Problems on Slack.com Topic is solved

[Moonchild]

Slack responded. I'm sorry to say but they just don't want to cater to any "less common browsers" at this time because "planned improvements and upcoming feature releases might break it".

At least they apologized for their accusation about security.

Firstly, please let me apologize for the confusion here. While we understand that Pale Moon may be inline with current security practices, we cannot ensure planned improvements and upcoming feature releases for Slack will be supported.

As a result, we're discontinuing support for Pale Moon and other, less common browsers. To be clear, re-adding support for Pale Moon is not something we will be reconsidering at this time. I am very sorry about this.

We know this situation isn't ideal and we don't take this action lightly. We want to push improvements to our software as quickly as possible and, as a result, we need to focus and restrict our support going forward. I understand this is very inconvenient and am sorry that I don't have better news for you here.

Of course "inconvenient" and "not ideal" are massive euphemisms, but this is the situation.
There's no inconvenience if there is no service. A warning apparently wasn't good enough.
It looks like if you insist on continuing to use this service despite their refusal to consider letting "less common" browsers in, then you will have to add a useragent override to pretend to be one of their "favorites". Nothing else can be done on our side.

[SLotman]

It looks like if you insist on continuing to use this service despite their refusal to consider letting "less common" browsers in, then you will have to add a useragent override to pretend to be one of their "favorites". Nothing else can be done on our side.

I know. And I have only thanks for you Moonchild - your answer on this subject was nothing less than exceptional.

Theirs, on the other hand, show a close mind-ness that is completely the opposite of the "image" new tech companies like to show.

I unfortunately have to keep using Slack - it's where a group of local devs hang out, and where some real work opportunities arise. But fortunately, a quick change in the user-agent string and its working again

[Pallid Planetoid]

The term "security practices is just a BS excuse for some sites not wanting to make the time or take the initiative to concern themselves with any other browsers beyond than the ones that the majority of users most often reference. Which is to say in general what will the general masses mention when discussing browsers, of course the answer will be primarily "Chrome , Firefox, Safari, IE / Edge" just as they referenced in their reply and that is the case regardless of any security issues that any one browser might have one way or the other. Put it simply, it is not "security" that concerns them but rather "convenience" in regards to browser comparability issues. The tendency is to continue in this mindless direction that we as users are not to think for ourselves but rather are expected to kowtow to the baseless whims of the supercilious "we know what's best for you" corporate offices that presume to dictate unfounded conclusions like this to the rest of us. Very irritating, but it's good to know that in most cases we can work-around these cavalier practices.

[PhilK]

The term "security practices is just a BS excuse for some sites not wanting to make the time or take the initiative to concern themselves with any other browsers beyond than the ones that the majority of users most often reference.

Agreed.

Put it simply, it is not "security" that concerns them but rather "convenience" in regards to browser comparability issues.

I can even predict the self-righteous spaghetti-logic/cognitive dissonance required to utter such a statement. They probably uploaded to their brain the idea that while they:

1. Never bothered to test with browser X
2. If one of the things they didn't test for turned out to trigger a security issue with browser X (but only on their site/app)
3. Then that security issue must be browser X's fault (not their fault for being too disinterested/lazy to test)

[PhilK]

I can't for the life of me understand why they would claim "we're not upholding specifications in line with their security practices" when, in fact, we have tighter security than most browsers, and on top, I pointed a potential problem out to them with repeat compression over SSL (e.g.: CRIME) involved, to which they didn't respond.

This is ridiculous.

TBH, as soon as I read that response, I parsed it as corporate-speak BS blameshifting.
Seems to be pandemic these days.

Theirs, on the other hand, show a close mind-ness that is completely the opposite of the "image" new tech companies like to show.

I'm glad you scare-quoted "image" because that's exactly what it is: phony through-and-through.

I live in San Francisco and IMO the tech industry has become so thoroughly corporate that I think compliance-to-trend-du-jour is the TRUE norm these days - rather than this constant hype about "disruptiveness" which sounds good to the marketroids but in reality is rarely actually happening in practice.

[Moonchild]

I asked them about blocking Pale Moon instead of providing a warning, and it's clear they simply don't care to properly evaluate potential clients.

I'll be cancelling my slack.com account forthwith. They clearly don't care about anything but limiting their corporate responsibility if they treat developers this way (basically flat-out stating, we don't care what you do or how good you are at what you do, we're not going to reconsider"). How is a dev supposed to respond to that? it's elitism and discrimination, plain and simple.

I also take your point regarding blocking users versus notifying users about these changes. At the moment, we have chosen to block unsupported browsers to reduce any possible confusion around what we support. That being said, we could have done better in notifying users earlier that this was happening, and we do apologize for this oversight...

...I do appreciate that Pale Moon has been made by a dedicated team, who aim to keep their technologies up to date. Unfortunately, regardless of ongoing improvements and feature sets, we will not be reviewing our decision at this time.

(that is, still implying we are somehow inferior and not wanting to re-evaluate when we "improve")

Work around their discrimination with general.useragent.override.slack.com and set it to "Firefox/52" or "Firefox 52 (because you force me to)" or some other snide remark -- just don't include "Pale Moon" or they may block you again

[PhilK]

(that is, still implying we are somehow inferior and not wanting to re-evaluate when we "improve")

I think in most of these cases it's simply a question of market-share. You may have created the Fountain-of-Youth and Perpetual Energy Machine all rolled into one, but if your marketshare is under 1% they really couldn't care less.

Which IMO is not an entirely irrational view from a company trying to make efficient use of resources and streamline their support queue. (Especially when they won't get complaints from 99% or more of their users about the lack of compatibility with a non-mainstream browser like PM) Chicken/Egg.

I just wish they wouldn't use the mealy-mouthed weasel-word marketroid-speak when asked why they are doing stuff like that.

[Pallid Planetoid]

Because in most of these cases a UA Override can often avoid the sites prompt to upgrade/change browsers (in some cases when blocked is no longer blocked) and otherwise work just fine at that point suggests to me that it's not a matter of compatibility issues that they will generally claim to be the case as much as it is just that these websites demonstrate their pretentious attitude of taking it upon themselves to dictate to users what browsers to use which is shameful.

[Moonchild]

You may have created the Fountain-of-Youth and Perpetual Energy Machine all rolled into one, but if your marketshare is under 1% they really couldn't care less.

Then they should simply say so! It's a perfectly valid argument for a company that they can't invest time in ensuring compatibility with a browser that doesn't meet a certain threshold in terms of number of users using the browser with their service. But they don't -- instead they make a point that in their (unknown) evaluation of the browser it has been found so severely lacking that they cannot reasonably support it, and that is a completely different thing to tell a dev. It goes way beyond market share and it's made about product quality. And that, my dear Phil, becomes personal and discriminatory very quickly.

No, I think the statement early on in this thread was right: it's software bigotry. Plain and simple.