A puppeteer-extra plugin to solve reCAPTCHAs and hCaptchas automatically

[CAPTCHAFORUM]

Install
yarn add puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha
# - or -
npm install puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha

If this is your first puppeteer-extra plugin here's everything you need:
yarn add puppeteer puppeteer-extra puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha
# - or -
npm install puppeteer puppeteer-extra puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha

ChangelogUsage
The plugin essentially provides a mighty page.solveRecaptchas() method that does everything needed automagically.

// puppeteer-extra is a drop-in replacement for puppeteer,
// it augments the installed puppeteer with plugin functionality
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-extra')

// add recaptcha plugin and provide it your 2captcha token (= their apiKey)
// 2captcha is the builtin solution provider but others would work as well.
// Please note: You need to add funds to your 2captcha account for this to work
const RecaptchaPlugin = require('puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha')
puppeteer.use(
  RecaptchaPlugin({
    provider: {
      id: '2captcha',
      token: 'XXXXXXX' // REPLACE THIS WITH YOUR OWN 2CAPTCHA API KEY ⚡
    },
    visualFeedback: true // colorize reCAPTCHAs (violet = detected, green = solved)
  })
)

// puppeteer usage as normal
puppeteer.launch({ headless: true }).then(async browser => {
  const page = await browser.newPage()
  await page.goto('https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo')

  // That's it, a single line of code to solve reCAPTCHAs 🎉
  await page.solveRecaptchas()

  await Promise.all([
    page.waitForNavigation(),
    page.click(`#recaptcha-demo-submit`)
  ])
  await page.screenshot({ path: 'response.png', fullPage: true })
  await browser.close()
})

Provider
I thought about having the plugin solve captchas directly (e.g. using the audio challenge and speech-to-text APIs), but external solution providers are so cheap and reliable that there is really no benefit in doing that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Please note: You need a provider configured for this plugin to do it's magic. If you decide to use the built-in 2captcha provider you need to add funds to your 2captcha account.

2captcha
Currently the only builtin solution provider as it's the cheapest and most reliable, from my experience. If you'd like to throw some free captcha credit my way feel free to signup here (referral link, allows me to write automated tests against their API).

• Cost: 1000 reCAPTCHAs (and hCaptchas) for 3 USD
• Delay: Solving a reCAPTCHA takes between 10 to 60 seconds
• Error rate (incorrect solutions): Very rare

Q&A
How does this work?

• When summoned with page.solveRecaptchas() the plugin will attempt to find any active reCAPTCHAs & hCaptchas, extract their configuration, pass that on to the specified solutions provider, take the solutions and put them back into the page (triggering any callback that might be required).

Is this production ready?

• Yes, the plugin is actively maintained, has been battle-hardened over several years and is used in high workload production setups.

How do reCAPTCHAs work?

• reCAPTCHAs use a per-site sitekey. Interestingly enough the response token after solving a challenge is (currently) not tied to a specific session or IP and can be passed on to others (until they expire). This is how the external solutions provider work: They're being given a sitekey and URL, solve the challenge and respond with a response token.
• This plugin automates all these steps in a generic and robust way (detecting captchas, extracting their config and sitekey) as well as triggering the (optional) response callback the site owner might have specified.

Are ordinary image captchas supported as well?

• No. This plugin focusses on reCAPTCHAs and hCaptchas exclusively, with the benefit of being fully automatic.

What about invisible reCAPTCHAs?

• Invisible reCAPTCHAs are supported. They're basically used to compute a score of how likely the user is a bot. Based on that score the site owner can block access to resources or (most often) present the user with a reCAPTCHA challenge (which this plugin can solve). The stealth plugin might be of interest here, as it masks the usage of puppeteer.
• Technically speaking the plugin supports: reCAPTCHA v2, reCAPTCHA v3, invisible reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, invisible hCaptcha. All of those (multiple as well) are solved when page.solveRecaptchas() is called.

When should I call page.solveRecaptchas()?

• reCAPTCHAs will be solved automatically whenever they are visible (aka their "I'm not a robot" iframe in the DOM). It's your responsibility to do any required actions to trigger the captcha being shown, if needed.
  • Note about "invisible" versions of reCAPTCHA/hCaptchas: They don't feature a visible checkbox iframe, the plugin will then solve any open challenge popups instead.
• If you summon the plugin immediately after navigating to a page it's got your back and will wait automatically until the reCAPTCHA script (if any) has been loaded and initialized.
• If you call page.solveRecaptchas() on a page that has no reCAPTCHAs nothing bad will happen () but the promise will resolve and the rest of your code executes as normal.
• After solving the reCAPTCHAs the plugin will automatically detect and trigger their optional callback. This might result in forms being submitted and page navigations to occur, depending on how the site owner implemented the reCAPTCHA.

Documentation https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha