Browser Check?

[swm59nj]

     Starting today when I log on to Thaivisa, I get a browser check before it downloads. It happens on my windows laptop and Iphone. Is this something new?

[Laza 45]

Good question.. Why?

[ubonjoe]

Yes it is new as an additional layer of security.

[wordchild]

protects the site from attacks  

Edited March 11, 2021 by wordchild

[NCC1701A]

33 minutes ago, swm59nj said:

Is this something new?

it's like a condom for the website. 

[Grusa]

4 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

Yes it is new as an additional layer of security.

I will risk administrative wrath and ask questions I have been unable to find a channel to ask!

Why have I received no newsletter emails for days?

Why is the forum internet link fouled up?

 

Why have I been getting constant Cloudflare errors, telling me there is nothing wrong with my browser and nothing wrong with Cloudflare, it's TV servers?

 

Why do we have a new, hard to read, and not very pretty format, which it seems does not render correctly on Chrome, Brave, IE or Safari, on Android, iPad, Windows etc.? Specifically, avatars do not render, nor do "like" etc buttons

 

Why were we not warned that all this was happening, and to expect glitches... a courtesy email was all that was required! 

 

And to respond to your quoted reply, whose security? yours or ours? and what was insecure, and why did it matter?

 

As so often happens, you have mended something that was not broken, and made it worthless.

 

[Puccini]

On 3/11/2021 at 4:37 AM, Grusa said:

...Why have I received no newsletter emails for days?...

This was obviously because the forum was down for several days.

[upu2]

On 3/11/2021 at 4:17 AM, ubonjoe said:

Yes it is new as an additional layer of security.

What security would that actully be? I would assume it is checking to see what information can be obtained from you for whatever purpose for use by Thaivisa or others associated with Thaivisa. It certainly isnt security for the user

[farang51]

31 minutes ago, upu2 said:

What security would that actully be? I would assume it is checking to see what information can be obtained from you for whatever purpose for use by Thaivisa or others associated with Thaivisa. It certainly isnt security for the user

It is quite irritating; however, it is not to obtain any extra information from you. They cannot get any more information that way than they can from every visit to the site.

I guess that it is some form of protection against a DDOS attack, which helps make the site available to the users. Although, other sites seems to do fine without that extra annoying step.

 

[onthedarkside]

As another moderator explained above, the current browser check screen when accessing the forum in a new session is an additional security measure to help protect the forum site, and avoid outages like the one that occurred in the past week.

 

[Kerryd]

Cloudfare is not to protect the user or to "track" them. It gets no more information from you than any other site does when you enter it. It will know your IP address, type of browser and operating system. All things that your browser already knows (which means the things that whoever made your browser already knows like Google, Microsoft. etc.)

It is to protect the site, primarily from malicious DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks and in fact a lot of sites use it (or something similar). Most of the time you never notice it. 
It seems to be a bit slow when it comes to ThaiVisa though. I know some gaming (multi-player games, not gambling) sites that are often targeted by DDOS attacks (like EVE Online) and also use Cloudfare. However, when I go to those sites I never even see the "Cloudfare is checking your browser" page (it is running in the background though).

Apparently, EVE Online went "onboard" with Cloudfare in the middle of a DDOS attack where it was estimated that well over 500,000 connections were being attempted simultaneously in an attempt to overload and crash their servers (as well as preventing actual users from being able to log into the site).

And no, Cloudfare (and ThaiVisa) are not "fingerprinting" you. For Freddies Sake - the Thai government already has all the information it wants about you anyways (as well as the phone companies/ISPs/cable companies/banks/electrical authority, etc, etc).
It's not like they don't already know who you are and where you are and I'm pretty sure they couldn't care less if your computer is in the living room or the bathroom.

I have to laugh every time someone suggests this is a "plot" by the gov't to track foreigners as though suddenly the Thai gov't is going to round them all up and put them in boxcars before shipping them off to "rice farms in Isaan" never to be seen again.

