What does “checking your browser before you access” actually mean?

It means the site has put a challenge in front of itself, and the challenge has handed your browser a computation to run and post back within a short window. The wording is deliberately empty — a message specific enough to help you would also tell an automated client exactly what to change. Everything useful about that screen has to be worked out from your own side, which is what this site does.

Is a captcha loop the same problem as an interstitial that never finishes?

No, and they need opposite responses. A captcha loop is a storage problem: the pass you earned could not be kept or could not be read back on the next request. A hanging interstitial is a timing problem: no answer arrived before the deadline. Closing tabs fixes the second and does nothing for the first; allowing cookies fixes the first and does nothing for the second.

Why do I get challenged on some sites but not on others?

Because the threshold belongs to the site rather than to the vendor, and sites raise it around whatever has recently been targeted — checkouts, logins, password resets, limited releases. The same request that passes everywhere else sits below the line on the one page you actually needed. Nothing about you changed between the two pages.

How do I tell whether it’s my browser or my network causing it?

Two tests, both about a minute. Open the same site in a second browser on the same machine: if it also fails, your browser's settings and extensions are not the cause, because two different browsers do not share them. Then try a second device on the same connection: if that fails too, the thing they share is the network, and no browser setting will reach it.

Does getting a captcha mean a website has flagged my account?

Usually not. Most of these decisions are made on the request rather than on any account, and frequently before you have signed in at all — the score is recomputed from your address and your browser on every page. That is also why the challenge follows you to sites where you have never had an account.

Start with what is on your screen

Six things people are looking at when they arrive here. Each one names what the challenge is actually waiting for, which is almost never what it appears to be waiting for, and points at the settings that produce it.

The wording on the screen is chosen to tell you nothing. “Verify you are human”, “checking your browser”, “something went wrong” — none of them say what failed, because saying so would tell a real automated client what to change. That is reasonable of them and useless to you.

So this page translates. Each entry says what the challenge is waiting on underneath the wording, and then which parts of your own setup can stop it arriving.

Which of these am I actually looking at?

The six below are distinguished by what the screen does next, not by what it says. Watch it for ten seconds before changing anything, because the three behaviours need different responses and it is easy to spend an evening on the wrong one.

A screen that reloads itself and starts again has not judged you — it failed to get an answer in time and is retrying. A screen that sits still indefinitely has a step that never ran, usually a request something cancelled. A screen that replaces itself with a refusal or an error did get an answer and made a decision about it, which means speed and extensions are not your problem and the request is.

Is it my browser, my machine, or my network?

Two tests separate the three, both about a minute, and doing them first saves changing settings that were never contributing.

Open the same site in a second browser on the same machine. If it behaves identically, your extensions and browser settings are not the cause — two different browsers do not share them. Then try a second device on the same connection. If that fails too, what they share is the address the network exits on, and no setting on any of your machines reaches it.

If the second browser is fine, the first browser's configuration is in play, and the ranked reading names which part of it. If the second device is fine, the first machine is the variable — usually short of processor time or drawing without a graphics chip.

The captcha comes back
You solve it, the page reloads, and the same captcha is there again. Sometimes twice, sometimes forever.

What it is waiting on

The pass it just issued you, read back on the next request. When it cannot read the pass, it has no way to know you already solved anything.

Usually Third-party storage Shared exit address VPN exit country Content blocker Connection
“Checking your browser” never finishes
The interstitial sits there with its spinner. Eventually it reloads and starts again, or it gives up and shows an error.

What it is waiting on

A computation it handed your browser, finished and posted back inside its own deadline. It is not waiting on your connection; it is waiting on your processor.

Usually Execution budget Content blocker Connection Graphics renderer Timer resolution
“Verify you are human”, again
You tick the box, it accepts, and the next page asks you to do it again. Nothing you do makes it stop.

What it is waiting on

A score it recomputes on every request. Passing the box raises it briefly; something in the request keeps pulling it back down.

Usually VPN exit country Shared exit address Request headers Privacy hardening Signals that disagree Input rhythm
Only when the VPN is on
Turn the VPN off and everything works. Turn it back on and the challenges return within a page or two.

