On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 12:04:53 +0000, Brad Rogers wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:36:47 +0100
"Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net> wrote:

<https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/>

Forbidden

It's not just Ff-esr. It happens with my preferred browser, too. Blame
the hosting service Debian use; They appear to block anything deemed 'unsafe' or 'too old'.

It's easy to get around; Just spoof as a newer version of the browser.

Does that ACTUALLY work? I have an incredibly hard time believing
they're blocking with a 403 based on user agent, especially a user
agent that's actually in Debian. (If they block on user agent, it
would be an anti-bot measure, blocking user agents that are probably
AI scraper bots in disguise.)

I would find it much more credible if they're blocking based on your
IP address.

For the record, <https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/> works fine
for me in firefox-esr 140.9.0esr-1~deb13u1 on Debian 13.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-03-27 at 09:16, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 12:04:53 +0000, Brad Rogers wrote:

On Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:36:47 +0100 "Thomas Schmitt"
<scdbackup@gmx.net> wrote:

<https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/>

Forbidden

It's not just Ff-esr. It happens with my preferred browser, too.
Blame the hosting service Debian use; They appear to block
anything deemed 'unsafe' or 'too old'.

It's easy to get around; Just spoof as a newer version of the
browser.

Does that ACTUALLY work? I have an incredibly hard time believing
they're blocking with a 403 based on user agent, especially a user
agent that's actually in Debian. (If they block on user agent, it
would be an anti-bot measure, blocking user agents that are probably
AI scraper bots in disguise.)

I would find it much more credible if they're blocking based on your
IP address.

For the record, <https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/> works fine
for me in firefox-esr 140.9.0esr-1~deb13u1 on Debian 13.

And for me, in Firefox ESR 52.9 (installed via a locally-built package
from sources patched to be able to build with modern toolchains against
updated libraries, because the old library versions got removed due to conflicts added with newer versions of other packages).
And, for that matter, in w3m - which, while it's an up-to-date version
(as far as Debian testing provides, at least), is almost certainly less functionally capable and *is* certainly less mainstream-recognized than
Firefox ESR.

--
The Wanderer
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 03:36:06PM +0100, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 12:36:47PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

Hi,

are other users of Debian 12 here who experience problems to access

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/

with firefox-esr ?

I get a mostly white page with three text lines:

Forbidden

[...]

It's three hours later, but now it works for me (i.e. HTTP 200, page
shows).

Oh. My firefox is 140.7.0esr (64 bit). @*#$&firefox: why is the about
page not c&pasteable?
Cheers
--
t


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 12:36:47PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

Hi,

are other users of Debian 12 here who experience problems to access

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/

with firefox-esr ?

I get a mostly white page with three text lines:

Forbidden

[...]
It's three hours later, but now it works for me (i.e. HTTP 200, page
shows).
Cheers
--
t


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-03-27 at 10:36, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 12:36:47PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

Hi,

are other users of Debian 12 here who experience problems to access

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/

with firefox-esr ?

I get a mostly white page with three text lines:

Forbidden

[...]

It's three hours later, but now it works for me (i.e. HTTP 200, page
shows).

For people who are experiencing the 403 result, it might be interesting
to see whether another client (e.g., w3m, or - perhaps even more
usefully, because it can be made to produce verbose output about what
it's doing - wget) gets the same result, or receives the page just fine.
--
The Wanderer
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

The Wanderer writes:

And, for that matter, in w3m - which, while it's an up-to-date version
(as far as Debian testing provides, at least), is almost certainly
less functionally capable and *is* certainly less
mainstream-recognized than Firefox ESR.

And with Lynx.
--
John Hasler
john@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 27/03/2026 6:36 pm, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

are other users of Debian 12 here who experience problems to access

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/

May be similar to (specific to your public IP)

debian-wiki. forbidden access to wiki. Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:49:31 +0100 <https://lists.debian.org/debian-wiki/2026/01/msg00004.html> <https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/cb69c5ae-fce3-4cfa-9f00-b46b45dae99d@arpinux.org>

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 01:49:56PM +0000, Brad Rogers wrote:

Got in instantly with my browser by spoofing as FF 145 (browser is
Pale Moon). Resetting to default (i.e not spoofing, and I'm 403'd again.