Some people watch far too many movies.

[upu2]

13 hours ago, farang51 said:

1. Yes, and that MAC address is the same whether they use the browser check or not. They can get exactly the same information about your computer/connection without the browser check.

2. No, it cannot.

Yes it can for your number 2 item

[KannikaP]

On 3/11/2021 at 10:37 AM, Grusa said:

As so often happens, you have mended something that was not broken, and made it worthless.

But you are still able to post here, so not worthless.

[farang51]

14 minutes ago, upu2 said:

Yes it can for your number 2 item

A website does not have the ability to see which wi-fi networks I am close to. An app on a mobile phone with the "right" permissions may be able to do that, as may a program on a wi-fi enabled computer, but no a website. It does sound as if you have seen too many movies, as Kerryd suggest.

[HighPriority]

On 3/13/2021 at 9:00 AM, Kerryd said:

Cloudfare is not to protect the user or to "track" them. It gets no more information from you than any other site does when you enter it. It will know your IP address, type of browser and operating system. All things that your browser already knows (which means the things that whoever made your browser already knows like Google, Microsoft. etc.)

It is to protect the site, primarily from malicious DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks and in fact a lot of sites use it (or something similar). Most of the time you never notice it. 
It seems to be a bit slow when it comes to ThaiVisa though. I know some gaming (multi-player games, not gambling) sites that are often targeted by DDOS attacks (like EVE Online) and also use Cloudfare. However, when I go to those sites I never even see the "Cloudfare is checking your browser" page (it is running in the background though).

Apparently, EVE Online went "onboard" with Cloudfare in the middle of a DDOS attack where it was estimated that well over 500,000 connections were being attempted simultaneously in an attempt to overload and crash their servers (as well as preventing actual users from being able to log into the site).

And no, Cloudfare (and ThaiVisa) are not "fingerprinting" you. For Freddies Sake - the Thai government already has all the information it wants about you anyways (as well as the phone companies/ISPs/cable companies/banks/electrical authority, etc, etc).
It's not like they don't already know who you are and where you are and I'm pretty sure they couldn't care less if your computer is in the living room or the bathroom.

I have to laugh every time someone suggests this is a "plot" by the gov't to track foreigners as though suddenly the Thai gov't is going to round them all up and put them in boxcars before shipping them off to "rice farms in Isaan" never to be seen again.

Some people watch far too many movies.

Thanks for the information.

That browser checking page is the only one I’ve ever come across, maybe TV is ahead of the curve... or 10 years behind ?

[ubonjoe]

7 minutes ago, HighPriority said:

That browser checking page is the only one I’ve ever come across, maybe TV is ahead of the curve... or 10 years behind ?

I have seen it on other websites. It does not bother me at all when it happens knowing it is for security reasons.

Not much different than sites that have a captcha check to access the site. 

[HighPriority]

12 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

I have seen it on other websites. It does not bother me at all when it happens knowing it is for security reasons.

Not much different than sites that have a captcha check to access the site. 

Captcha putputs me to tears, sorry.

At the end of the day the browser check is only consuming 5 seconds of my life, if it actually benefits the site I guess I’ll cope... ????????

Edited March 14, 2021 by HighPriority
Removal of profanity

[ExpatOK]

It's quite annoying and indicates this site has been hit with DDoS attacks.

I wonder why.

[colinneil]

On 3/13/2021 at 2:46 AM, onthedarkside said:

As another moderator explained above, the current browser check screen when accessing the forum in a new session is an additional security measure to help protect the forum site, and avoid outages like the one that occurred in the past week.

 

No problem having my browser checked but yesterday my browser was checked 3 times when just using the arrow to the top of the page, now that is taking things a bit too far.

[RanongCat]

Not been in here a little time and see is very changed. Has been sold again? There is no thing about The Nation anymore.

[kdrayong]

It seems that since Cloudflare was installed, the RSS feeds are not working for me anymore.

[ExpatOilWorker]

On 3/13/2021 at 6:30 AM, Kerryd said:

shipping them off to "rice farms in Isaan" never to be seen again.

Are we staying with the in-laws?

[Boomer6969]

On 3/11/2021 at 10:37 AM, Grusa said:

I will risk administrative wrath and ask questions I have been unable to find a channel to ask!

Why have I received no newsletter emails for days?

Why is the forum internet link fouled up?

 

Why have I been getting constant Cloudflare errors, telling me there is nothing wrong with my browser and nothing wrong with Cloudflare, it's TV servers?

 

Why do we have a new, hard to read, and not very pretty format, which it seems does not render correctly on Chrome, Brave, IE or Safari, on Android, iPad, Windows etc.? Specifically, avatars do not render, nor do "like" etc buttons

 

Why were we not warned that all this was happening, and to expect glitches... a courtesy email was all that was required! 

 

And to respond to your quoted reply, whose security? yours or ours? and what was insecure, and why did it matter?

 

As so often happens, you have mended something that was not broken, and made it worthless.

 

All this is to reduce our TV viewing time. Quite effective as far a I am concerned..

[RocketDog]

On 3/14/2021 at 7:40 PM, HighPriority said:

Captcha putputs me to tears, sorry.

At the end of the day the browser check is only consuming 5 seconds of my life, if it actually benefits the site I guess I’ll cope... ????????

I've sat and watched the CloudFlare ID number change every ten seconds but still not allow the link. That usually takes between 5 and ten MINUTES.

Now the forum search function fails with a "405 Not Allowed" message.

Maybe nature is telling me it's time to move on to other news sources.

[RocketDog]

On 3/14/2021 at 7:33 PM, ubonjoe said:

I have seen it on other websites. It does not bother me at all when it happens knowing it is for security reasons.

Not much different than sites that have a captcha check to access the site. 

I very rarely see it on other sites, much more popular than TVF.

It only annoys me because I don't want to spend multiple minutes waiting for a link. Five seconds would be acceptable.

It is my opinion that CloudFlare is simply not working correctly for some members. Captcha is annoying, but it works. Cloudflare doesn't.

On this thread alone I've seen multiple complaints of broken things. Will there be any response from TVF addressing these issues?

[poohy]

On 3/20/2021 at 1:33 PM, RocketDog said:

I very rarely see it on other sites, much more popular than TVF.

It only annoys me because I don't want to spend multiple minutes waiting for a link. Five seconds would be acceptable.

It is my opinion that CloudFlare is simply not working correctly for some members. Captcha is annoying, but it works. Cloudflare doesn't.

On this thread alone I've seen multiple complaints of broken things. Will there be any response from TVF addressing these issues?

What baffles me somewhat is originally after this change every time  i accessed TV i am asked for verification on laptop

 

• Then intermittent requests maybe every couple of times
• However last 2 days no such verification requests 
• Mobile phone which use very rarely no such requests

 

You either verify or you  dont not just sometimes

 

Most odd!

[RocketDog]

3 hours ago, poohy said:

What baffles me somewhat is originally after this change every time  i accessed TV i am asked for verification on laptop

 

• Then intermittent requests maybe every couple of times
• However last 2 days no such verification requests 
• Mobile phone which use very rarely no such requests

 

You either verify or you  dont not just sometimes

 

Most odd!

Very odd. Yesterday and today I got ZERO verification checks. No sign whatsoever of CloudFlare's ugly face. 

Coincidence? 

I would like to think that it was so broken the TVF IT wonks just took it down. It was for DDoS attack protection but I still can't fathom why somebody would attack this site. 

Time will tell. But it has already affected my TVF habit. Yesterday I logged on after 6pm and perused/disposed of the entire day's offerings in 20 minutes. I'm definitely not willing to endure this CloudFlare nonsense any more though. 

 

I've been here going on 5 years. Maybe I don't need training wheels on my Thai bike anymore.