Apparently this site is now checking user agents and aggressively rejecting browsers that aren’t up to date. However, you can successfully access the pages using known malicious bot user agents…or even with a blank user agent. I think the aggressiveness is misplaced. 🙂
Yes, I see that now. I think it is a little over-aggressive. Using an up-to-date version of WaterFox (a fork of Firefox), I get blocked.
Any idea who I should “complain” to about this?
(And wouldn’t it be nice if the forbidden page gave a reason like “This site does not recognize your user agent.”)
This topic should be moved to the Requests and Feedback forum, where it will hopefully be seen by someone that can provide a response. I’m curious as well because I did some testing with Firefox, and the version cutoff was not where I had expected. I’m starting to wonder if it has something to do with the DDoS issues that have been occurring here.
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
No, the topic belongs here. An issue with the Codex isn’t a Requests topic.
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
The best place to report this is in the #meta channel on Slack. To use that channel you need a Slack account. You can obtain one via these instructions.
https://make.wordpress.org/chat/
Thanks Jan (@jdembowski),
If you already have a slack account that lets you participate in that chat, could you possibly post our concerns about this issue, on my behalf?
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
I’m afraid not. 😉
Like you, I am a volunteer doing this on my spare time. I’m not the one who has the problem. I’m not being facetious but it’s better represented by someone who’s experienced the problem. I don’t doubt that this problem exists but my small amount of poking at it hasn’t been able to reproduce it.
Any news on the topic?
BTW It works in Palemoon, but it lacks user agents in responsive design mode so it’s a bit unconfortable to use.
I don’t have the expertise or knowledge of the system to meaningfully evaluate whether their access permissions are too strict or not. Therefore I have not tried to report this via the channels suggested. So I’m just using work-arounds where needed: using a different computer or browser when I need to access something that rejects me when I am using something it doesn’t like.
You are of course welcome to report it if you’d like though, @alfonsoab or @diondesigns, if you think you understand it well enough. 🙂
