Ask HN: Help me pass Cloudflare Turnstile on my phone?

8 pointsby Hackbratenil y a 8 mois4 comments

Dear HN crowd, Turnstile is making my life absolutely miserable. Since a year ago or so, I can no longer pass any challenge on my phone. I use the Firefox ESR system package on Linux (PureOS Byzantium). Whenever Turnstile gives me a checkbox challenge, it keeps locking me out from login flows and feedback forms and whatnot. This is a huge deal for me because I can no longer log into some services that I pay for. Not only does Turnstile's checkbox appear regularly, whenever I tap on it, it just spins in an endless loop, never making any progress. No matter how often I reload and retry, it keeps giving me the endless spinner.

I've filled out dozens of Cloudflare's feedback forms this year but nothing has changed at all. On the contrary, it got worse as more and more websites hop on the train and integrate Turnstile. It feels like no one ever at Cloudflare looks at my feedback. Hell, I'd pay them money just to make Turnstile finally leave me alone and allow me to be on the internet on my phone again like I used to.

I don't mind that I get the checkbox (I understand that seeing the checkbox is already a sign that they're flagging my browser as suspicious), I just want to be able to pass Turnstile with my human, fleshy, living thumb and go about my day.

I don't even care what the underlying technical problem is. They don't have to tell me which part of their bot detection secret sauce theater my phone keeps tripping over. I just want them to fix that false positive so I can browse the web again in peace and forget that Cloudflare exists, just like everyone else. I've been dealing with this for a year and it has become such a nuisance to the point that it feels kafkaesque.

Any advice? Any contact at Turnstile to whom I can reach out?

4 comments

baobunil y a 8 mois

This may be crapshoot but have you tried PrivacyPass browser extension?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-pass/

https://privacypass.github.io/

Hackbratenil y a 8 mois

The only thing the browser extension does for me is redirect me to an “Interactive challenge“ page, which in turn contains another “Verify if you are human” checkbox, which fails just like the one on the original page.

Edit: works now that I have CloudFlare’s add-on installed and also the user-agent-spoofing add-on disabled. Thanks!

slateril y a 8 mois

Is there a way in your browser to change the user-agent? Might be something as simple as that

Hackbratenil y a 8 mois

Yes, I frequently have to do just that because some sites (e.g. Spotify) force me to pretend to be an iPhone, otherwise they refuse service. I have an add-on that lets me toggle between the iPhone and the real UA.

My feeling is that lying about my user agent makes Turnstile worse but that may be anecdotal.