Checking browser in login...

[BertKoor]

In order to check our browsers, they must be taking information from our browsers without our consent. I'm not comfortable with that at all. What is it they are checking for?

Cookies & local storage (essentially large cookies stored differently) is all there is they can check. These are isolated per domain, so tracking should be limited.

If these are required for technical reasons (eg status & session info like being logged in) you don't need to give any consent.

If you think you make life difficult for them, it's only making your own life online difficult. You pay the penalty with a lesser "user experience".

[juha_p]

Logged in using Firefox with Browser Console opened.

errorsinkvrlogin.png

As seen there are few errors showing up in console as for an example a "503 Service Unavailable" -error. There are also lots of unfinished requests (Filter by "Requests").

I don't know well the mechanism of these web systems nor meaning of data showing in Browser console ... maybe someone more experienced person (suffering of this Cloudflare thing) could do this same to get the full data and analyze it if there's something which triggers the Cloudflare route.

[Erisian]

If you think you make life difficult for them, it's only making your own life online difficult. You pay the penalty with a lesser "user experience".

Perhaps I don't find it difficult and perhaps I don't consider it a lesser user experience. Perhaps I think it is right that I should always have the choice of who or what accesses my information.

[BertKoor]

Perhaps I don't find it difficult and perhaps I don't consider it a lesser user experience. Perhaps I think it is right that I should always have the choice of who or what accesses my information.

Sure, it's totally up to you. At least you're not complaining (yet) that things are broken.

[syntonica]

In order to check our browsers, they must be taking information from our browsers without our consent. I'm not comfortable with that at all. What is it they are checking for?

Actually, every HTTP get request you send is chock full of data about you, without even getting to cookies. Included is browser maker, version, OS version, your IP adress (from which arough location can be determined), along with some other data. All this is used to taret you with browser-specifix coding, more accurate ad targeting, etc.

Throw in cookie dta and they'll know what color your underpants are that day!

[Teksonik]

Ha the joke is on them. I'm not wearing any underpants...or pants. It's so nice out today I think I'll leave it out....

Anyway I haven't had KVR do a browser check at login but have had it on other sites. (I'm using Firefox,Windows)

[billcarroll]

In order to check our browsers, they must be taking information from our browsers without our consent. I'm not comfortable with that at all. What is it they are checking for?

Actually, every HTTP get request you send is chock full of data about you, without even getting to cookies. Included is browser maker, version, OS version, your IP adress (from which arough location can be determined), along with some other data. All this is used to taret you with browser-specifix coding, more accurate ad targeting, etc.

Throw in cookie dta and they'll know what color your underpants are that day!

Brown, always brown. I'm talking about the cookies, of course.

The browser checks are a bit annoying, but I get that with a lot of sites now that Safari has made changes to how it deals with cookies. Essentially, Safari now blocks all third-party cookies.

[syntonica]

Safari now blocks all third-party cookies.

Unfortunately, sites target macOS/iOS when they see t. Loving all the popups telling me tat my Mac has been compromised by Teh Evil Hackerz and I need to purchase this fine Russian-made anti-viral software...

On my iPad, Facebook refuses to show its Messenger and reequires you t install their crappy messenger app that runs silently in the background, consuming your data and battery.

I suppose hose who use MS Browsers have similar issues, though.

[BertKoor]

Answering my own question:

Is KvrAudio using google adds?

That, and a bunch of other stuff. These are the domains (in alphabetical order) that get accessed on browsing a simple forum page:

• adservice.google.com
• cdn.ampproject.org
• doubleclick.net
• fonts.googleapis.com
• fonts.gstatic.com
• google-analytics.com
• googlesyndication.com
• googletagmanager.com
• googletagservices.com
• kvraudio.com
• skimresources.com

Not too bad when compared to any random popular generic news site.

Regarding the logon page with the CloudFlare nagger, that is loaded solely from the kvraudio.com domain which is hosted on a CloudFlare platform. I reckon absence of one simple cookie (could be more) is responsible for this behaviour.

Does google know who you are? (gmail / youtube account)

I have an account on both services but, I'm not using those services with these two Linux computers [...]

Don't know whether you've seen it, but my tests indicate you'll get the CloudFlare nagging screen upon logon with a browser in private mode. Without any cookies, google doesn't know who you are apart from an IP address.

[juha_p]

...
Don't know whether you've seen it, but my tests indicate you'll get the CloudFlare nagging screen upon logon with a browser in private mode. Without any cookies, google doesn't know who you are apart from an IP address.

So, in case of Firefox, setting Privacy&Security:History:

"Remember history" triggers login go through Coudflare when first time login done to KVR

"Never remember history" triggers login go through Cloudflare every time when login to KVR

As this Cloudflare issue came just few days ago, at least for me, was it change in Firefox (v. 93.0) default settings in privacy&security policy or update here forums? I have automatic updates enabled for Firefox (and Chrome).

[mystran]

It's not a Firefox thing, Chrome does it sometimes as well... sort of randomly.

[askoan]

Edit : whoops, sorry, hadn't sawn i wasn't on the last page, there was already a bunch of responses...

In order to check our browsers, they must be taking information from our browsers without our consent. I'm not comfortable with that at all. What is it they are checking for?

https://www.quora.com/How-does-Cloudfla ... us-traffic

The first answer is interesting.
First guess is all they can get is your browser app identification (given by your browser), your ip, and the frequency of your computer asking their services.
They might put whole ip ranges into suspicious lists.
Whatever the data they build using these info, their services should have no interest in keeping it a long time, unless they secretly sell anonymous navigation profiles. This as much less value than what facebook has to sell.
There is a lot of big computers where your metadata go : your provider, the dns, google, amazon web hosting, cloudflare. Because cloudflare shows publicly to you doesn't mean it is more collecting metadata than any other actor in your web navigation.
My 2 cents.