Cloudflare checks broken yet AGAIN?

[digitalaudiorock]

Linux:
33.2.0:
64-bit browser:

Well...here we go again. The one site that I use that uses that God-Awful Cloudflare security check is broken yet AGAIN for me. Once again it just goes into a loop re-prompting with that checkbox.

This really IS just going to be a regular thing for ever and ever and ever isn't it. Please post if you're seeing the same on sites that use that. I could about cry.

Tom

[digitalaudiorock]

In answer to my own question, YES, this is how it's going to go forever. Cloudflare clearly has no plans to start testing ANY of their changes in Palemoon and probably other non-mainstream browsers as well. There just aren't enough of us for them to give a fuck...plain and simple. The MO will be:

a) Cloundflar changes stuff
b) It breaks in PM,
c) We complain,
d) Hopefully...eventually...they fix it,
e) Rinse, repeat, see you in a few months.

Excuse the rant but I am PISSED. I guess standards mean nothing, and browser choice...at least browser choice that includes have all or most of the WWW actually work...will become a thing of the past.

Tom

[satrow]

Please, give us some example site(s) to check for ourselves/rule out any oddities in your setup/profile.

[stefan11111]

broken here too.
is it that hard to write good code that doesn't break other browsers, or at least test your non-standard extensions on more browsers?
especially given how often this repeats.

[Moonchild]

is it that hard to write good code that doesn't break other browsers

Not for a captcha, no.

at least test your non-standard extensions on more browsers?

Well that's the issue, you see? Somewhere in the fairly recent past they started restricting what their captcha supports to a very very short list of browsers, which does not include Pale Moon or any other browser on UXP, nor some commonly-used other alternative browsers. Only a small handful of big, commercial browsers. That wasn't the case before, and wasn't the case at the time most websites decided to start using CF. Basically a rug-pull of sorts.

Since CloudFlare is effectively ghosting me at this point, and the EFF seems to not be interested in taking this up with me, I'm really not in a position to do anything about it at this moment. If you run into this issue, complain to CF and the website you are trying to use but can't because of CF's issues.

[digitalaudiorock]

WOW. I hope someone else manages to post something to the Cloudflare community forum about this, because i just tried and it was so unimaginably screwed that I finally got pissed enough to just give up. Just unimaginable...a million "categories" you have to choose from...none of which resemble a "bug", and once I picked the "general" category it insists on answers to countless questions that don't apply. I'm just too pissed off to even think about this for now.

Tom

[Enobarbous]

Hmm, I've checked several sites using CF that were mentioned in the previous thread (fanfiction.net, 4chan, 1337x.to) and a few others, and in all cases the check works fine. Win 7, PM 33.1.1 and 33.2 with clean profiles.
Of course, this may be temporary (if cloudflare update hasn't reached these sites yet), but still, it wouldn't hurt to have links to the problem sites...

[digitalaudiorock]

I'm not sure on the others you mentioned, but I know for sure 1337x.to stopped using that check entirely shortly after the last time this happened.

The site where I'm running into this requires a paid subscription just to replicate the issue, and it's almost a certainty nobody here will have one. Maybe others will have examples. It's already clear I'm not alone.

Tom

[jouven]

Since no one posted a site that has the issue... I'll go ahead https://idope.se/

[4td8s]

WOW. I hope someone else manages to post something to the Cloudflare community forum about this, because i just tried and it was so unimaginably screwed that I finally got pissed enough to just give up.

except that the Cloudflare community forum site shows an "unsupported browser" message at the top of the site when attempting to view their forum site using Palemoon and recommends using either recent Chrome, Firefox or Safari browser versions.

[andyprough]

Since no one posted a site that has the issue... I'll go ahead https://idope.se/

How do you get the problem to appear? I was able to search for a torrent without a problem.

[jouven]

Since no one posted a site that has the issue... I'll go ahead https://idope.se/

How do you get the problem to appear? I was able to search for a torrent without a problem.

Even when this issue wasn't happening, I would get the "Verify you are human by completing the action below." every day when first browsing the site, if you don't get it while using pale moon, I guess there are other factors too.

