Fix Pale Moon browser not passing Cloudflare's "Checking Your Browser" verification

Martin Brinkmann
May 5, 2022
Pale Moon
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89

The Pale Moon web browser runs into an infinite "checking your browser" loop on sites that use Cloudflare's browser integrity check feature.

palemoon waterfox cloudflare checking your browser issue

I confirmed the issue in the latest release versions of the Pale Moon browser. Some sites display the "checking your browser before accessing" page over and over again. There does not appear to be a way around this at the time of writing, and the issue is discussed in various places, including the official Pale Moon forum but also the Cloudflare support forum.

The message that is displayed on the page that is reloading infinitely may differ, depending on how the site has implemented the functionality. SteamDB, a popular database site for the gaming platform Steam, displays the current message during browser integrity checks.

steamdb access error

It is unclear why the infinite loop is happening, as Cloudflare has not published an official statement. One user suggested that it could have something to do with the user agent that is revealed to sites when pages are loaded. Pale Moon includes reference to Firefox 68.0 in the user agent for compatibility purposes.   Firefox 68.0 is an old version of Firefox, which was released in June 2019.

The lead developer of the Pale Moon browser published a comment on Cloudflare's community website, stating that the browser was also identifying itself as Pale Moon all the time. Indeed, the latest version of Pale Moon identifies as such in the user agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/5.0 Firefox/68.0 PaleMoon/30.0.1

Cloudflare's parser may object to the Firefox part, as that version is old and no longer maintained by Mozilla.

It appears, from the discussion on the official site, that this issue may not get fixed. If that is the case, it would impact Pale Moon's compatibility on the Internet significantly. Pale Moon users could try and spoof the user agent to see if this gets them passed the check.

Here is how that is done:

  1. Install the User Agent Status extension for Pale Moon and restart the browser.
  2. Click on the icon of the extension in the Status Bar, and replace the Useragent string with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:100.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/100.0.
    1. Note that you may need to adjust the string to follow the latest Firefox releases.
  3. Activate the "Set UA" button.

The browser should pass Cloudflare's integrity check and the actual site should load fine.

Summary
Fix Pale Moon browser not passing Cloudflare's "Checking Your Browser" verification
Article Name
Fix Pale Moon browser not passing Cloudflare's "Checking Your Browser" verification
Description
Find out how to bypass Cloudflare's "checking your browser" verification if the Pale Moon browser runs into an infinite loop.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Paul said on June 6, 2023 at 2:45 pm
    Reply

    Cloudflare does it again. Brilliant.

    1. Paul said on June 7, 2023 at 11:36 pm
      Reply

      …and they fixed it again. Excellent.

  2. Durkoff said on December 27, 2022 at 3:09 pm
    Reply

    This trick doesn’t work anymore since the November 2022 or so. It goes for endless Checking -> Your browser is secure -> Reload loop even with a most recent official Firefox UserAgent. And many more sites show BIC for each visit in the Private Mode, too, nowadays.

    I wish someone organized mass boycotting of Cloudflare or something, they’re clearly overtaking and then breaking the Internet for their corporate needs and nobody care less.

  3. Anonymous said on September 18, 2022 at 9:12 pm
    Reply

    “Cloudflare’s parser may object to the Firefox part, as that version is old and no longer maintained by Mozilla.”

    Cloudflare is not supposed to block web sites because the used browser is deemed too old by the company. I doubt that it advertises its services as such to its unsuspecting customers.

    In fact it’s not even the browser being too old but the user agent string being an unusual browser. Some time ago there were sites with Cloudflare “protection” entering infinite loop with a Waterfox browser unless the user agent string was changed to a Firefox one, and it lasted for a long time. This cannot be a mere blunder coming from IT professionals. It’s intentionally evil, designed to kill ethical competition to the big corporate malware browsers.

    Fortunately for Mozilla they are quite intimate with Cloudflare and are not at risk of being cut off from the web on a whim of that company, but it’s not so true for ethical browsers derived from Firefox, like Pale Moon and Waterfox, that don’t needlessly feed tons of users’ personal data to Cloudflare and others bad actors.

  4. Paul said on May 13, 2022 at 4:54 pm
    Reply

    Cloudflare finally fixed the bug in their software. All related websites now work as intended on Pale Moon (haven’t tested other browsers).

  5. Alex said on May 11, 2022 at 9:05 pm
    Reply

    Maybe we can stick to the topic – re the issue with cloudflare, not people’s bad history with another forum.

    1. Jody Thornton said on May 12, 2022 at 7:36 pm
      Reply

      Apparently Cloudflare has issued an apology/acknowledgement of sorts, saying it’s not targeting Gecko or QTWeb forks. Apparently, some sort of fix will be issued in the coming days.

  6. computer said no said on May 10, 2022 at 8:54 pm
    Reply

    not quite certain why thornton and tobin continue to bang on the same recurring drum all the time.Just move on and leave pale moon be.
    The forum is a lot more friendly now the tobin has been removed and maybe developers may re-consider helping the project instead of coming across cretins like tobin who seem to get their kicks out of insulting people and the BSD debacle is a fine example of tobin’s attitude in general..

    If you don’t like the pale moon browser then don’t use it instead of bitching and whining like dried up middle aged fat fks.

    Have a good day.

    1. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 11, 2022 at 2:27 am
      Reply

      This is largely why.. https://binaryoutcast.com/projects/interlink/release-notes/

      On a related note, Interlink 52.9.8165 was released.. But Ghacks never covers that either.