I think it should be reported as a bug on debian-www (although possibly
the list archives in particular are not the purview of the Debian web
site team) if a user agent for a real browser is being blocked.

I feel like they would want to know, as it seems unlikely to be their
intent.

Thanks,
Andy

--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

Oh. My firefox is 140.7.0esr (64 bit). @*#$&firefox: why is the about
page not c&pasteable?

The version number specifically is cut-and-pasteable :)

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 06:31:51PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

Hi,

firstly, thanks to all who cared to answer. Even if i don't quote and
reply to all of them.

[...]

tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

why is the about page not c&pasteable?

What "about" page in particular ?
about:config is gigantic, about:about shows no promising about-names.

It's hidden under the menu -> help -> "About Firefox". But you can't
copy text from there. I guess this kind of shenanigan is what leads
users to (*shrug*) give up and start sending screenshots.
Cheers
--
t


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 04:45:43PM +0000, debian-user@howorth.org.uk wrote:

tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

Oh. My firefox is 140.7.0esr (64 bit). @*#$&firefox: why is the about
page not c&pasteable?

The version number specifically is cut-and-pasteable :)

A-ha. Now I see, thanks for pointing it out.
You have to start *exactly* at the first digit, then it works.
If you start a couple of pixels to the left, to make sure you
catch the first digit, then it doesn't.
Jeez. Who does desing that kind of UIs.
Cheers
--
tom s


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Thomas Schmitt wrote:

So what would possibly go wrong if i do:

apt-get update
apt-get install firefox-esr

?
Are any dependcy problems to expect ?

The "apt-get update" command should be harmless.

I would not expect any problems from the "apt-get install" command, but
I don't have a whole lot of experience in this regard. You could run

apt-get install --dry-run firefox-esr

and see what additional packages would get installed.

What does
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr
under "versions" mean with "old-sec" and "old-p-u" ?

I expect that "old-sec" refers to the security fix repo for oldstable
(Debian 12), and "old-p-u" refers to the proposed-updates repo for
oldstable.

best regards,
mike

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 27/03/2026 17:47, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 04:45:43PM +0000, debian-user@howorth.org.uk wrote:

tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

Oh. My firefox is 140.7.0esr (64 bit). @*#$&firefox: why is the about
page not c&pasteable?

The version number specifically is cut-and-pasteable :)

A-ha. Now I see, thanks for pointing it out.

You have to start *exactly* at the first digit, then it works.
If you start a couple of pixels to the left, to make sure you
catch the first digit, then it doesn't.

Jeez. Who does desing that kind of UIs.

Try double- or triple-clicking the text. Triple-clicking generally means "select the whole line"..

Cheers

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 18:43:33 +0100, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

It's hidden under the menu -> help -> "About Firefox". But you can't
copy text from there.

In the version I have (140.9.0esr-1~deb13u1), the version string is
copyable even though ALL the rest of the text is not. If you move
the mouse pointer around, you should see it change shape when it's
over that part of the window.

I don't know why they did that. UI designers are not sensible sometimes.

If you can't find the answer you want within Firefox, "dpkg -l firefox-esr" should give a useful answer.

In my case, I didn't even need to do that, as I have a terminal already
open in which the last thing I did was update Firefox after the recent
security email. So I simply copied the version string from that terminal.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 28/03/2026 12:31 am, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

$ firefox-esr --full-version
Mozilla Firefox 115.11.0esr 20240506144012 20240506144012

It seems the actual version in the v115 branch is 115.34 and it is not available from Debian repositories. Taking into account security fixes,
I would avoid 2 years old browser.

So yes, it seems to be a web client thing and not about my dynamic IP addresses (from Telekom Deutschland GmbH).

I did not expect it. I am surprised that even v128 is not allowed to
visit list archives:

curl -I -A 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/128.0' https://lists.debian.org/debian-68k/
HTTP/2 403

curl -A 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:140.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/140.0' -I https://lists.debian.org/debian-68k/
HTTP/2 200

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)