Brave Search captcha fires on almost every search and loops forever on "Letting you in…" - no VPN, reproducible across 3 browsers

Brave Search
1

Brave Search captcha triggers every search and loops indefinitely on “Letting you in…”

Environment

Field Detail
Service Brave Search
Browsers Firefox, Helium, Brave Nightly
VPN None
Usage Primary search engine, 1.5+ years

Problem

Almost every search on Brave Search triggers a captcha challenge. Clicking I’m not a robot transitions the dialog to “Letting you in…” - but it never resolves. The verification loops indefinitely and search results never load.

output

Gif above shows the full sequence.

This happens consistently across Firefox, Helium, and Brave Nightly.

Workaround attempted

Switched to SearXNG (priv.au) . Not a viable replacement - several features I rely on in Brave Search are absent.

Request

Has anyone encountered this? Any known fix, or is this a backend issue on Brave’s side?

2

This issue has popped up in the past as well but it is typically associated with users using a VPN or that have some specific extension(s) installed.

But it looks like you’re trying across different browsers – likely not all with the same extensions installed.

@Evrenos can you please tell me what OS you’re using when you see this? I’m reaching out to the search team about this presently.

3

@Mattches I’m using CachyOS. In Firefox I use the Brave Search extension, but in Helium I just set a custom search URL. Other than that, Firefox, Helium, and Brave all have pretty much the same extensions installed

4

Ah, I see. Can you please test this in those browser again:

  • Using fresh profiles
  • With no extensions installed on those profiles
  • On the search.brave.com website (not the extension, widget, or any custom URL)

Tell me if you get the same behaviors.

5

Firefox - first search hit a captcha but it didn’t loop, the next searches (4) were fine. Helium and Brave were the same

1 Like
6

Thank you for testing. I’ve forwarded the updated information to the search team to review.

1 Like
7

This is a very annoying issue. Still happens today. A captcha is fine, but the fact it doesn’t work on Firefox(-based) browser(s) is disappointing.

Hurts your market share as well, I love Brave Search but had to switch to Duck.

8

I use Brave Browser Private Windows, and when I click on the “3” or “Next” button at the bottom of the Brave Search results 2nd page, that attempt to go to the 3rd page of search results, often causes the Cloudflare CAPTCHA challenge.

9

This issue seems to have been fixed. I do not experience it anymore on Firefox, both and Desktop and Mobile.

To be clear, this issue is NOT about excessive captcha, it was about a buggy captcha that looped forever on Firefox-based browsers.

That being said, they seem to have relaxed captcha across the board, which is also welcome.