      1. Iron Heart said on May 12, 2022 at 1:11 am
        Reply

        @New Tobin Paradigm

        I have read both Moonchild’s and your perspective on what happened and have concluded for myself that the truth is most probably somewhere in between. From your side of the story, I do believe that you have worked on “GRE” for quite some time and that Moonchild quietly decided that this is not the way forward for him without explicitly telling you. As a result, you put in man hours for nothing as far as Pale Moon is concerned, although you use GRE for your own products, so I guess it was not totally null and void at the end of the day. Moonchild seems to seek for a scapegoat and is IMHO excessively playing the blame game for a decision he obviously quietly made himself without telling anyone.
        From Moonchild’s side of the story I do believe that it was you who caused the DNS error of Pale Moon’s domains in a fit of anger and / or revenge. You do state responsibility for this yourself although you claim that you’ve notified him of your intentions. Perhaps the maintenance job there really lied with you and you wanted to pull out of the project, fair enough, but if that was the case, you’d have had to announce your withdrawal well in advance in order to guarantee an orderly transition. You can’t just walk away busting the domains in the process. Announcing this a few minutes or a few hours or even a day before does not fix the issue really, it has to be WELL IN ADVANCE. Anything else is bound to create a bad look even if you did announce your intentions, orderly(!!!) transition is the key word here. The way this was done invokes a bad impression, short term prior notification or not (I don’t care either way, the bad impression remains largely the same for me in either version of the story).

        I do respect your work on the Interlink Mail & News client though. I’ve recommended it here before. In days of excessive data collection going as far as redirecting mails to the server of the company offering a mail client (for notifications, or delayed send), which is a major trust & privacy issue, your mail client does not seem to exhibit any shady behavior. It’s what a user-respecting mail client should be. Kudos for that. I was a bit worried because there was a long phase without updates between August 2021 and now, but it seems to be back on track now. Hope that you actually remain committed to this, it is good software. So was FossaMail before, but Moonchild’s abrupt termination (Moonchild seems to have issues communicating things in advance, too, to be fair) of this client was a fairly laughable event that I hope you can avoid.

      2. Jody Thornton said on May 12, 2022 at 7:34 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart and Tobin

        I concur with Interlink Mail and News being great software. I erroneously believed that it was a standalone version of the Seamonkey Mail Client, however it is a nicely lightened “Thunderbird” that goes along nicely with my uses. Although I know security experts warn against rendering HTML content in emails, the new Interlink renders the company logos in my boss’ emails now. Also, Interlink seems to index mail faster (or at least with less impedance or performance than Thunderbird does). In fact, I never even realized I had indexing enabled until I saw it under preferences.

        I also use it with Lootyhoof’s Photonic them, so it has a very “Quantum” flat look which goes along nicely with Windows 8. So modern looking, but classic operating software.

    2. Jody Thornton said on May 11, 2022 at 12:31 am
      Reply

      @computer said no:

      There’s lots of reasons to chime in on something one dislikes – perhaps to embody change, or steer people to another choice. Most of you guys are of the same ilk that all go on about freedom and anti-censorship, but then you want to muzzle someone that disagrees with you? Nice!

      And it’s hilarious that you group Matty and I together – we’re known to vehemently dislike each other. He was one of the MAJOR things I disliked about the Pale Moon team, and that Moonchild allowed him to act the way he did. But … I always credited him where credit is due – and I do like Intelink Mail and News. It’s open on my desktop as I type this. So I’m anything, I’m fair.

      Anyway, I occasionally check out the Pale Moon forum (almost like a guilty pleasure – hey it’s interesting to see what goes on in someone else’s back yard, like on a TV show – and it’s entertaining). But what gets me is, those of you bitching at my nattering about the Pale Moon team, have no problem with how nasty some of these people are to those asking questions, or DARE disagree. Tells me, you’re likely of the same ilk, because on the Pale Moon Reddit and on here sometimes, there are definitely people who see what I’m trying to communicate.

      So sorry, I’ll chime in where I please. It’s a free planet in which to do so. Nighty Night!

  7. DonoEvil said on May 10, 2022 at 4:16 pm
    Reply

    And i am sure that Hannibal Lecter would give both Jody and Tobin the tasty Hannibal lecture.

    Foie, poumons, coeur – Mange quelque chose de bon, repas :-D :-D

    1. Jody Thornton said on May 10, 2022 at 8:50 pm
      Reply

      OK DonoEvil. I’ve left the conversation eons ago, and you’re still babbling on about my comments. This must bother you, a whole heck of a lot more than it bothers me. But why not stuff it now. You’re just feeding the reasons why I’d look dismally upon the Moonie team.

      Pathetic.

  8. DonoEvil said on May 10, 2022 at 12:51 pm
    Reply

    @Paul i fully agree. Doesitreallymattatobin should meet up with his GF/BF Jody (without Foster but Thornton) and get into contact (the movie) instead.

    Would be much more enjoyable for sure for both of them.

    Voilà pour la blague du jour :-D

    1. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 10, 2022 at 6:57 pm
      Reply

      You really have no idea who any of us are do you? I was largely responsible for Jody’s ban from the Pale Moon forum. Maybe you should inform yourself so you can attack more effectively.

      The days of complete ignorance based attacks won’t last forever. So you may want to get into the habit JUST IN CASE.

    2. DonoEvil said on May 10, 2022 at 1:28 pm
      Reply

      At least this would help to silence twice the lambs

      Voici la deuxième blague du jour :-D

  9. John Brown said on May 9, 2022 at 8:26 pm
    Reply

    Makes sense. Pale Moon is very broken.

