Subject: bug#59546: qutebrowser and icecat stuck in infinite browser checks (cloudflare) on applicable sites

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2022 08:26:08 -0500

Hi,

"bdju" <[email-masked]> writes:

[...]

>> I've had that too with Gitlab when using Icecat.  Sadly, it has nothing
>> to do with Guix but with how Cloudfare and the website identifies
>> browsers.
>>
>> For example, I had found out that by using a Windows Firefox 83 user
>> agent, I was able to login into Gitlab (using this plugin:
>> https://gitlab.com/ntninja/user-agent-switcher).  I reported the issue
>> to Gitlab, and they could apparently fixed it on their side (not yet
>> deployed) [0]
>>
>> [0]  https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/345328
>>
>> I think other sites or CloudFare must be similarly faulty, or require
>> fingerprinting which is guarded against out-of-the-box in IceCat.
>>
>> Closing, as I doubt Guix has something to do with it.  If you find
>> something to the contrary, let us know!

> I too have fixed it in the past by switching my user agent. I opened and
> closed a similar bug some months or years back. That solution stopped
> working. I have consulted with folks in the qutebrowser IRC about this
> issue several times and it is not affecting everyone there, so it
> definitely seems guix-related to me. Something about our packages must
> make the browser(s) look odd to these infernal browser checks.

That's a good lead; could you please test qutebrowser in Guix vs
qutebrowser on another distribution yourself and confirm this hypothesis
(that it works elsewhere?), and post your finings here?  If you can do
that and post your finding, I we can reopen the ticket, as we'll have
something actionable to look at.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim