Yes, I think most everyone who has a serious spammer problem ends up turning on the notices only to see if it works, then turns them off. But I'm already working on a version that will be able to show statistics. It's a little more complicated because with notices the mod can just send a notice and it's done, but with stats it needs to save information to the database.

Do you suggest using PCRE with this or no?

Sorry, I don't know what you mean. Are you talking about having a field match a certain pattern?

This in the vB standard registration.

Oh, OK. Well, it's up to you if you want to use that to control what usernames are allowed. If you were using it to somehow filter out spammers then yes, there's no reason you shouldn't continue to use it. This mod attempts to filter out bots by the amount of time taken to fill out the form, so it shouldn't be affected by that setting.

I don't know how the Bots get past the PCRE thing but they do. My thought was maybe that added to the time for them to register and I should take it off to keep the Bot in your suggested time frame of 20 seconds.

I'll try both ways, right now just waiting for my first notification of your mod stopping one. After I see it works and what not I'll hook you up with a little thank you ;)

When you say they're "getting past the PCRE thing", you mean before this mod was installed, right? (Or are you saying this mod was somehow letting them past)? Those patterns can be a little tricky, maybe the one you're using isn't quite right or something.

It shouldn't make any difference. I guess when a user fills out the form it does a call back to the server to check the name, but a bot would bypass that.

That PCRE thing is the deal where you have to read two words printed out blurry and what not then type them in to continue; and yes the BOTs go right past this outside your Hack. They have to scam them somehow; which must take an extra second or two.

I just installed 10 minutes ago and haven't got and email from your Hack or a post in a designated thread; yet. We usally have 20 to 50 Bots and hour; so I'm wondering if your Hack is stopping them and I'm not getting notified. I'll wait a bit longer and then maybe try a test or two.

I have the PCRE thing off to start with on your Hack.

This sounds like you're talking about ReCAPTCHA, which is something different than the PCRE thing. But yes, bots will get by reCAPTCHA. To answer your original question, you can use that in addition to this mod, but you really should use "question and answer" human verification with some simple questions instead of reCAPTCHA.


That does sound like maybe something's wrong. It would be a good idea to do a test registration.

I'm on vB 4.1.4 I see nothing about ReCAPTCHA in User Registration Options, just this PCRE thing under Username Regular Expression.

I am certain now your Hack is blocking, but I'm getting no notifications. I fiddle with it and look around at other areas.