    1. Paul said on May 10, 2022 at 12:24 am
      Reply

      @John Brown: Cloudflare finally acknowledged the issue and will provide a fix. To THEIR bug. Imagine that.

      1. DonoEvil said on May 10, 2022 at 10:05 am
        Reply

        If it is a bug at all. Its more like damage control:
        https://community.cloudflare.com/t/locked-threads-without-a-solution/381829/5

        I rather would say they have been exposed.

        Évasion impossible, tous les faits révélés, coïncidence exclue

    2. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 9, 2022 at 9:32 pm
      Reply

      And morally bankrupt.

      1. Paul said on May 10, 2022 at 12:22 am
        Reply

        @New Tobin Paradigm, it’s time to move on. You are already sounding like Jody Thornton and the like, and that is not a compliment. You can be better than that.

  10. Paul said on May 9, 2022 at 5:40 pm
    Reply

    @Martin, this is quite a serious issue. Today it’s Pale Moon, Waterfox etc. Tomorrow, other software Cloudflare won’t like or approve without any serious explanation whatsoever.

    Assuming this is not a simple bug or oversight on CF’s part (and that they will be bothered to fix it – being a minority we have to beg, apparently), I hope you can use your leverage and whatever attention gHacks can attract to the maximum possible force.

    1. Andy Prough said on May 9, 2022 at 11:37 pm
      Reply

      Yeah I did read what you said and I don’t see how your ban impacts the open source nature of the code.

      1. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 10, 2022 at 12:18 am
        Reply

        You don’t see how blocking my ability to get open source code impacts the nature of open source code.

        What combo of drugs are you on or is this a natural talent?

      2. Andy Prough said on May 10, 2022 at 2:08 am
        Reply

        I don’t see how there’s any requirement on open source projects to leave un-banned those users who have clearly violated known policies. An argument that you yourself have made quite strongly and successfully in the past.

      3. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 10, 2022 at 6:53 pm
        Reply

        So as you see: I have every right to the source code form of covered software distributed in executable form. Blocking my access via my IP addresses (and not providing an alternative method such as a tarball on the archive server or by request by email (which is also blocked) is a clear violation of the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

        But I suppose Open Source Licensing and the general rule of law doesn’t apply to those you disagree with or don’t like. It is just the times, right?

      4. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 10, 2022 at 6:47 pm
        Reply

        3.1. Distribution of Source Form

        All distribution of Covered Software in Source Code Form, including any Modifications that You create or to which You contribute, must be under the terms of this License. You must inform recipients that the Source Code Form of the Covered Software is governed by the terms of this License, and how they can obtain a copy of this License. You may not attempt to alter or restrict the recipients’ rights in the Source Code Form.

        3.2. Distribution of Executable Form

        If You distribute Covered Software in Executable Form then:

        such Covered Software must also be made available in Source Code Form, as described in Section 3.1, and You must inform recipients of the Executable Form how they can obtain a copy of such Source Code Form by reasonable means in a timely manner, at a charge no more than the cost of distribution to the recipient; and

        You may distribute such Executable Form under the terms of this License, or sublicense it under different terms, provided that the license for the Executable Form does not attempt to limit or alter the recipients’ rights in the Source Code Form under this License.

  11. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 9, 2022 at 7:12 am
    Reply

    Know what the irony is about all this.. Moonchild claims Cloudflare is directly discriminating against the Pale Moon Project while just a few hours ago Moonzilla out of nowhere IP Banned my home connections and two servers from accessing repo.palemoon.org and xref.palemoon.org denying ME access to source code and other resources hosted there.

    I am sure some will claim that is what I deserve but if you take a second to realize the hypocrisy and ignore the Tobin Factor for a few minutes.. You will see him for who he truly is. I see it all too clearly now.

    Given that he will likely not be providing source tarballs in the future AND has blocked my email addresses.. This Tuesday he will be in violation of the Mozilla Public License. Of course his IP blocks will fail as anyone with half a brain can get past them at least on a home connection but I find it strange that he would lock out a competitor from accessing source code and developmental progression when he made a big deal about blaming me for his decision to close everything up for the last quarter of 2021. AND that him and his new lapdog Athenian200 were right along side as a unified taskforce against the MyPal project.

    Doing something crappy being ok because it is being done to Tobin will only ring true for so long.

    1. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 9, 2022 at 7:21 pm
      Reply

      I should also note that Moonzilla is constantly threatening me because if I have a voice anywhere and people start believing the real facts of what happened his new funding from those who hate me (not all entirely undeserved mind you) will dry up.

    2. Andy Prough said on May 9, 2022 at 6:00 pm
      Reply

      I just did a git clone and built the git version yesterday. I doubt that the source code is just going to suddenly disappear over the next 24 hours.

      1. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 9, 2022 at 7:07 pm
        Reply

        Yeah, did you not read what I actually said dude? You can clone, Jody can clone, anyone can clone.. Except me because my home and server IP addresses are being blocked at the webserver level. I can ping, I can traceroute, but I can’t access anything from repo.palemoon.org or xref.palemoon.org.

        Though the forum is already lying about what I said here without linking it. So I don’t expect much. Go to that kiwifarms thread, it has everything AS IT HAPPENED not a thrice rewritten distortion of events while the rest was hidden away.

    3. sunstarunicorn said on May 9, 2022 at 4:59 pm
      Reply

      Tobin, was that before or after you rage-quit as a Pale Moon developer, pulling out right in the middle of Pale Moon’s Version 30 rollout?

