Human Aided Accessible CAPTCHA: Solona

Just recently I have come across a new solution to make CAPTCHA accessible, called Solona. The idea is that where you find a CAPTCHA on a site you cannot solve, you copy your screen into a picture file, send it to Solona, and they will solve the image for you instantly.

I could not resist the temptation, and while at the moment I did not need to solve any CAPTCHAs, I looked for one to try the service. Dear providers, I hope you will forgive me for taking valuable time from solving CAPTCHAs for those who were really in need of it. To make up for it, I have to say I have received a quick response.

So, let's see how it works. Just briefly, you can only submit certain forms if you type into an edit field what you can see on the screen inside an image, in order to avoid spam. This can be very challenging, or impossible to people with certain disabilities. You can read more about making CAPTCHA accessible. If you ever encounter such a situation, you can log on to http://www.solona.net and for the first time open an account. Creating an account is really easy, not too many questions, and best of all, no CAPTCHA to solve.

Once you have your account, go back to the screen where you had difficulties entering the CAPTCHA, save the screen with a keystroke, go to Microsoft Paint, paste the image, and save it as a file. Now you can go back to http://www.solona.net and upload this file.

Somewhere in cyber space there will be a person accepting your file, reading what's on the image, and send you a message with the text, which you will get on the Solona site, after you have submitted your image. Then, you can copy and paste this text into the CAPTCHA edit field, and you are ready to submit the form.

One of the disadvantages is that your CAPTCHA will only be solved when there is an actual person available to do it. I am not sure how many people work at the other end, but it is very possible that there are times when nobody is available to help you. Solona tells you if an operator is currently available once you log into your account.

Solona does not save any of your images, or any of the text solutions, neither on their site, nor in your online account.

After I sent them the first image, which did not contain the actual CAPTCHA image, I got a response back in about 30 seconds that the image does not contain the CAPTCHA. Then I have saved the real thing, and again, after about 30 seconds, I got the text key which I was able to enter into the CAPTCHA edit field, and it worked.

I was very impressed with their speed and quality of service.