Efforts to stop bot activity

October 5, 2023 by
 |  11 Comments  |  Leave Comment

As regular visitors will know, we have been having site performance issues related to very high levels of search bot activity. The bots fire thousands of requests per second at our site which causes the server to get overloaded and grind to a slow crawl or even a halt for anyone else using it (our members). Our short-term solution was that everyone had to sign-in to use the site even for just a quick look, though that wasn’t ideal.

Now we have introduced CAPTCHA verification which members should only see at sign in. Bots will get the CAPTCHA popup when they fire off multiple requests but members should never see them once they are signed in. However we have discovered an issue with the Safari browser. Luckily there is a way around this – first of all check that your iOS is up to date. Then go to Settings then click your Apple ID, then Passwords & Security. Scroll to bottom and make sure Automatic Verification is on. If you still see Captcha pop-ups, try turning off Hide IP address in Safari settings and see if that solves the issue.

For anyone using Safari, you should also add your EYB sign-in in Website & App Passwords in Passwords and Accounts in Settings. You then should only rarely ever need to sign in to the site.

If you still see CAPTCHA pop-ups after you sign in, please email us and we will try to help you further.

Category: What's New on EYB

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11 Comments

  • Fyretigger  on  October 5, 2023

    A big thank you for persevering through the largely thankless part of job.

  • Maxineanna  on  October 6, 2023

    Will we be able to remain signed in so that we don’t have to tick the captcha box every time we open the EYB site?

    • Jane  on  October 6, 2023

      I’m not sure why you don’t remain signed in. A couple of suggestions – if you have your browser set to delete all browsing history and cookies when you close it, make EYB an exception so the site recognizes you when you return. If you are using a phone, set EYB up in your Passwords and Accounts so you don’t need to sign in. Finally, if you still find you need to sign in each time, please email us with details of the device and browser you use and we will try to help you further.

  • crmarx  on  October 6, 2023

    Well, you lost me at that. Too much work remembering all the passwords. And your computer issues didn’t begin until you added ckbk to your page. That’s when they started. At least this will help my budget. I was buying way too many of the books from your list.

  • crmarx  on  October 6, 2023

    Why would we have to do that when you are sending these to our own personal emails???

  • DiamelShell  on  October 6, 2023

    Thank you- I wish these annoying people would get real jobs and stop spending their time trying to dislodge and cheat everyone

  • Foodycat  on  October 7, 2023

    Thank you – this is a very small inconvenience which will hopefully help a lot.

  • eliza  on  October 8, 2023

    Thanks for all the efforts on this.

  • eliza  on  November 16, 2023

    I’ve been getting multiple Capcha sign ins recently. I am signed in but had many many repeats of these. To the extent that I gave up trying.

    • Jane  on  November 16, 2023

      I don’t understand this. I am using EYB all day every day and I have seen the captcha pop-up maybe twice since it was introduced. The captcha should only appear when using EYB if your activity mimics that of a bot e.g. loading new pages or searches at a far higher rate than average. Are you able to note when you see the captcha appear – what were you doing right before it popped up? Another possibility is that there is some issue with your computer or IP address that is causing the detection to think you are a bot. Do you regularly run your virus checker? Do you regularly clear your browser cache/history? Both of these may help cure your issue. We have recently removed the captcha requirement at sign-in so now it should only appear when activity is detected that seems suspicious. Please do email us with any further information so we can try to help resolve this issue for you. Please also let us know what device and browser you are using.

      • Jane  on  November 18, 2023

        An update on this – it seems eliza’s issue may have been caused by using Duck Duck Go as her browser on her phone. Since switching to Safari she hasn’t had the same problem. I don’t know the reason why this happened but will investigate further. It may be worth considering for any other members seeing too many captcha pop-ups.

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