[3.3.x] Support Forum • Re: Captcha before even accessing the contents of the board?

Hello KevC,

Sooo - is there any chance to somehow configure phpBB to require a user to solve a captcha before being able to use the Forums even as a guest? The idea is to keep the bots from eating up all the available database connections.

That would annoy the hell out of all of the users and not stop the issue because the bots would still be visiting the server itself just to see that message.

Well - for a short time SourceForge did exactly that: They booked a service from Cloudflare and when accessing the forum, we got a page, telling us to wait while they determine wether we are a bot or not. But then they discontinued that service for some reason. Also I think that solving a captcha and having a usable forum will not annoy the users more than a forum that is completely inaccessible because some bot eats up all the database connections.

You need to stop it at the server entry level, not the phpBB level.

I would if I could. But I can't because the servers are operated by SourceForge.

Best regards,

Jan

Statistics: Posted by marsupilami79 — Wed Mar 26, 2025 11:48 am

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