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Recently, Cloudflare introduced a free-to-use, non-intrusive, privacy-focused version of CAPTCHA, and the WordPress plugin suite is slowly starting to include support for the new resolution.

But not all plugin builders are rushing to add Turnstile support, providing reasons that will make others think twice.

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Cloudflare turnstile

Turnstile is a privacy-focused solution for blocking spammers of any type {a} consumer could fill out, such as a contact type, a consumer registration type, or a login type.

Aside from the fact that it doesn't accumulate consumer data, what also makes it useful is that it is nearly invisible, allowing you to provide a frictionless consumer experience for your website visitors.

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Someone who added Turnstile to their website reported that out of 127 website visitors, only one website customer was challenged by Turnstile.

They tweeted:

Turnstile is a privacy-focused resolution because it does not accumulate or store consumer data in any aspect.

According to Cloudflare:

“In June, we introduced an effort with Apple to make use of Personal Entry Tokens.

Users using working programs that support these tokens, including upcoming versions of macOS or iOS, can now show that they are human without filling out a CAPTCHA or providing personal data.

By collaborating with third parties, such as system producers, who already have the information that will help us validate a tool, we can summarize parts of the validation process and secure information without actually collecting, touching, or storing that information ourselves. Instead of interrogating a tool on the fly, we ask the system vendor to do it for us.

Personal entry tokens are built instantly at the turnstile.

While Turnstile needs to look at some session information (like headers, consumer agent, and browser characteristics) to validate customers without annoying them, Personal Input Tokens allow us to mitigate the variety of information by asking Apple to validate the system to us.

Furthermore, Turnstile never looks for cookies (such as a login cookie) or uses cookies to collect or store data in any way.”

WordPress Integration

While Cloudflare's Turnstile announcement didn't point to a WordPress plugin to integrate it with WordPress sites, TechCrunch quoted a Cloudflare consultant as saying a WordPress plugin is in the works.

TechCrunch reported :

“Cloudflare says it is involved in plugins for major platforms like WordPress to simplify Turnstile deployment…”

That said, some WordPress plugins are already integrating Turnstile into their software program to make it easier for users to choose.

The WS Kind WordPress Plugin Editors added Turnstile support to the plugin on October 4, 2022, making WS Kind yet another option for those who want to use it.

Just a few days later, the editors of the Fluent Types WordPress plugin added help for Turnstile on October 7, 2022 It is published a useful tutorial about how to use it.

The website reviews plugin, currently used by over 40,000 WordPress publishers, added support for Turnstile on October 11, 202 2.

Contact type 7, used by over 5 million WordPress editors, Did not add support for Turnstile .

A writer asking Contact 7 for help with including Turnstile noted that official help is needed to combine Turnstile with Contact Kind 7:

“…The migration instructions provided by Cloudflare are more appealing for a static page/site.

It is important to migrate in a different way with WordPress and CF7, which may contain…modifying the CF7 reCaptcha module records data and even the contact model.

Therefore, I think it will be easier to test the CF7 source code and build a new module.”

There is a integration request with contact type 7 posted on GitHub , but the contact type author responded and said they will not include support for this at this time.

They defined their place at Turnstile:

“For now, I'm not excited about native support for Turnstile.

Cloudflare has not yet provided adequate flooring that helps Turnstile be greater than reCAPTCHA in terms of privacy.

Furthermore, it is still in the open beta phase.”

Someone in contact type 7's GitHub feature request responded to the author's claim that Cloudflare did not provide the “sufficient floor” to migrate from reCAPTCHA for privacy reasons:

They wrote :

“I think what Google's company is promoting (which benefits from analytics in relation to customers is their products that they sell to advertisers) and Cloudflare's company is promoting services to people and companies who pay them is an effective basis for the distinctiveness of their motivations and their entirely different method of defending privacy.

An example of this is how Mozilla partnered with Cloudflare because of this dedication to privacy that they have and the lack of a search battle between consumer privacy and your company (which differs from Google). (Disclosure, I work at Mozilla)”

The writer adopted:

“I would possibly reject the PRs. Tourniquet is not that attractive to me. I advise creating it as an unbiased plugin.”

Ratraca is in Beta

The explanation given by the writer of Contact Kind 7 for not combining Ratraca at the moment is legitimate.

When a product is in beta, meaning it's ready to use, it may involve some hitches and wish-testing.

So whoever installs Turnstile is essentially testing it for Cloudflare.

That said, many people are interested in using Turnstile because Cloudflare is a trusted model recognized for privacy, security, and high-quality options that help publishers speed up their websites.

Integration with additional WordPress plugins may continue to develop, providing an alternative option for blocking spammers from WordPress sites.