Since ≈10 hours I cannot access tickets on https://trac.macports.org with PowerFox, running on Mac OS X 10.6.8, Snow Leopard

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

With SpiderWeb 2.2.5 I am allowed to visit. PowerFox 26.1.0 receives a "forbidden".

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

We have to block outdated browser User-Agent strings pretty aggressively because there are so many AI crawler bots using them and ignoring robots.txt. It's not an ideal solution, but unfortunately the site would be overloaded to the point of being completely unusable without it.

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

What Joshua said. I've recently had to increase the minimum required Firefox version, which probably means PowerFox is too old to meet the bar.

Use a User Agent faker plugin and send a user agent for a current Firefox, or better yet, don't use an outdated browser with known security vulnerabilities.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to neverpanic:

don't use an outdated browser with known security vulnerabilities.

For the record, per ​its website, PowerFox is a modern, secure web browser and its most recent release was last month.

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

On the other side it's a splendid solution for Snow Leopard: With SpiderWeb/2.2.5 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X; Mobile; rv:60.0) Gecko/6#0

pete 128 /\  l /Applications/SpiderWeb.app/Contents/MacOS/
insgesamt 72104
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete 66244008 15. Okt 2022  XUL
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete  2304336 15. Okt 2022  libc++.1.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete   469888 15. Okt 2022  libc++abi.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete   428152 15. Okt 2022  libfreebl3.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete    35760 15. Okt 2022  liblgpllibs.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete  1248400 15. Okt 2022  libmozavcodec.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete   177388 15. Okt 2022  libmozavutil.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete   136568 15. Okt 2022  libmozglue.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete  2017112 15. Okt 2022  libnss3.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete   400592 15. Okt 2022  libnssckbi.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete   124120 15. Okt 2022  libnssdbm3.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete    12812 15. Okt 2022  libplugin_child_interpose.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete   194436 15. Okt 2022  libsoftokn3.dylib
drwxr-xr-x 3 pete pete      102 15. Okt 2022  plugin-container.app
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete pete    14324 15. Okt 2022  spiderweb
drwxr-xr-x 3 pete pete      102 15. Okt 2022  updater.app

I can at least read trac tickets, but cannot login. The offered GitHub does not work because I have no account there – and do not want any, this is completely useless software. With PowerFox 26.1.0 (64-bit)

pete 129 /\  l /Applications/PowerFox.app/Contents/MacOS/
 insgesamt 86608
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin 71675904  4. Jan 02:20 XUL
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin  4529768 28. Dez 09:32 libavcodec.60.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin  1629892 28. Dez 09:32 libavutil.58.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin  2304336  4. Jan 02:20 libc++.1.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin   469888  4. Jan 02:20 libc++abi.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin   963204  4. Jan 02:20 libfreebl3.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin   409612  4. Jan 02:20 libhunspell.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin    40684  4. Jan 02:20 liblgpllibs.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin  2186668  4. Jan 02:20 libmozavcodec.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin   601920  4. Jan 02:20 libmozavutil.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin   149392  4. Jan 02:20 libmozglue.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin  1470808  4. Jan 02:20 libmozsqlite3.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin  1413116  4. Jan 02:20 libnss3.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin   478612  4. Jan 02:20 libnssckbi.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin     8240  4. Jan 02:20 libplugin_child_interpose.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin   310568  4. Jan 02:20 libsoftokn3.dylib
drwxr-xr-x 3 pete admin      102  4. Jan 02:19 plugin-container.app
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pete admin    18848  4. Jan 02:20 powerfox

I once could produce work for you…

(Here I am typing from Sonoma and have to transfer data with ssh between the two Macs. It motivates me quite a lot not to open new tickets.)

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to ballapete:

I can at least read trac tickets, but cannot login. The offered GitHub does not work because I have no account there – and do not want any, this is completely useless software.

Our Trac has required you to use your GitHub account to log in ever since MacPorts moved to GitHub in 2016. You are successfully commenting here on a Trac ticket since you have logged in using ​your GitHub account.

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

GitLab identifies me. GitHub offers to login with Apple (Developer), Google, ot GitLab account. And SpiderWeb does not seem to allow or support this relaying.

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

Replying to ryandesign:

Replying to neverpanic:

don't use an outdated browser with known security vulnerabilities.

For the record, per ​its website, PowerFox is a modern, secure web browser and its most recent release was last month.

So they claim, but the codebase was forked ages ago from Firefox ESR 52. I'd love to check whether they've actually cherry-picked all relevant security fixes that Firefox has released since then, but I don't have that kind of time.

Regardless, our user agent block rule matches on Firefox/$version where $version is lower than 130. Powerfox must send a User-Agent that includes this, which doesn't feel like the User Agent it should be sending. I can probably add an exception specifically targeting PowerFox if you can provide the user agent string it sends.

Replying to ballapete:

GitLab identifies me. GitHub offers to login with Apple (Developer), Google, ot GitLab account. And SpiderWeb does not seem to allow or support this relaying.

That's a problem between GitHub and GitLab and your browser, MacPorts Trac has nothing to do with this.

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

Replying to neverpanic:

Regardless, our user agent block rule matches on Firefox/$version where $version is lower than 130. Powerfox must send a User-Agent that includes this, which doesn't feel like the User Agent it should be sending. I can probably add an exception specifically targeting PowerFox if you can provide the user agent string it sends.

How can I determine this?

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

I got it: about:config!

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

Screenshot of useragent section from about:config

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

I've found a simple workaround: Sasuga 2.3.3 extension. It allows to set for particular domains a specific user agent setting. For trac.macports.org I simply set "Safari" – and could enter.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Replying to ballapete:

I've found a simple workaround: Sasuga 2.3.3 extension. It allows to set for particular domains a specific user agent setting.

Indeed, that was the workaround that Clemens suggested in comment:2.

[ballapete (Peter "Pete" Dyballa)]

Can be closed, I think.

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

Replying to ballapete:

Can be closed, I think.

It already is, but glad you found a workaround.

[mrkapqa]

this happen to me even on HS with fireefox 115.esr-latest or chromium (not so latest) "solution" to regaining access been to use firefox-dynasgty (v147) - not sure why with firefox 115 esr this could happen

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

Replying to mrkapqa:

this happen to me even on HS with fireefox 115.esr-latest or chromium (not so latest) "solution" to regaining access been to use firefox-dynasgty (v147) - not sure why with firefox 115 esr this could happen

Unfortunately we're getting too many hits from AI crawlers that claim they're an old Firefox, including Firefox 115. Maybe we could specifically exclude 115 since it's still current ESR, but on the other hand, there's a newer ESR available with Firefox 140 according to ​https://whattrainisitnow.com/calendar/ that our rules would not block, so if you're forced to use ESR, I'd suggesting updating to the newer ones.