I just had to say that aloud - this stupid way of logging is really irritating. (SS has really a little safety paranoia...)  Lately ss captcha is either playing tricks on me (because it knows I hate it) or it changed and started to be more human then bot obstacle...  I had to reload it 3 times today.

Is there anyway to stay logged in ss? Block cookie? Hack your way into your account, bite it and not let go? Anything? Expiring cookies into stock sites are such a bad idea on your own computer that only you use... Maybe someone has some cleaver software that keeps you logged in into all the websites you're using daily?

Mostly just typing the first word (if it's longer than the second) will get you in. Also capitals and punctuation marks don't have to be typed. But it stays annoying.

Quote from: wolf on March 10, 2011, 12:25
Mostly just typing the first word (if it's longer than the second) will get you in. Also capitals and punctuation marks don't have to be typed. But it stays annoying.

Oooh, this VERY useful info! For some reason the second word seems to be harder for me to decode. Thanks!

Yes, annoying

I really like words with Greek letters - first time I saw one I actually bursted out laughing ...

Killing me slowly! 

it is indeed very annoying

mine is always online, don´t remember the last time that I have entered..

.

"Pissing me off" does not even begin to describe it 

Yeah!!!  cant even read the bloody things.

No, it doesn't piss me off at all because the alternative is them removing royalties a month later for someone stealing images.  So ... choices:

1) easier for bots to login and buy photos = remove royalties a la istock.
2) type half of an unreadable word.

I'll take #2.

+1 from me.  Captcha is only a minor annoyance most places, but Shutterstock's is particularly awful.  I'm with Christian - half the time it is completely illegible.  Have to refresh two or three times before you get one you can take a stab at.  

And FWIW, I have failed to get in on stuff like putting a comma as a period, or visa versa, so I think you do have to type the punctuation.  

Quote from: lathspell on March 10, 2011, 13:04
I really like words with Greek letters - first time I saw one I actually bursted out laughing ...

I had the same reaction. I pulled one up with a pi symbol, and I started cracking up. Then, hit refresh.

The thing is, they run the contributors site off a subdomain, if they are trying to protect from image theft, they should mostly be concerned with keeping the customers legitimate.  I think they captcha the contributor site to keep users and stats engines from spidering the stats pages and increasing the server load.  Its about the only thing that makes sense from a contributor standpoint.

Also, you can bypass the whole login thing to collect your stats automatically by hijacking the cookie locally once you are logged in

Needing the deciphering skills of code breaker seems a bit much to me too. I +1 hate the log in procedure.

Different monitors make such a difference reading the thing too.  I can hardly make it out on my laptop, but no probs on my desktop.

Thanks for posting this; I thought it was only me!   

I usually have to refresh half a dozen times before I get one I think I understand.

You are not alone, I find it very frustrating as well.  It didn't surprise me when I read that Google had acquired reCaptcha as a way of using crowds to figure out stuff that their OCR can't make out.  So don't feel bad if you can't figure it out - it may be Google trying to get you to decipher something that no one can read

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/02/28/f-vp-misener-captcha.html

From the article:

"The Captcha images it provides are also used to help decipher words that can't be identified during the process of digitizing printed material (see sidebar)."

You actually don't have to type in the illegible word correctly.
Just type in the number of characters and type the legible word and it should work.
Did for me this morning when the first word(?) looked like a film strip.

captcha sucks, no stock site has been hacked by bots.  Istocks fraud was an actual human being using a stolen credit card noth something captcha could have stopped.  At least let me stay logged in until I log out. sooooo annoying!!!!

Yes it does! Most annoying thing that it is often unreadable at all!

It is so annoying that I find I check Shutterstock a lot less than I used to.  Which probably saves their servers, so kudos to them   

Oh yeah, the Greek letters are amazing.  I mean, what am I supposed to do with that information?

Quote from: seawhisper on March 10, 2011, 12:34

Quote from: wolf on March 10, 2011, 12:25
Mostly just typing the first word (if it's longer than the second) will get you in. Also capitals and punctuation marks don't have to be typed. But it stays annoying.

Oooh, this VERY useful info! For some reason the second word seems to be harder for me to decode. Thanks!

I HATE THAT F***ING THING, STUPID NON-WORDS WITH WEIRD BITS AND PIECES AND LETTERS OVER THE TOP OF EACH OTHER!!!!!!!  AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

anyway, my little rant done, definately thanks very much !!

Annoying? Yes, definitely. Sometimes have to refresh 3 or 4 times. But if it keeps my account secure, I'll grin and bear it.