Cloudflare's Browser Intergrity Check/Verification/Challenge feature used by many websites, is denying access to users of non-mainstream browsers like Pale Moon.
Users reports began on January 31:
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32045
This situation occurs at least once a year, and there is no easy way to contact Cloudflare. Their "Submit feedback" tool yields no results. A Cloudflare Community topic was flagged as "spam" by members of that community and was promptly locked with no real solution, and no official response from Cloudflare:
https://community.cloudflare.com/t/access-denied-to-pale-moo...
Partial list of other browsers that are being denied access:
Falkon, SeaMonkey, IceCat, Basilisk.
Hacker News 2022 post about the same issue, which brought attention and had Cloudflare quickly patching the issue:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317886
A Cloudflare product manager declared back then: "...we do not want to be in the business of saying one browser is more legitimate than another."
As of now, there is no official response from Cloudflare. Internet access is still denied by their tool.
On one hand, I get the annoying "Verify" box every time I use ChatGPT (and now due its popularity, DeepSeek as well).
On the other hand, without Cloudflare I'd be seeing thousands of junk requests and hacking attempts everyday, people attempting credit card fraud, etc.
I honestly don't know what the solution is.
It works so well and is very secure. You get to the checkout page on a website, click a link. If you’re on your phone, it hotlinks to open your banking app. If you’re on desktop, it shows a QR code which does the same.
When your bank app opens, it says “would you like to make this €28 payment to Business X?” And you click either yes or no on the app. You never even need to enter a card in the website!
You can also send money to other people instantly the same way, so it’s perfect for something like buying a used item from someone else.
Plus the whole IBAN system which makes it all possible!
I guess you get some security since each party that you transfer to must have their identity verified with a bank, so you could always get the police involved fairly easily
The iDeal website page on security [2] is in Dutch, but it translates to roughly:
> Before you make a purchase, make sure that the webshop or business is a reliable party. For example, you can read experiences of other consumers about webshops on comparison sites. Or you can use a Google search to check what is said (in reviews) about a webshop on the internet. Also check the overview of the police with known rogue trading parties and the page check seller data. Before making a purchase, always use the following rule of thumb: if something is too good to be true, don't do it.