Washington Post detects as "Private"

[[TMac]]

Any articles on the Washington Post claim I'm using Private Mode and won't let me view. I have this problem on two different computers, with Pale Moon only. What might be causing it? E.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -pray-rain

[Moonchild]

The Washington Post does a lot of things wrong with browser detection and their team responsible for such things take literally months to reply.
I'm afraid there's little you can do but complain and be patient.

[billmcct]

Install this add-on, click button to dismiss the private browsing warning.
https://addons.palemoon.org/addon/behin ... verlay-me/

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Off-topic:

The Washington Post does a lot of things wrong

Yes. Yes they do.

[coffeebreak]

No "private browsing" warning here when the browser uses Native user agent mode.
However this only seems to work if the setting is global: making an override for Washington Post with the native UA doesn't similarly work.

[adesh]

A website should not be able to detect private browsing mode. Making guesses on part of the site is fine but if a browser happily tells about the current mode, I'd consider that a serious issue.

But what do the websites want to accomplish with that? How does it matter whether I'm at my work desk or sitting in a lawn chair?

[gepus]

A website should not be able to detect private browsing mode.

Fully agreed.

BTW, I assume that other browsers have the same shortcoming if not in native mode.

[Isengrim]

Making guesses on part of the site is fine but if a browser happily tells about the current mode, I'd consider that a serious issue.

Pale Moon certainly doesn't advertise it, and I doubt any other browsers do either. There's no standard for sharing that kind of information with websites.

BTW, I assume that other browsers have the same shortcoming if not in native mode.

They do, or used to.

[nicolaasjan]

You can get rid of this nonsense by using uBlock Origin and add the following line in the "My Filters" section:

Code: Select all

washingtonpost.com##^script:has-text(Turn off private browsing)

and hit "Apply changes"

I had the same warning and I don't even use private mode...

[Edit]
How to install uBlock Origin in Pale Moon

[Moonchild]

For the record, the "guess" about private browsing mode is usually because they want to use certain types of in-browser storage that are generally disabled in private browsing/incognito modes. These sites rely on being able to use those feature for proper operation. Just hiding the warning will likely not fix the issue if it's caused by your settings.

[[TMac]]

I haven't had this problem with other sites, but I haven't used Pale Moon for long. In Chrome, sites detect Private Browsing by looking for a form of storage, which isn't implemented in incognito mode. But I wasn't browsing WaPo in Private mode, so I'm guessing it was looking at the user agent and tried something based on it, which failed.

Changing the user agent solved it, but of course changes it for everything. Any chance of a per-site setting for that, must as for cookies?

They use privacy detection because they want persistent cookies and tracking, to count your visits for the paywall kick-in and to be able to better monetize you. But, again, I wasn't in private mode.

[Frasier]

Any chance of a per-site setting for that, must as for cookies?

Yes, In 'about:config'
In the preferences window, right-click, from the menu select the 'New' option.
In the sub-menu select the 'String' option.

general-override.png (75.21 KiB) Viewed 1320 times

For the requested preference name, enter:

Code: Select all

general.useragent.override.washingtonpost.com

Press 'OK'.
for the string value enter:

Code: Select all

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:60.9) Goanna/4.3 PaleMoon/28.6.0

Press 'OK'. Close 'about:config'

[JoeyG]

Yes, In 'about:config' ...

This didn't work for me. Adding the filter to UBlock Origin (mentioned above) did.

In any case, thanks to both posters.

[coffeebreak]

Yes, In 'about:config'

this only seems to work if the setting is global: making an override for Washington Post with the native UA doesn't similarly work.

[coffeebreak]

Any chance of a per-site setting for that

A current or recent Chrome user agent does seem to work per/site (surprise).


Here's what I used (indicates W7 x86). Or use an example from a site such as here.

Code: Select all

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/75.0.3770.100 Safari/537.36

[Moonchild]

this only seems to work if the setting is global

In that case you'll have to investigate what other domains washingtonpost uses on their site because it will require an override for an external domain (not the root domain you are visiting).

[coffeebreak]

Update:
The native user agent for PM 28.6.0.1 works as a site-specific UA override for washingtonpost.com
(at least it works for me).

It seems to really be the string that does it, not the update itself, because the 28.6.0.1 string works also in PM 28.5.2, whose own native string still only works for me as a global UA override, not as site-specific.

[Isengrim]

Update:
The native user agent for PM 28.6.0.1 works as a site-specific UA override for washingtonpost.com
(at least it works for me).

This works for me as well. I bet their Private Browsing detection is relying on specific components of the user agent.

[[TMac]]

Where do I configure site-specific user agent strings? It's not in about:permissions, where other site-specific values seem to be.

[coffeebreak]

Where do I configure site-specific user agent strings?

In about:config .
See Frasier's post for how to do it, adjusting the string for 28.6.0.1.