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..

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[–] 75 points 2 years ago (16 children)

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.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    So do feature testing, not user-agent sniffing! For Pete's sake, it's 2024! That's been the best practice for decades!

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    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...

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago*

    I used to work for a web hosting company and have seen so many horror cases that I agree with you that this is what is happening. I also think it's kinda lazy to just say that they won't support what people are using because it's hard. Even 5 - 7 years ago, this was much harder than it is now.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 45 points 2 years ago* (8 children)

    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

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (5 children)
  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Install a user-agent switcher extension and pretent to be firefox or whatever. It should work.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    what on gods sake are they doing so special that requires those browsers explicitly

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  • [–] 36 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I'm guessing they don't want to test on any other browsers, so it's easier just to say that those aren't supported. Most likely it works on others, you just need to spoof the agent.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    This is definitely the case, but I wonder why companies don't add a button, such as "Access website without support", that would get you to the site while clearly telling you that any technical problems (of which, in 99% of cases, there will be none, since all of this seems like supporting Google internet dominance) will be ignored by support.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    A few days ago I needed to download some transactions from a bank’s site. However, it kept giving “Something went wrong”. I called support and they told me I needed to use chrome. I did and surprisingly enough it actually worked. I did try Firefox less than a minute after that and it was still broken, so it wasn’t just a back-end issue that was resolved while logging on on Chrome. I still have no clue how it’s possible to create a download button that can break on Firefox.

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    [–] 31 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago

    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.

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  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago

    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?

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    Duolingo is not useful anymore anyway due to enshittification. You'd be better off using programs like babbel or pimsleur >!pirate it!<

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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!

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    I mean, at least it allows for more than just Chrome. You can do worse.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Quit duolingo, there are better alternatives 😇

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (2 children)
  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    Language Transfer is hands down the best language learning system I've ever used. Completely free, although I have a monthly patreon donation set up.

    It has 10 or 12 languages, although some of them only offer a beginner course. Still, not bad considering that it was all done by one guy!

    Each course is done as MP3s with a conversation between the teacher and student. You can play them on YouTube, SoundCloud, download the mp3s, or use the extremely convenient app.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    privacy.resistfingerprinting = true reports the Browser as "Firefox ESR". Not sure if this even exists on mobile tbh.

    Added an Extension to my collection to toggle RFP

    But for me Duolingo also displayed that after switching my Browser agent to "Chrome 121 Android 14" and also "Firefox 122 Android 14".

    Fuck that app.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    try enabling WASM (web assembly, hell!!). chromium in OpenBSD's port also get "Unsupported browser" when WASM is not enabled.

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    [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    I've also had issues with brave search on mull, whenever it decides It to check if I'm a robot it says that mull is missing a requirement

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