I use Firefox whenever I can.
On first install of the browser I usually end up following a hardening guide which includes stuff like blocking cross site cookies, setting a few things in about:config to disable Pocket/etc, and installing uBlock Origin. I’ve taken what I consider a relatively balanced approach, I don’t use anything like noScript, uMatrix, etc that ultimately just cost a lot of time fiddling to get the 10th website of the week working.
I’ve been more or less fine browsing the web this way for years, but around the start of 2024 I’ve started seeing way more “Access Denied” pages than I used to. I think part of it is Cloudflare or similar, but I don’t know exactly what’s changed or what’s triggering it to occur.
It usually goes away and I can re access the site in 10-30 minutes as usual, but I’ve had it occur in really weird instances, such as trying to change my Minecraft skin and getting blocked by the website. The server block often goes away immediately if I switch my user agent, so I know that it has something to do with how I’ve got everything set up.
Not sure what anyone else’s experience with this has been. I’d like to hear some of your thoughts and tips
For me it’s seemed more gradual over the past few years. I keep around a lightly sandboxed firefox install with a clean profile for the occasions where it’s worth going to that much trouble to see whatever cloudflare is blocking.
It also serves to remind me every now and then how much worse the default browser UI is compared to the one I’ve adjusted to my liking.