←back to thread

Using Cloudflare on your website could be blocking RSS users

(openrss.org)
556 points campuscodi | 1 comments | 16 Oct 24 22:46 UTC | HN request time: 0.307s | source
Show context
amatecha ◴[17 Oct 24 06:43 UTC] No.41867018[source]▶
I get blocked from websites with some regularity, running Firefox with strict privacy settings, "resist fingerprinting" etc. on OpenBSD. They just give a 403 Forbidden with no explanation, but it's only ever on sites fronted by CloudFlare. Good times. Seems legit.
replies(13): >>41867245 #>>41867420 #>>41867658 #>>41868030 #>>41868383 #>>41868594 #>>41869190 #>>41869439 #>>41869685 #>>41869823 #>>41871086 #>>41873407 #>>41873926 #
mzajc ◴[17 Oct 24 11:32 UTC] No.41868594[source]▶
I randomize my User-Agent header and many websites outright block me, most often with no captcha and no useless error message.

The most egregious is Microsoft (just about every Microsoft service/page, really), where all you get is a "The request is blocked." and a few pointless identifiers listed at the bottom, purely because it thinks your browser is too old.

CF's captcha page isn't any better either, usually putting me in an endless loop if it doesn't like my User-Agent.

replies(3): >>41868763 #>>41868916 #>>41870975 #
pushcx ◴[17 Oct 24 12:15 UTC] No.41868916[source]▶
Rails is going to make this much worse for you. All new apps include naive agent sniffing and block anything “old” https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/50505
replies(2): >>41869122 #>>41869662 #
mzajc ◴[17 Oct 24 13:50 UTC] No.41869662[source]▶
This is horrifying. What happened to simply displaying a "Your browser is outdated, consider upgrading" banner on the website?
replies(4): >>41870155 #>>41870213 #>>41870800 #>>41875058 #
1. freedomben ◴[17 Oct 24 14:51 UTC] No.41870213[source]▶
Wow. And this is now happening right as I've blacklisted google-chrome due to manifest v3 removal :facepalm: