Cloudflare Turnstile offers a user-friendly and privacy-focused alternative to Google reCAPTCHA for securing WordPress forms such as WPForms against spam and bot requests. As a free service, Turnstile provides an effective way to protect your forms without compromising the user experience. By implementing Cloudflare Turnstile on your WordPress site, you can easily add an extra layer of security to your contact forms, ensuring that only legitimate submissions get through while maintaining a smooth interaction for your visitors and protecting their privacy.
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What is WPForms?
WPForms is a popular and user-friendly WordPress form builder plugin that enables website owners to create various types of forms quickly and easily. Known for its drag-and-drop interface, WPForms allows users to design contact forms, surveys, payment forms, and more without needing any coding knowledge. The plugin offers a wide range of pre-built templates to jumpstart form creation, as well as advanced features like conditional logic, multi-page forms, and file uploads. WPForms integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, payment gateways, and CRM tools, making it a versatile solution for businesses of all sizes. With its focus on performance and security, including CAPTCHA and honeypot techniques to prevent spam, WPForms has established itself as a trusted choice for millions of WordPress users seeking to enhance their website’s functionality and user engagement.
Google reCaptcha Privacy Concerns?
Google reCAPTCHA, while effective at preventing spam and bot attacks, has raised significant privacy concerns. The main issues revolve around its extensive data collection practices and user tracking. reCAPTCHA collects and analyzes user data, potentially including personal information beyond just behavioral cues. This process essentially requires users to consent to being tracked by Google, adding to the company’s vast data repository. The use of cookies and the potential collection of personally identifiable information have further intensified these concerns. Additionally, reCAPTCHA’s practice of ranking IP addresses based on user interactions has raised eyebrows among privacy advocates. These issues have caught the attention of privacy regulators, such as the French CNIL, which has issued warnings about reCAPTCHA usage. As a result, some companies have started moving away from reCAPTCHA, seeking alternative solutions that better balance security needs with user privacy protection.
How to setup WPForms with Cloudflare Turnstile
As mentioned Cloudflare Turnstile is free. Please refer to my previous post about setting up your Cloudflare Turnstile account and access keys. Once logged into your WordPress admin Dashboard click on WPForms and then go to Settings. In the Settings click on CAPTCHA and select Turnstile.
Enter the Cloudflare Turnstile Site Key and Secret Key for your account and then Click Save Settings.
Close the WPForms Settings and then click Add New Form. Select the form you would like to protect with Cloudflare Turnstile. In my example I’m selecting the Contact form.
On the form details page click the Turnstile button to Turnstile security to the form.
After clicking the Turnstile button you will see a popup notification that Turnstile has been configured on the form.
Additionally you should also see a new checkmark confirmation on the upper corner of the form.
At this point the form is ready to be tested so copy the shortcode for the form from the WPForms dashboard and then past it into your WordPress page and try it out. Here is my new contact form which is being protected by Cloudflare Turnstile.
In Summary
Protecting WordPress forms from spam and bot submissions has never been easier, thanks to WPForms and Cloudflare Turnstile. WPForms offers seamless integration with Cloudflare Turnstile, allowing website owners to implement this free and privacy-friendly CAPTCHA alternative with just a few clicks. The process is straightforward: after installing WPForms, users can easily set up Cloudflare Turnstile in their WordPress dashboard and add it to their forms. This powerful combination provides robust protection against spam while maintaining a smooth user experience, making it an ideal solution for WordPress site owners looking to enhance their form security without compromising on usability or privacy. Thanks for reading!
