days (on day 7), just to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

I still don't like reCaptcha and I suspect I'll never warm up to it. Too many lingering negative memories. But at least now I don't have to cancel the service, since one of my favorite 70s-80s show can only be found there and it's one I love to re-watch. Currently on my 6th re-watch. :)
.

You have to pass the reCAPTCHA or Cloudflare to submit a ticket...