[digitalaudiorock]

OK...Wow. I struggled my way through entering this on the cloudflare community site:

https://community.cloudflare.com/t/veri ... ain/683018

Please post the "Ray ID" (that appears at the bottom of their security check page) of any failures you encounter there.

EDIT: And as others have pointed out, you MUST use a browser other than PM to post to that forum.

Tom

[digitalaudiorock]

Since no one posted a site that has the issue... I'll go ahead https://idope.se/

Thanks for this. I'm also able to reproduce the failure there. Others here don't seem to be getting that prompt but I do (probably because I'm using a VPN). It just keeps reprompting in a loop.

Tom

[digitalaudiorock]

I'm hoping that others can post to that clouldflare community thread. I mean holy crap...check it out!! I'm getting replies that pretty much say Cloudflare doesn't support Palemoon or other non-mainstream browser, and that I shouldn't expect them to! Please someone back me up here.

Tom

[Moonchild]

I'm getting replies that pretty much say Cloudflare doesn't support Palemoon or other non-mainstream browser, and that I shouldn't expect them to!

I brought the same point up with cloudflare before they ghosted me: It's one thing to "not support browser x" when it comes to the services directly provided to CF customers (with that I mean compatibility of the dashboard or what not -- even though it works perfectly in UXP browsers), but what they are doing with the captcha thing here is that they are effectively deciding for every website behind cloudflare what browsers they allow. Since they are gatekeeping a large section of the internet now with how broadly they are used, they are effectively gatekeeping the web, and forcing "mainstream browsers" for a large portion of the internet. This is the issue I brought up with the EFF but once again did not get anywhere after a few initial (positive) responses and am not getting any further responses from them as well. I'm really not sure why this seems to be the de facto when dealing with individuals or small businesses raising important questions...

This kind of lack of autonomy forced down our throats is why net neutrality is important.

[digitalaudiorock]

I couldn't agree more with everything you said...which is why I'm starting to about boil over about the above cloudflare thread. The user "jnperamo" there swears that all the site administrators ARE very much aware of this and don't care or whatever. Frankly he's just being an asshole and side-tracking the whole thread.

And wow...it REALLY sucks that the EFF is ghosting you on this one. Major disappointment there.

Tom

[digitalaudiorock]

Interestingly the Cloudflare documentation links about those challenges in the replies to that thread do seem to spell out a list of supported browsers. I wonder if that's actually a more recent thing. The replies in that thread seem to indicate that they are, and that they used to be more "open"(??)

If that's true then holy crap...they really have assigned themselves as the browser police / gatekeepers of the web. Maybe the EFF would actually be more interested in this rug pulling bullshit if that's the case(?). Horrible.

Tom

[noellarkin]

This could be the death-knell for Pale Moon, and set a precedent for all other independent browsers if the CF team is allowed to get away with this. It's one thing for a couple of JS-heavy websites to not work properly in Pale Moon, SeaMonkey and other independent browsers, but CF is used by millions of websites, it's almost a default choice for small or medium sized websites, used for their free WAF. Another point: alternative browsers aren't able to pass the Cloudflare challenge, not because they lack the ability to display the website, but because of an arbitrary feature detection decision.

I'm wondering if it'd be a good idea for independent projects to jointly protest CF's gatekeeping - - this doesn't just affect Pale Moon, it will affect every single browser project that doesn't fork Chromium/Firefox, killing all efforts towards a diverse ecosystem of browser engines.

Is there a list of alternative browser projects? I'm aware of Pale Moon, SeaMonkey, and a few older ones like Midori, K-Meleon etc. It would be interesting to ask users of these browsers to also try and see if their browsers pass the CF challenges.

[noellarkin]

I'm getting replies that pretty much say Cloudflare doesn't support Palemoon or other non-mainstream browser, and that I shouldn't expect them to!

This is the issue I brought up with the EFF but once again did not get anywhere after a few initial (positive) responses and am not getting any further responses from them as well. I'm really not sure why this seems to be the de facto when dealing with individuals or small businesses raising important questions...
This kind of lack of autonomy forced down our throats is why net neutrality is important.

IMO alternative browsers need to present a unified front, whether it's confronting corporations like Cloudflare or dealing with EFF. The only way to survive as a minority community of niche users in the modern internet is 1) be a very vocal minority 2) form alliances with other niche communities that have similar grievances.