      After the sabotage you inflicted on the project with your rage-quit, playing the victim does not suit you.

      Besides, CloudFlare’s actions last week don’t just affect Pale Moon – they affect any alternative browser that doesn’t bow to the Almighty Big Three.

      In your anger at Pale Moon, you are siding with CloudFlare and the Walled Garden of the Internet.

      1. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 9, 2022 at 7:17 pm
        Reply

        You know that CF’s shit also involves my future efforts right? But then again so does Moonchild’s constant bullshit like IP Blocking my self from resources, email, etc.

        He literally released a sabotaged platform codebase and broken Version 30 and forced me to put up a barely functioning Add-ons Site that only had half the Extensions, no themes, and his broken language packs within the space of a week to force this situation because he KNEW how I would react to my months in the works plan requiring the final piece: A near perfect launch of Pale Moon 30 and used his in-depth knowledge to play the situation in order to have an EXCUSE to purge me from his organization. A carefully constructed long game. I fully admit i was played to the very end.

        I would say it was masterfully done but really it was just one of my strategies A sick and twisted version that ONLY benefited him.. financially. He is out to destroy any possibility I have of being a competitor because all he cares about is money and he never cared about the dream.

        In my eyes, there ain’t much difference between him and CloudFlare except merely the scale of operations.

    4. DonoEvil said on May 9, 2022 at 12:10 pm
      Reply

      Tais-toi @New Tobin Paradigm – tu es ennuyeux!

      You and your friend Jody Thornton love to insert rants against Pale Moon and its core team, i can understand that Jody does this, but you Tobin? You have been for a long time part of the core team.

      Anyway, i understand that Moon Child decided to kick you both out. Yes, i have watched that board as a bystander for a very long time. But in your case, if i would have been the one in charge, i would have kicked you out as soon as you started to insult users. You have done incredible damage to the Pale Moon/UXP project as a whole and you should be ashamed for doing so.

      What you have done and still doing is not acceptable and a line nobody should cross. Calling others furry as insult is not friendly and not nice and not correct either. Who do you think you are that you tell others what they should like or not?

      Honestly, does it really MattaTobin what you think? Go back to your own project and instead of wasting your time with useless words, do something useful and work on your projects.

      C’est tout, passez votre chemin, rien à voir ici

      1. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 9, 2022 at 7:04 pm
        Reply

        You only have the story Moonchild initally delayed and spent days crafting and refining as well as hiding earlier posts of and evidence there in. My voice has been denied and what he says ain’t reflective of reality.

        Even the 4chan thread has been scrubbed from the internet but there is once place where the events were documented as they happened. @ kiwifarms.net/threads/palemoon-dev-tobin-ntp-new-tobin-paradigm-leaves-the-project.114903/#post-11451987

        That has everything you need to make an informed decision vs the trash Moonchild put out.

      2. DonoEvil said on May 10, 2022 at 12:38 pm
        Reply

        @New Tobin Paradigm Mais pour ne rien oublier:

        I grant you exactly one pretty big achievement – You helped porting the old UI onwards newer code bases, there you have been of big help, i am sure and nobody doubths you in that.

        But still, without you Pale Moon would have – while still staying as disastrous regarding portability of web standards and drafts and lacking serious wepage compatibility thanks to many issues which never can be fixed – a much better standing in browser legacy – Without you, Pale Moon would not be as hated and despised as it is right now.

        Cela devrait vous donner matière à réflexion – si vous êtes assez intelligent pour l’obtenir!

      3. New Tobin Paradigm said on May 10, 2022 at 6:45 pm
        Reply

        I also created the Add-ons Site, The wiki turned document site, The site that provides linux builds, the current Application Update Service.. I ported Pale Moon up 14 Mozilla codebases .. TWICE preventing Moonchild from just going the Cyberfox route.

        Oh, and I created the Unified XUL Platform after Moonchild’s 7 month failed attempt to do it properly.

        Suffice it to say, much of this hate existed long before I showed up, much of it had shifted to me as the scapegoat (a role I am forever placed in now), and much of it is a result of enforcing the party line and decisions of your glorious leader.

        Basically, you could say.. without me there wouldn’t BE a Pale Moon TO hate.

      4. DonoEvil said on May 10, 2022 at 12:05 pm
        Reply

        @NewTobinParadigm Ne dites pas de bêtises – la vérité parle d’elle-même!

        All this is no excuse reasonings which would give you the allowance to be some kind of unstable volcano which breaks out and erupts as soon as something is not getting along with your wishes and visions and ways.

        It does not excuse that you have been attacking other users constantly, insulting them and making them feel dumb.

        It does not excuse the fact that you have dragged Moon Child into war with several Linux distributions and people from the XP sector which you did not like at all.

        There is no excuse and deflection for you being a rude person which lacks emotional stability and social competence.

        Fais une thérapie, tu en as vraiment besoin, mon garçon ! Et ne revenez pas tant que vous ne savez pas vous comporter correctement.

  12. TelV said on May 8, 2022 at 12:23 pm
    Reply

    I’m getting this problem now trying to load a news media site in Ukraine using Waterfox Classic. It worked fine up to the beginning of last week, but now loops endlessly on Cloudflare: https://kyivindependent.com/

    Maybe they think I’m a Russian spy or something.

    1. DonoEvil said on May 8, 2022 at 12:54 pm
      Reply

      @TelV

      Expect from now on that you have to use for all pages which are protected by Cloudflare a different browser. Cloudflare has closed the door for all users of alternative browsers and they will never reopening it again.