What it is waiting on

Agreement between where your traffic comes out and what your browser says about itself. The VPN breaks that agreement even when it is working perfectly.

Usually VPN exit country Shared exit address
Everyone on this network gets it
It is not just you. The office, the campus, the hotel — everybody on the same connection is being challenged.

What it is waiting on

Nothing about you at all. The address is being scored, and it is being scored on the behaviour of everyone else who shares it.

Usually Shared exit address VPN exit country
It started, and nothing changed
No new extension, no new VPN, no new machine. It simply began one week and did not stop.

What it is waiting on

The same things it always was. The thresholds moved, or your browser stopped updating and the rest of the web kept going.

Usually Browser build Privacy hardening Shared exit address
“Sorry, you have been blocked”
No captcha, no box to tick. The site shows an access-denied page with a reference number and nothing you can do on it.

What it is waiting on

Nothing. A block page is the decision itself: the request scored past the line where the site stopped offering a challenge at all.

Usually Shared exit address Request headers Connection Automation flag
“Press and hold” keeps coming back
You hold the button until it fills, the page reloads, and the button is there again. Sometimes it never fills at all.

What it is waiting on

A short behaviour sample and a script it runs while you hold, then a pass stored in your browser. Either the sample or the pass is not getting through.

Usually Third-party storage Content blocker Input rhythm Execution budget

None of this has looked at your machine. Read your browser and the six become one ranked list of your own values, with the arithmetic printed on every row.

What people search when they are staring at one of these

What does “checking your browser before you access” actually mean?: It means the site has put a challenge in front of itself, and the challenge has handed your browser a computation to run and post back within a short window. The wording is deliberately empty — a message specific enough to help you would also tell an automated client exactly what to change. Everything useful about that screen has to be worked out from your own side, which is what this site does.
Is a captcha loop the same problem as an interstitial that never finishes?: No, and they need opposite responses. A captcha loop is a storage problem: the pass you earned could not be kept or could not be read back on the next request. A hanging interstitial is a timing problem: no answer arrived before the deadline. Closing tabs fixes the second and does nothing for the first; allowing cookies fixes the first and does nothing for the second.
Why do I get challenged on some sites but not on others?: Because the threshold belongs to the site rather than to the vendor, and sites raise it around whatever has recently been targeted — checkouts, logins, password resets, limited releases. The same request that passes everywhere else sits below the line on the one page you actually needed. Nothing about you changed between the two pages.
How do I tell whether it’s my browser or my network causing it?: Two tests, both about a minute. Open the same site in a second browser on the same machine: if it also fails, your browser's settings and extensions are not the cause, because two different browsers do not share them. Then try a second device on the same connection: if that fails too, the thing they share is the network, and no browser setting will reach it.
Does getting a captcha mean a website has flagged my account?: Usually not. Most of these decisions are made on the request rather than on any account, and frequently before you have signed in at all — the score is recomputed from your address and your browser on every page. That is also why the challenge follows you to sites where you have never had an account.

READ AT PRIOR TABLE ED. 1.0.0 · 2026-10-13 · ASSUMED, NOT MEASURED

The rank is taken against 15 written assumptions about how common each value is and 16 written weights about how much each one matters. 9 of them we think are probably wrong. Real counts from the browsers these sites have read appear beside a row, never inside its rank. Read the assumptions →

The rows you cannot fix from a settings page

A VPN you need for work, an address your ISP shares with a thousand other subscribers, a laptop with no graphics chip, a hardened profile that breaks the sites it was meant to protect — none of these have a checkbox. What is left is to present a reading that is internally consistent and ordinary on purpose, instead of one that is accidentally strange.

Donut Browser does that at the engine level: its Wayfern Chromium fork applies the fingerprint through CDP injection rather than patching JavaScript in the page, and it refuses to launch a profile whose proxy exit country, time zone and language contradict the profile's own fingerprint — which is the top row of most readings on this site. It is AGPL-3.0, it has no telemetry of any kind, and it runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.

Stated plainly: this site has no test results showing what any particular anti-bot service does with any particular browser, and neither does Donut Browser's own repository. What can be checked is the source, which is public.

Download Donut Browser

Free · AGPL-3.0 · github.com/zhom/donutbrowser