This is not a Google-wide thing… this is from Google’s Context-Aware Access product, which is configurable in Google Workspace environments. OP should direct their ire at their corporate IT or infosec team.
Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
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Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#12It appears website developers desperately want to return to a world where browsers actively pretend to be another browser*. Want to check for DBSC? Enjoy not knowing whether the browser vendor decided to just roll a simple software implementation. Nothing good comes from browser detection over feature detection anyways. It's time to do away with user-agents and other overt identifying markers, and if we're still not…
And yet, claiming support for a feature doesn't tell all. Different implementations can have subtle differences. Knowing the browser and version can allow a client to survive that.
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#13It states something about "your organisation's security requirements", do they document what requirements cause this rejection page? Some kind if changed default perhaps?
Maybe not, but I have the feeling Google doesn't like that FF continues to support manifest v2.
I think it's just that some of the device policy restrictions the Org admin can choose to enable don't work in FF. So if they require them, no FF.
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#14I use Google as a secondary search and as of roughly last week it gives me a captcha every time I try to do a search. That had never been the case before.
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#15Not defending it, but given that they use the word "secure" three times in two sentences, I'm wondering if it's shown to browsers that don't support DBSC. Google has been really pushing/overselling this as a magical solution to cookie theft.
I was thinking it could be a Context-Aware Access thing. Firefox doesn’t support Endpoint Verification plugin
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#16It appears website developers desperately want to return to a world where browsers actively pretend to be another browser*. Want to check for DBSC? Enjoy not knowing whether the browser vendor decided to just roll a simple software implementation. Nothing good comes from browser detection over feature detection anyways. It's time to do away with user-agents and other overt identifying markers, and if we're still not…
And yet, claiming support for a feature doesn't tell all. Different implementations can have subtle differences. Knowing the browser and version can allow a client to survive that.
Yes, that is the price developers will have to pay. Development will be harder, but users are going to prefer somewhat broken sites over being outright refused entry.
At the end of the day user-preference is what dictates which browser is used and how it is configured. Developers will have to deal with what users choose to do on their end.
You can only patronize people for so long before they look for a way around silly restrictions. Trying to keep someone safe by putting up walls, whether the threat is real or imaginary, is pointless when it is in the user's power to trivially defeat those walls - and when extension and browser developers are going to line up to sell them demolition tools (see ad blocking).
Advice is going to go much further than roadblocks, long term.
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#17I use Google as a secondary search and as of roughly last week it gives me a captcha every time I try to do a search. That had never been the case before.
For a few years now Google has given me a captcha whenever my VPN is on (Private Internet Access)
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#18This is not a Google-wide thing… this is from Google’s Context-Aware Access product, which is configurable in Google Workspace environments. OP should direct their ire at their corporate IT or infosec team.
it shouldn’t be an option.
Some IT departments just see a “more secure” checkbox and will always check it, even if it doesn’t make sense holistically- sometimes compliance incentivises (or forces) this behaviour.
A common example is forcing intune/device enrolment for mobile devices (including ipads)- but not for the infinitely less secure laptops: because no such endpoint enforcement checkbox exists
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#19I know Google finally kicked all their employees off alternate browsers but doing it for external customers is definitely a choice
Re: Google workspace threatening to block Firefox access
#20I use Google as a secondary search and as of roughly last week it gives me a captcha every time I try to do a search. That had never been the case before.
I browse over Tor for most things and most sites give me a captcha or just simply fail to load these days. I just close the window and move on to something else.