Hello, I started to experience a problem with Mull and Duolingo (and also bromite) that started about 1 month ago.
Basically Duolingo tells me that my browser is not supported but it worked perfectly fine before. Anyone experienced this issue? I can’t find an issue on mull repo apparently about this specific issue. Dunno if it is something about resisting fingerprint but I wonder why that happens…
Hey, I don’t want to discourage your language learning, but duolingo really sucks as a language learning platform. It honestly doesn’t teach you anything about actually using a language.
You might be much better served by using something like babbel, memrise or even better, Rosetta Stone. They are paid options, but well worth the price I think.
We got it for funsies and went through the final Spanish test. We’re both fluent speakers, he’s native. We were unable to pass the final tests–not because we didn’t speak Spanish, but because it was actually a subjective interpretation of what was being said rather than an objective one, btu they treated it like it were objective. Basically you have to learn it THEIR way. As a linguist, this is a big no-no and I walked away.
This is the answer.
I pretty much instantly lose respect for people who design sites to only support specific browsers. With the exception of Firefox, it’s all Chromium anyway so they don’t really need to worry about it. This isn’t like when Internet Explorer was a thing and broke web pages.
I’m working on an application right now that requires the ability to load and save data to the local file system. Firefox does not allow this, whereas Chrome does. The whole application runs from the local file system, so I don’t think there is much of a security issue.
But I actually do is test for the existence of the function to open the save or load dialog. That way, if Firefox does implement it, Firefox will work as well.
the ability to load and save data to the local file system
That sounds like a huge security risk. I’m surprised any browser allows it.
All it can do is open a dialogue to load or save a file. The action must also be initiated by the user (e.g. clicking a button). It’s not randomly allowing a page to load and save on its own.
But both of those are possible on Firefox?
Using JavaScript to open a save or load dialog is not possible on Firefox. It lacks the methods showOpenFilePicker() and showSaveFilePicker().
i guess it’s not about the actual site not supporting some browser. it’s usually about not wanting to deal with users that have problems with the page in some obscure browser caused by some random plugin or something but the user blaming it on the service. or because of tracking.
So do feature testing, not user-agent sniffing! For Pete’s sake, it’s 2024! That’s been the best practice for decades!
I like that Google is always the one recommending this while also being the one that does some of the most obvious user agent sniffing
that’s not the point. the user is going to open a ticket because something does not work because their browser does not support it. and it’s way easier to tell them to install ‘this browser’ than to install ‘a browser that supports a specific feature’. most of the users don’t even know what a browser is…
Ok, but why not do both? If the browser supports all needed features, then let the user continue. If not, recommend list of supported browsers with small text at the bottom describing what feature is needed for technical users.
Read the previous comment
I guess you’re completely right if you just assume your own conclusion.
what on gods sake are they doing so special that requires those browsers explicitly
Install a user-agent switcher extension and pretent to be firefox or whatever. It should work.
I tried this a million different which ways a few months ago. Couldn’t get Duolingo to accept it. Gave up and haven’t been back since
Maybe it wants some opengl or webrtc, which are disabled by default in mull and bromite?
Duolingo, where your progress can be wiped out without any notice anytime the company wants to change the structure of the language you’re learning. Super helpful!
Your browser isn’t supported because the developer or product manager who put the website together doesn’t know what the fuck they are doing. What could possibly require some cutting edge feature on a language learning website?
try enabling WASM (web assembly, hell!!). chromium in OpenBSD’s port also get “Unsupported browser” when WASM is not enabled.
You can try with an extension that changes the user agent of your browser; if you use the one from either firefox or chrome for android it should work. Usually its the only thing checked by sites when identifing browsers for non telemetry reasons; if the problem persists I’m not sure what it could be
Mulls user agent is firefox
Tried and didn’t work…
Then it may be something that mull is blocking to prevent fingerprinting that duolingo doesn’t like, I don’t know how to help in this case other than installing something like fennec in a work profile with shelter; sorry.
And this is a privacy issue?
It’s an issue that affects those in the privacy community.
The privacy community is a place to find support with issues pertaining to the privacy journey, such as using special browsers.