      Welcome to the new walled-garden 3.0 where you need a browser with up to date web standards and drafts to be considered worthy to pass the Cloudflare integrity/security check

      Something which ONLY should be the job of the web page owner but not the security provider – to decide which features are required to watch a page.

      This is another big death blow for the free web. Expect more to come in the future.

  13. DonoEvil said on May 7, 2022 at 7:24 pm
    Reply

    What Cloudflare is doing is nothing other than malicious and anti-competitive behavior – The reason why browsers which do not feature all the latest web standards or drafts are discriminated against is feature detection – That is clearly wrong as the only party which has to decide which features are necessary for viewing a page properly is the page owner, but not the security-provider in between!

    The sad and ugly truth:

    Big companies like for example Cloudflare and Google are supporters of an unhealthy business practice from which both benefit much – Both are interested into helping each others which gives them both benefits. CF’s behavior is monopolistic and outright illegal – Every browser which has no Chrome feature set will be excluded which makes people install Chrome again in a massive way so Google can increase their market share. Its a devious symbiosis between that 2 companies.

    And browser developers who refuse to adopt the Blink engine or users who are not interested in using a Chromium based browser or a Chrome similar browser will face obstacle after obstacle until they give up and give in.

    And the fact that Cloudflare shows such anti competitive behavior which only favors and supports recent Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers is highly shady at least and criminal at most.

    ———————————————————————
    They even state it on their Website somewhere:
    ———————————————————————
    Supported browsers

    If your visitors are using an up-to-date version of a major browser — such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Chrome and Safari on mobile — they will receive the challenge correctly.

    If your visitors encounter issues using a major browser besides Internet Explorer, they should upgrade their browser
    ———————————————————————

    Its disgusting and sickening to see the web being turned into a walled-garden and playfield dominated by large devious and anti-competitive companies who only care for money and dominance!

  14. Anonymous said on May 7, 2022 at 6:15 pm
    Reply

    I apologize for double posting. I did not realize that it would taken this long for my post to show up. I thought I had goofed up my second post (the one I replied to myself as to add the information).

    *Bowing my head in apology*

  15. Anonymous said on May 7, 2022 at 4:01 am
    Reply

    I have forgotten to mention that the ffnet (the link I posted aboved) allowed Firefox ESR 68 to wander around their site but demanded the browser checking if I try to read any of their stories. As for the Waterfox Classic, it got challenged right off the bat. So it looks like the Cloudflare decided that Firefox 68 and below to be off-limited.

    The User Agent Status is only for Pale Moon. So, what would be your recommended addon for Firefox? Or for that matter, Waterfox Classic as well?

  16. Anonymous said on May 6, 2022 at 6:22 pm
    Reply

    Same issue on Firefox ESR 68. Do anybody have any suggestion for the best addon for user agent switch?

    If you are curious, the easiest site to test the Cloudflare is on http://www.fanfiction.net

    1. Anonymous said on May 7, 2022 at 12:11 am
      Reply

      Oh, I have forgotten to mention that for Firefox ESR 68, I could go anywhere on fanfiction without being challenged by Cloudflare. That is unless I try to read any of stories there then I would be challenged. With the Waterfox Classic, I got challenged right off the bat. It looks like Firefix 68 and below are now forbidden by Cloudflare.

      The User Agent Status is exclusive for Palemoon. So, what would be the best addon for the Firefox ESR 68? For that matter, Waterfox Classic?

    2. sunstarunicorn said on May 6, 2022 at 10:26 pm
      Reply

      Agreed on Fanfiction.net being the best test of CloudFlare.

      Even before CloudFlare came up with this infinite redirect ‘trick’, accessing Fanfiction.net using Pale Moon has steadily become harder and harder to do, even though the site itself works perfectly with Pale Moon and has for years. Well over a decade.

      In the past 6 months to a year, CloudFlare started demanding Captcha verification for every single session. Which was very, very annoying, but fine. Whatever.

      Then, they started demanding Captcha verification multiple times per session. Often, I would pass one Captcha verification, try to do something, and then it immediately demanded another Captcha verification.

      Naturally, they couldn’t stop there. In the past month or two, I started running into the problem where I would pass the Captcha verification and the screen would get ‘stuck’. I had to manually reload to get through to Fanfiction.net.

      I also discovered that if I was trying to log into my Fanfiction.net account, I’d have to pray that I’d already gotten past the Captcha screen or else it would turn into an endless loop of:
      Log In
      Pass Captcha
      Get Dumped back at the Log In Screen without being logged in
      Repeat Ad Nauseaum

      I hope and pray that Fanfiction.net dumps CloudFlare. But I’m not holding my breath.

  17. DaveyK said on May 6, 2022 at 10:43 am
    Reply

    Martin, I note that your UA string in the article includes PaleMoon 30.0.1.

    Just for reference, the PaleMoon 30.* releases were withdrawn due to a number of serious issues. As such, the latest version of PaleMoon is actually 29.4.6. The 30.* branch is considered abandoned. You might need to download/install PM manually to get you back onto a supported version.

    1. Anonymous said on May 6, 2022 at 9:39 pm
      Reply

      >the latest version of PaleMoon is actually 29.4.6
      .
      I didn’t know that. I downgraded to 29.4.6 but 3 of my extensions were disabled.

      1. DaveyK said on May 7, 2022 at 12:34 pm
        Reply

        It’s a legacy of some of the changes made for PM 30. If you go to the addons site and re-download them, they’ll be replaced with a compatible version and should start working again with the same settings as before.

