Darkoshi

Logging onto the nytimes.com website, they present me with a Google Recaptcha. I select the appropriate images and click to continue, and the page displays a new set of images. After 3 or 4 pages of image tiles, I realize this is going to be never-ending, as it has been several times in the past. I try a different browser, as I might have already fixed the uMatrix settings for this there. But that browser has the same problem.

I check my uMatrix settings, and enable some more domains. Then I click the appropriate images on the Recaptha page and continue. It still doesn't work, so I enable practically all of the non-redlisted domains that are shown in the uMatrix popup.

It still doesn't work, and I'm annoyed enough to want to hit things. I only want to unsubscribe from the mailing lists I had subscribed to a while back, as I don't have time to read the emails and I'm tired of seeing them pile up in my inbox. Now I can't even login in order to unsubscribe!! Gah!! (Maybe I could just click the unsubscribe link in the emails, but dagnabbit I wanted to do it from the website.)

I look up how to make Google Recaptcha work with uMatrix. I find out about ruleset recipes, but I don't see how to enable them. The puzzle icon in the uMatrix popup is disabled.

So I walk away from the computer for a while. After an hour, I come back and find out there's a checkbox in the uMatrix settings (at the bottom of the Assets tab) that you have to select, for the rulesets to be enabled. But after selecting that, the puzzle icon still remains disabled for me...

Later, it's enabled but I don't remember what I did, if anything, for that to happen.

So now I am able to import the ruleset which is supposed to make Google Recaptchas work. (I swear, those are the same rules that I already enabled manually via the uMatrix popup, but who knows...) It still doesn't work!!!!

I try clicking the Audio icon on the Recaptcha page, as some other webpage indicates it will tell you if it thinks you failed, versus the images which just keep redisplaying with no error message. That gives me the popup message,
"Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now. For more details visit our help page."

Does that mean there's still a problem with my browser/uMatrix settings, or are they completely blocking my IP number now?

I try logging in with Chrome, which doesn't have uMatrix installed. It worked after only a single page of Recaptcha images. I unsubscribe from all the mailing lists, hallelujah!

So anyway, my IP number must not be blocked. But wait, what happens if I click the Recaptcha audio icon in Chrome? So I log out and click the Audio icon when logging in again. It shows a popup with a "Play" button. But nothing happens when I click on Play. I make sure my speaker volume is turned up, and click Play umpteen times, but nothing plays. So much for that.

I'm still not able to login from the other browsers. I still think Google has blocked me as it's still giving that same error message for the audio; maybe the block is based on IP number plus browser id. I wonder how long it takes for the block to expire.

If it were only nytimes.com that had this problem, I could ignore it. But I have the same problem on other websites which use Google Recaptcha too, sometimes.