Hey everyone! I’m working on a project where I need to deal with captchas in a browser without a graphical interface. I’ve been using Puppeteer to crawl Amazon, but after a few page loads, I hit a captcha wall. Now I’m wondering if it’s possible to use optical character recognition (OCR) in this setup to crack those pesky captchas.
I’m not married to Puppeteer, so I’m open to other tools if they’d work better for this. Has anyone tackled this problem before? What methods did you use? Any tips or tricks would be super helpful!
Here’s a quick example of what I’ve tried so far:
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({ headless: true });
const page = await browser.newPage();
for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
await page.goto('https://www.example.com');
await page.screenshot({ path: `screenshot_${i}.png` });
}
// TODO: Implement OCR to solve captcha
Any ideas on how to proceed from here? Thanks in advance for your help!
hey, i’ve been there. try a headless browser like selenium for captchas. also, slow down your requests and randomize browsing patterns to avoid captcha triggers. good luck!
I’ve encountered similar issues in my web scraping projects. While OCR can work for some CAPTCHAs, it’s often unreliable for more sophisticated ones like Amazon’s. In my experience, a more effective approach is to prevent CAPTCHAs from appearing in the first place.
Try implementing request throttling and adding random delays between page loads. This can help mimic human behavior and reduce the likelihood of triggering CAPTCHAs. Additionally, rotating user agents and IP addresses through a proxy service can be beneficial.
If you still encounter CAPTCHAs, consider using a CAPTCHA-solving service API. These services are cost-effective and can integrate seamlessly with headless browsers. They often provide more reliable results than OCR for complex CAPTCHAs.
Remember, ethical web scraping practices are crucial. Always respect the website’s robots.txt file and terms of service to avoid potential legal issues.
I’ve dealt with similar challenges in my web scraping projects. OCR can work, but it’s not always reliable for complex CAPTCHAs. Instead, I’d suggest looking into anti-CAPTCHA services like 2captcha or DeathByCaptcha. They’re surprisingly affordable and integrate well with headless browsers.
For Amazon specifically, I’ve found rotating IP addresses and user agents helps avoid CAPTCHAs in the first place. You might want to try a proxy service or VPN. Also, adding random delays between requests and mimicking human-like browsing patterns (visiting multiple pages, not just product listings) can help fly under the radar.
If you do stick with OCR, Tesseract is a solid choice. But remember, Amazon’s CAPTCHAs are designed to be tough for machines. You might end up playing a frustrating game of cat and mouse. In my experience, it’s often more efficient to outsource CAPTCHA solving and focus on other aspects of your scraping logic.