      2. Anonymous said on May 7, 2022 at 1:58 pm
        Reply

        >If you go to the addons site and re-download them, they’ll be replaced with a compatible version and should start working again with the same settings as before.

        Thanks. Also did not know that.
        It seems to be fine now.

  18. trs said on May 6, 2022 at 12:07 am
    Reply

    it’s not not only PaleMoon, it affects also Waterfox

  19. Leland said on May 5, 2022 at 11:00 pm
    Reply

    I saw this last week in Firefox Developer version 100.0b9 when visiting alternativeto.net I had to spend about 30 minutes troubleshooting it and finding my password, deleting cookies multiple times just to get it working. The user agent hack did not solve my issue in this instance. Cloudflare is becoming a major issue as I have experienced this in Microsoft Edge a few months ago too.

    1. Andy Prough said on May 8, 2022 at 12:44 am
      Reply

      So we now have reports of Pale Moon, Waterfox, older Firefox, Firefox developer version, Edge, and Tor Browser all getting the same treatment by Cloudflare all in this one thread.

  20. Cassette said on May 5, 2022 at 9:25 pm
    Reply

    The suggested UA override fixed steamdb.info for me. I didn’t have to use safe mode. It infinitely reloaded with the default UA, then immediately worked after changing it. If you have to use safe mode, there’s probably an extension causing the problem.

  21. Yash said on May 5, 2022 at 7:42 pm
    Reply

    I find it really funny whenever a site doesn’t load properly in Pale Moon or even in Firefox, all you need to do is change user agent and 99% site works fine. It is as if site is fully compatible with browser but someone is causing problems on purpose.

  22. Andy Prough said on May 5, 2022 at 7:32 pm
    Reply

    It appears that Cloudflare has fixed it already today. I guess they didn’t like being the subject of a headline on ghacks.

    1. Andy Prough said on May 6, 2022 at 1:19 am
      Reply

      And now it’s being reported as completely broken again. That didn’t take long.

      1. Jody Thornton said on May 7, 2022 at 2:30 am
        Reply

        I can see you were one of the people on this thread
        https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=28111

        I can see that the Pale Moon forum members (including you) were of no help here. Almost denying that Pale Moon has more of a site compatibility issue than Chromium browsers. The Pale Moon team and it’s forum members need to wake up.

        Just because you use sites that always adhere to standards doesn’t mean a number of important sites don’t work on Pale Moon. You can’t expect everyone to bail on Google services. It’s just not realistic. Get Web Components working.

        Nuff said.

      2. DonoEvil said on May 8, 2022 at 3:45 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton

        Its quite telling to see someone like you who is not even using the browser making ridiculous demands, you seem to be quite an arrogant and unpleasant dude, i would revisit your behavior and reflect on your manners and personality for some hours. Would be a good idea!

        Or you are a master coder who would even be able to implement impossible things like web components in few hours. In that case, you know, there are bounties to claim at the Pale Moon repo if someone comes and solves impossible things. So please, by all means, go over, code we bcomponents in 2 hours and use all your tricks out of your magic coding box and show what for a skilled trickster you are.

        You act in some hilarious ways like the heel (big bad) from the Women division of WWE – BigTimeBecks – Perhaps you should call yourself BigTimeJody – Not much difference anyway

      3. Jody Thornton said on May 8, 2022 at 4:53 pm
        Reply

        @DonoEvil

        I’m a guy named Jody, but the Women from WWE comment was funny.

        I’m no coder, just a user. As for my Pale Moon hate, I just like pissing on the team and its forum minions because of how bad they treat users with other opinions and questions. So yes, I admit, I throw way too many tomatoes at Moonies, but you know what? It’s become fun. They were jerks to so many people, so I like seeing what goes around, come around.

        There actually are some good team members, but people like Moonchild, Moonraker and Sadjedi are just jerks to EVERYONE who asks questions. So sorry if I enjoy seeing people be jerks to them.

        And no I DON’T have to go away. Every time I hear ANYTHING bad about Pale Moon, I’ll be there to pile on, and with career like dedication may I add. I come on to the Pale Moon threads just see what’s happening with morbid curiosity, much like someone who can’t look away from a bad accident.

        I’m good with it.

      4. DonoEvil said on May 8, 2022 at 6:26 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton Well that comment about WWE was pretty valid… and why? Tu te comportes comme une petite fille gâtée, qui a perdu son jouet adoré!

        Moonchild and that Sadjedi guy or girl (not correcting your spelling mistake now) post quite useful things and helpful advices and informations. I just need to do a bit of research in the board.

        But its fully understandable that if rude people of your category are incoming it can lead to conflicts and problems, but that’s not the fault of that guys over there, its yours and yours alone.

        Qui ne se comporte pas se fera mordre par un chien!

        Let me make a small guessing game Mrs. BigTimeJody – as you mentioned web components earlier… What did you wanting over there when you have been registered? A new code base or DRM perhaps? Have you repeated your demands over and over again?

        Whatever… Tu es un petit enfant qui manque d’intellect!

        And more i don’t have to say to subjects like you.

      5. DonoEvil said on May 8, 2022 at 5:58 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton I think i cant let this stay unanswered.

        I rather believe you think you have been handled the wrong way by that people over there, i bet all my money that you have been registered at the Pale Moon board, but from the way you write i can clearly see that it was well deserved for what ever for a reason you have been forcefully exited there.

        Bad mouthing others, sorry to say dude, this is childish and ignorant, from what i see that guys you mention are reasonable and friendly people – you don’t win any price with this revenge filled behavior of yours – au contraire – it shows that you are a selfish characterless person who is frying some beef with that people over there as you seem not to have received what you wanted from them.

