PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
Why can’t I access email links in my newsletter when I’m abroad?
Q When using my Windows 10 laptop in Portugal, none of the links in the weekly email I receive from MoneySavingExpert work. My attempts to visit them are blocked by something called Cloudflare. I just see a page with an ‘I am not a robot’ tick box, but I can’t get past this – it just keeps coming back over and over again. CloudFlare doesn’t seem to be installed on my laptop (not that I can find, anyway) and my identical laptop in the UK doesn’t have this problem.
Do you know what Cloudflare is? Does the MoneySavingExpert website itself generate it? More importantly, is there a way to stop it or – better still – get rid of it entirely?
John Perkins
A This has nothing to do with your laptop. Rather, it’s probably down to its location. Like many big websites, MoneySavingExpert employs numerous technologies to ensure its security – Cloudflare is one of these. The service has many aspects but, fundamentally, if it considers a specific connection to be suspect, then it’ll take whatever action has been configured by the relevant website. In this case, it’s the ‘I’m not a robot’ CAPTCHA tick box or else a ‘Verify you are human’ option (see screenshot 1).
We can’t say when or why Cloudflare on the MoneySavingExpert website triggers this but connections via VPNs or from overseas are probably on its list of ‘suspicious’. The way you tick the box (not the tick itself) would usually be enough to convince the system that you’re human, and not a criminal bot, but any number of factors could retrigger it – such as the fact that clicks on links sent to your email address ordinarily originate from the UK.
Unfortunately, there’s no sure-fire way of bypassing a CAPTCHA ‘loop’ like this, because if there were every
