[Hidden-tech] Fwd: What is "browser support"?

[Doug Lowing]

Apologies, I replied only to Marsha. Below are my few comments.

And, I would employ adblockers anyway.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Doug Lowing <delowing at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] What is "browser support"?
To: Marcia Yudkin <yudkinyudkin at yahoo.com>


Try another browser. Try from a different location. Sometimes the IP
address is used many times in succession, and intermediate software
employed by NYT (or others) are designed to sense the multiple requests as
possible attacks or screen scraping.

I get those messages regularly on AliExpress (please don't judge) or Temu
(really don't judge ;)  )

-Doug Lowing

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 5:00 PM Marcia Yudkin via Hidden-discuss <
hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:

> i have a paid subscription to the NY Times and am now in a new location on
> my laptop where I am occasionally being blocked from some inner pages of
> the NY Times with an error message saying that they believe I am a robot.
>
> This never happens from front-page stories, only on some less prominent
> stories.  I didn't take a screen shot, unfortunately, of the error message.
>
> I (reasonably) believed it was the NY Times blocking me from their
> content.  However, they insist it is not them - it is either my ISP or my
> browser doing it.  This makes no sense to me.
>
> On the error message, it suggested that I disable my VPN and ad blockers
> (neither of which I use), and if that didn't work, to clock the "browser
> support" button below.  I did that many times, to no apparent effect.
>
> According to the NY Times, that "browser support" is not them but some
> other entity doing the blocking and being responsible for unblocking me.  I
> do not understand this at all.  Why on earth would a browser block me from
> accessing certain paid content and no other content?  This error message
> comes up ONLY with the NY Times.
>
> One more possible clue:  This doesn't happen when I use my cellphone on
> the same wifi system as my laptop to access the pages in question.  In
> other words, if I get blocked on my laptop by something saying I am a
> robot, I can then read that story on my cellphone.  (Which of course is a
> hassle.)
>
> Can anyone shed light on this?  If it happens again (I thought it was
> fixed but then I got blocked again yesterday), I will grab a screenshot,
> but in the meantime...???
>
> Marcia Yudkin
> _______________________________________________
> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>
> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion list.
> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20240124/1fc6ae65/attachment.html>