Joomla 2.5 and ReCaptcha v1 - March 31, 2018 API retired

I have an inherited Joomla 2.5 site that the company if not ready to migrate to Joomla 3.  As of March 31, 2018 Recaptcha v1 no longer works. The API has been retired.  

Joomla 2.5 does not run recaptcha v2  without a work around. (Joomla 3 uses v2)

 

Here my work around if your Joomla 2.5 site is getting nailed with spam.

Captcha Q&A

https://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/access-a-security/cap...

This works great and our Russian spam stopped.

  1. Download Plugin from the URL above
  2. Install the plugin in Extensions> Extension manager
  3. Enable in  Extensions > Plug-in manager
  4. Enable on your contact component Components> Contact> Options>  Form tab> Allow Captcha on Contact field select "Captcha - Q and A" in the select list.
  5. Enable in Global Configuration  Site> Global Configuration and in Default Captcha field select "Captcha - Q and A" .
  6. Enable in User Configuration User> User manager > Options and under the Component tab in the Captcha field select "Captcha - Q and A" .

 

That should do it.  Hope this helps someone.