        If i may remind you….leur projet, leurs décisions – if you are a guest somewhere you either behave or are getting removed.

        People like you i find honestly.. sorry Mr. Brinkmann for being so rude – une honte et dégoûtant!

        Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas chez toi Jody Thornton ?

      6. DonoEvil said on May 8, 2022 at 2:51 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton

        You know exactly that this cant be implemented, its also impossible in Waterfox Classic or Seamonkey 2.53.x

        People who use such browsers have accepted this fact and are ok with it that they cant view a lot of pages properly or not at all or who are using a backup browser for viewing such pages.

        What Cloudflare does is much more devious and manipulating and is a monopolistic partnership with the goal to increase Google Chromes market share for which Cloudflare receives tons of money.

        Not supporting a certain feature because its simply impossible to implement it is one issue, but its a certain different massive issue if a company like Cloudflare is intentionally abusing their influence to discriminate against other browsers in favor of one single already dominating one.

        Stop your hate against Pale Moon, and move on. You don’t like them, they don’t like you, case closed, go home.

      7. Anonymous said on May 7, 2022 at 10:39 am
        Reply

        Yeah Jody, we’re going to need you to pay us $600,000 and we won’t steal the place you’re living in, your car and abduct everyone you’ve ever known.

        What? That seems unreasonable? Just spend a few more years implementing stuff without the budget to do that. Oh, and we’re coming in two days, better have our money!

      8. Jody Thornton said on May 7, 2022 at 6:06 pm
        Reply

        You know what, I’ll leave you guys to your standards ideologies, and I’ll get back to …. hmmm, let’s see, having a life, a girlfriend, you know? Living day to day.

        I used to be like you all, except now I look at browsers as a “tool” to do work on. I need to get work done on whatever allows me to do so. I’ll stick to Firefox or perhaps Vivaldi. If there are compatibility issues, they’ll get fixed.

        Oh besides, Mozilla and Vivaldi can come up with the $600,000, so thanks.

      9. DonoEvil said on May 8, 2022 at 3:01 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton

        What can be implemented are medium complexity or simplistic web standards and drafts like now in the upcoming revision 31=

        – queueMicrotask()
        – setBaseAndExtent
        – optional chaining

        That are features which don’t necessarily require Servo/Stylo or what ever that stuff is called after Mozilla was done with their refactoring to become a Chrome similar browser.

        Another feature which is nearly impossible to implement as its not compatible with the Javascript engine of Pale Moon is the V8 engine of Blink of Chromium, which Firefox seems to use too after another attempt of massive code refactoring.

        All that refactoring was done with version 57 onwards and everything beyond that is either hard or impossible to backport, depending on the number of refactoring or additions of non-compatible code which simply don’t work with the XUL code base. And don’t come up with “they should simply adopt a newer code base then” – if they did, most customization features would be gone, and that’s not what most Pale Moon users want.

        So stop riding on the dead horse called Webcomponents, as that is coming exactly… yes, never!

      10. Andy Prough said on May 7, 2022 at 11:15 pm
        Reply

        @Jody – I’m not sure why you came under attack by these various anonymous posters, but rest assured I am not the anonymous posters and I don’t wish you any ill will or desire to send you any malware.

        As to my choice of browsers – they are just tools, and I use the simplest ones for the jobs that I need done. That usually means an rss feed reader or a text-based browser or Pale Moon, as my daily browsing needs are so simple, but when I do need to interact with a site that doesn’t work with those I am capable of trying a variety of browsers, just like anyone else. So I think your characterization of me as some sort of luddite is a bit over-wrought.

        Other than that, I do not know how or why Cloudflare is causing this problem, not just with Pale Moon but also with Waterfox and earlier versions of Firefox according to other reports in this thread. However, they have done this exact same thing for years to Tor Browser users in my own experience, so it’s certainly not a new trick in the Cloudflare playbook.

      11. Anonymous said on May 7, 2022 at 8:00 am
        Reply

        Did you take the time to look at the thread on the Cloudflare community forum? They were of no help here, even denying that Cloudflare was acting as a malicious man-in-the-middle and causing “compatibility” problems where none existed before. The Cloudflare team and its forum members need to wake up.

        Since when does Chromium have compatibility issues? You do realize that Chromium, Edge, and Google Chrome all use the exact same render engine and have the exact same compatibility, right? Sounds like a problem of incompetent web “developers” not coding sites to proper web standards. If your site doesn’t work for 1% of users, 1% of users have a problem. If your site doesn’t work for 80% of users, your site has a problem. Chromium represents the 80% here.

        For that matter, what does Pale Moon’s site compatibility have to do with Cloudflare’s malicious blocking of Pale Moon? If I visit a website, I expect to be served the content from that website, not maliciously man-in-the-middled by a malicious third-party sending malicious code[1] to my browser and requiring that I blindly run it in order to gain access. Would you blindly run an .exe file that I sent you? No? Then why in the [colorful metaphors removed] should I run [more colorful metaphors purged] Cloudflare’s malicious code? (If you said yes please let me know so I can whip up an exe and send it to you.)

        Just because you use browsers that hemorrhage private information to every malicious data collector out there doesn’t mean that everyone does. You can’t expect everyone to care as little about personal privacy as you do. It’s just not realistic. Get web standards compliant.

        Nuff said.

        [1] Obfuscated code is A-L-W-A-Y-S malicious. If it wasn’t malicious the developer wouldn’t be trying to hide what they’re doing. Saying “it keeps bad buys from reading it” proves that they’re not just malicious, they’re also incompetent, giving a second reason not to run their code.

