Adding Captcha to me website

Hi everyone,
Firstly, I’m a new user of Sparkle with only about 2 weeks of use, so please excuse me if my questions are very amateurish.

I am almost complete with my website and there is one more thing that I want to add, and that’s a captcha-like code. I have an email form for messages to be sent to me, but I’m not looking forward to getting millions of “Bot-completed” messages.

Is there an easier way than using Googles reCaptcha, and if not, how do I add the google code to my site?

Hope someone can help with this.

Thanks a lot,

Hello @lancerobrts

This is some information from the Sparkle documentation that you may find helpful regarding forms and captcha.

https://sparkleapp.com/docs/forms.html

Form ‍security

‍Sparkle ‍contact ‍forms ‍include ‍anti-spam ‍provisions ‍that ‍prevent ‍automated ‍internet ‍bots ‍from ‍submitting ‍spam ‍content, ‍while ‍also ‍not ‍burdening ‍the ‍visitor ‍to ‍your ‍site ‍with ‍unnecessary ‍annoyances ‍typical ‍of ‍captcha-like ‍solutions. ‍Sparkle’s ‍spam-prevention ‍solution ‍also ‍does ‍not ‍leak ‍information ‍about ‍your ‍visitors ‍to ‍any ‍third ‍party, ‍and ‍is ‍thus ‍compliant ‍with ‍privacy ‍regulation. ‍We ‍are ‍committed ‍to ‍fighting ‍spam ‍and ‍will ‍make ‍all ‍technical ‍modifications ‍necessary ‍to ‍block ‍future ‍spam ‍attacks.

So the Sparkle form already has anti-spam provisions.

I hope this helps with your question.

Hi @Shadowfax,

Thank you very much for the reply. So if I understand correctly, by using the standard “Text-input” and “Button” it also includes the spam prevention?

I will go through the docs that you sent and see how far I get with this.

Thanks again for the quick reply :+1:

Hi @lancerobrts

Yes, exactly, if you use all the tools that Sparkle offers for creating a form, then spam prevention is “built-in”.

I hope reading the documentation will help you, I think it’s explained quite well, and much better than I can explain it. :slightly_smiling_face:

If you need more information, you can always contact @duncan

Thank you very much for your help, I’m sure I’ll be able to finish my project with this new info :grinning:

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You’re welcome, I am glad I could be of some assistance.
Have fun with Sparkle! :smile:

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I made my form with Sparkle. Basically I don’t get much spam but it’s still 1-2 every day, so I’d be interested in reCaptcha integration in Sparkle (or a tutorial on how to do it yourself). Can anyone help or give a tip?

We don’t have an easy way to integrate just captcha, you need to embed the entire form from a third party form provider.

That said we’d love to look at the form and the spam to address it in Sparkle. Can you send the form address and forward a couple spam emails (possibly as attachments) to feedback@sparkleapp.com?

Many thanks.

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Just a follow up on this, as I already mentioned via email to @Andy, we can only address spam issues if you are using Sparkle’s built-in contact form functionality. Andy is using the mailform functionality of his web host (possibly because that’s the only thing they allow), but Sparkle has no control over that and can’t really affect it.

There is very little spam coming through Sparkle’s built-in forms. It’s not zero, and we’re actively working on addressing that.

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@duncan @Andy

Andy seems to use Hostpoint as web host.

I use Hostpoint for many client websites and so far I never had any issues with the built-in contact form functionality of Sparkle and the Hostpoint servers, using the “Email via web server” setting as described in the documentation:

https://sparkleapp.com/docs/forms.html

So Sparkle forms and Hostpoint seem to be working together just fine :+1: and my clients have not reported any increase in spam.

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Thank you both, Duncan and Shadowfax, for your assistance. I had used the mail variant of the web host as I had been doing it for years. I wouldn’t have thought that Sparkle would do this under the option “Email form via server” even without the help of the web host. I will now use the Sparkle variant. This seems simple, which is enough for the moment. It would be nice if I had the address of the sender instead of the fake email, so that I can answer a received mail as usual with “Reply”. But maybe it will come in a future version.

Hello @Andy

It should work fine with Hostpoint. Good luck. :+1::four_leaf_clover:

Yes. You are right. I noticed that as well.
All mails sent through the Sparkle form have the same “from” mail address as you entered in the settings, so you can’t click “Reply” when the mail arrives in your inbox. It would be nice to have the actual “from” mail address of the person filling in the form. This would be a great addition to the Sparkle form in the future.

Some of my clients were “confused” that they couldn’t simply reply to messages sent through the form.

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@Andy, Yes I have noticed likewise. I haven’t tried the advance setting via “Get” or “Post”, but it would be really nice @duncan if it were possible leaving the “From” blank via the “Email from server” setup that we are able to reply to the email sender because their email appears in the “From” area.

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Just for information: I’ve been using the Sparkle form for a few weeks now and can confirm that I hardly receive any spam (or even no spam at all). The form seems to be very good.

lg Andy

Absolutely! Let’s see when that ability gets baked in. For basic inputs, I like Sparkle’s built-in abilities. While we are at it, any recommendations online where we can build complex forms, say multi-page/ multi-section/ multi-level forms? An example of such a form would be, say, a catering menu where the visitor sees sections for starters, appetisers, main course, desserts, drinks, etc. by clicking Next after each section and can choose from the range provided, and finally click Submit to send the entire form to the recipient.

Such a form can be created in Sparkle right now, but without the breaks, that will become a very long page.

@phoenix1386 Jotform online builder is very comprehensive. Link

Best
Scott

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