  23. Anonymous said on May 5, 2022 at 5:37 pm
    Reply

    “It appears, from the discussion on the official site, that this issue may not get fixed.”

    What’s the tech equivalent of “Your call is important to us…..”

    The arrogance of companies dealing with customers is out of control.
    Cloudfare “It’s not our problem”
    Pale Moon “We haven’t changed anything and our users are significantly impacted”
    Cloudfare “They can use other browsers”
    Pale Moon “They want to access websites using the Pale Moon browser”
    Cloudfare “Please hold on the line, your call is important to us….”

  24. Henk said on May 5, 2022 at 5:17 pm
    Reply

    Tried using Martin’s suggested UA set as the “permanent UA” in the preferences of the Eclipsed Moon extension. Of course taking care to also delete existing site cookes first.

    Strangely mixed results: some sites turn out to allow access, but others don’t. And in the case of steamdb.info (the site used as example in the post here) I did get access, but it consistently loaded only a bare “white-and-blue” HTML page without any of the site’s CSS layout — which rendered the site almost completely unusable.

    Luckily I use Pale Moon only for test purposes, not as my main browser. If that were the case, I would be very unhappy now. And perhaps blame Cloudflare?

    1. nicolaasjan said on May 5, 2022 at 5:44 pm
      Reply

      @ Henk
      > And in the case of steamdb.info (the site used as example in the post here) I did get access, but it consistently loaded only a bare “white-and-blue” HTML page without any of the site’s CSS layout — which rendered the site almost completely unusable.

      Site rendered fine here in safe mode.

  25. Andy Prough said on May 5, 2022 at 5:11 pm
    Reply

    Cloudflare has been doing this for years to Tor Browser. Infinite checks is nothing new, the only new thing is that Cloudflare now assumes all Pale Moon users are evil l33t haxxors just like all Tor users are.

    1. Bill Gates LOL said on May 5, 2022 at 9:02 pm
      Reply

      Cloudflare officially supports Tor. Some IPs are temporarily blocked when they have been used in a recent attack. Get a new IP and it won’t stay in the infinite loop.

      https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/203306930-Understanding-Cloudflare-Tor-support-and-Onion-Routing

      1. Andy Prough said on May 7, 2022 at 11:21 pm
        Reply

        @Bill – Have you actually tried that? I can tell you that with Tor Browser, you can generate new IP after new IP after new IP for 20-30 minutes with the same problem with Cloudflare sites. Every once in a blue moon you’ll hit on an IP address that hasn’t been blocked by Cloudflare, but it’s a very rare occurrence. For those websites, it’s simply better not to try to visit them at all with Tor Browser.

        To say that Cloudflare is anything but hostile to Tor Browser users is just simply false, regardless of what their official support article states. They are not blocking IP’s that were used in recent attacks – I’m quite certain that they are blocking all known Tor Browser IP’s period.

  26. Max said on May 5, 2022 at 4:51 pm
    Reply

    Cloudflare continually reloads the page even if Pale Moon’s native UA string is used – which doesn’t mention Firefox. They just don’t seem able recognize the browser – or haven’t tried to do so.

    1. Frankel said on May 5, 2022 at 5:32 pm
      Reply

      This is trivial to detect, they detect browsers by features. Nobody in the tracking industry uses the useragent anymore for that.

      https://arkenfox.github.io/TZP/tzp.html

      1. Frankel said on May 5, 2022 at 5:33 pm
        Reply

        Addendum:

        https://browserleaks.com/features

        Wrong link previously, but they are both interesting on their own to detect if your browser is “lying” to a website regarding their useragent.

  27. nicolaasjan said on May 5, 2022 at 4:38 pm
    Reply

    @Martin
    Unfortunately the user agent spoofing doesn’t work here…

    general.useragent.override.steamdb.info —>
    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:100.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/100.0

    1. nicolaasjan said on May 5, 2022 at 5:41 pm
      Reply

      [Edit]
      [steamdb.info] works when starting Pale Moon in safe mode.

      1. privateer said on May 7, 2022 at 9:22 am
        Reply

        Probably an add-on is the culprit.

  28. Rubber Chikin 365 said on May 5, 2022 at 3:35 pm
    Reply

    Iron Heart, how do you feel about using an insecure old browser?

    1. Aaa said on May 6, 2022 at 4:47 pm
      Reply

      Pale Moon is NOT a Firefox fork.

      1. beemeup5 said on May 6, 2022 at 5:28 pm
        Reply

        @Aaa

        Pale Moon fits the definition of a Firefox fork. You think Pale Moon’s code was written from scratch?

      2. Jody Thornton said on May 7, 2022 at 2:32 am
        Reply

        Exactly Aaa! Moonies think Goanna is it’s own separate engine.

      3. Rex said on May 9, 2022 at 6:44 am
        Reply

        No they don’t. And at this point it IS a separate engine. This is like saying all species of animals are the same because they evolved from unicellular organisms.

    2. Iron Heart said on May 6, 2022 at 7:31 am
      Reply

      @RUBBER CHIKIN 365

      Not bad at all, dear troll, because Brave is provably not old and insecure.

  29. anonymous said on May 5, 2022 at 3:34 pm
    Reply

    Why don’t they just let ME decide which browser I want to use?

    1. Frankel said on May 5, 2022 at 4:52 pm
      Reply

      But they do, ghacks itself is hosted behind cloudflare. It always depends how strict you configure the browser check to be.

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