I use an extension for FireFox called Privacy Badger. It allows for the blocking of tracking apps and does cookie management. For the past near week, I have not been able to login to Strava from my Apple mac systems, all have Privacy Badger installed. I can login on my iPhone, and Safari seems to be fine with allowing trackers (in spite of their adverts declaring their browser ‘safe’).
I can disable Privacy Badger on a website basis, and disabling it allowed me to progress to the password page, which doesn’t happen if Privacy Badger is enabled. It appears that Garmin Connect uses the same trackers, and they are handled the same way by Privacy Badger and I can login with no problems. So if this is correct, why is Strava forcing their subscribers to be tracked? Do they need the money that much to force tracking on their subscribers?
Hey Strava! Reverse this change and allow people to have some degree of security on your website!
Is this the last straw for Strava for some subsribers? I certainly don’t want my computers tracked and my privacy violated for their bottom line.
And on the flip side of this, USE a privacy extension, and apps to try to protect yourself and your privacy!
This is the only website I have witnessed this issue with. Requesting to not be tracked seems to be respected and the function of these sites isn’t compromised. Just Strava…
You’re jumping to (what looks like false) conclusions.
Ad blockers and privacy protectors work based on huge lists of rules that are designed to TRY to stop unwanted behavior and not affect normal usage. But they aren’t perfect. Sometimes they accidentally break a website.
I just logged into Strava using Firefox on Windows with uBlock Origin and 250,000 filters in place, including for ads, privacy, malware, cookie notices and annoyances. No issues.
In fact, uBlock only found 6 things to block, which is WAY below average on most websites.
The problem is with your setup, not Strava trying to block users using blockers. Play with your filter rules to see what fixes it.
Privacy Badger only shows three trackers. It’s the only extension I have that shows any trackers. Sure, am I jumping to conclusions? Possibly. What I know is I didn’t (personally) change anything on all my macs. Is it possible that Privacy Badger has a bug up its butt? It is, but to my knowledge it hasn’t been updated recently.
I did report it as a ‘broken site’ so will have to see if they can explain why it, or Strava, is blocking me. It’s a systemic issue because on every system, Strava is not cooperating, I can’t log in. If I disable it for that website, it works (as I’ve said).
Drop Privacy Badger in your Firefox extensions and see if it still works, or not.
I can’t think of another reason why they would not allow login to continue. It looks like a standard login process.
I just want it to work like it did a week or so ago.
Agreed. I’m not one to give Strava the benefit of the doubt, but in my experience working as a web developer for most of this century, browser extensions break websites in all sorts of unpredictable ways. I doubt it’s malicious or intentional—they might not even be aware that this one extension is breaking the site. If they wanted you to stop using an ad blocker or whatever, they would probably tell you directly rather than leave you with a broken experience and no explanation on how to fix it.
It’s not that they’re “not allowing” the login to continue. I can almost guarantee this extension, unintentionally or not, is blocking some resource or file needed for the login to work.
The extension might not have updated, but the filter lists are almost always separately and automatically updated by the extension. It’s most likely a filter update that broke things. Although it’s possible Strava tweaked their login page and that boring things, but that still wouldn’t imply they purposely broke things.
Exactly. They are running a business. They want you to login. If they were purposely blocking you, they could easily tell you so that you’ll change your behavior accordingly or pay them money to login anyways.
Fine, I’m being chicken little. It just is bizarre that it’s not working on any of my macs, all of a sudden. No one else seems to have the issue, or is using the same software/hardware.
Yeah, once bitten, twice shy…
I get it, but then why did they do the weird crap they did over the past how many years? They aren’t immune from shooting themselves in the foot, and collaterally getting some tissue sprayed on us.
Well, it’s the first time it’s happened to me, like this. I get that it might be a configuration issue too, and before rattling their cage, I wanted to see if others were having the same issue. I thought at one point ‘cache’, but on all the macs, at the same time?
But could be a bad filter update, or ghost in the machine.
I went to Strava’s forum and literally the first thread there was this, where someone found the Dark Reader Firefox extension caused them to be unable to login. Two others had the same problem.
I don’t really use strava these days and haven’t ever used it on my current computer. Since I run a customizable script blocker I figured I’d shoot over there to see if I could duplicate your experience
I had to unblock two domains to get the site pretty functional - I didn’t look at everything but my feed and rides loaded. This feels very much like a specific thing for your configuration. Have you tried playing around with temporarily allowing all scripts and then blocking one by one to find the culprit?
I’d also add that Strava is social media, you are the product not the consumer. It is in their interest to gather as much information from you as they can. This means they need you to login, they want you to be looking at your feed throughout the day, they want you in their service, and they want to track as much of your other activities in life as you will tolerate. All this to say - they will always be attempting to track as much as possible, but it is highly unlikely they will ever deliberately remove access entirely if you block/evade some aspects of their tracking. They want as much as they can get, but not at the risk of it going to zero.
But the internet and setting up webpages/programming is pretty crazy. I did some web development in the past, and some browsers, and some versions of the same browser would cause all kinds of hell for users.
Is it possible that it’s not Strava? Sure, maybe. Given their history, who knows. Is it possible that it’s Adblocker and/or Privacy Badger? Could be, could be…
I’ll fire up my Windoze 11 machine with Firefox and see what happens.
Uninstalled each extension, tested each after restarting FireFox, and no change. Uninstalled Firefox, rebooted, reinstalled Firefox, no extensions. Worked. Installed Adblock Ultimate, restarted, Strava worked. Installed Privacy Badger, restarted, Strava worked. Interesting… I clicked a different Login button on the Strava splash page, and it kept showing the login page, over and over every time I clicked login.
I can’t login again. All I did was click a different login button, and Privacy Badger lists the same trackers. I don’t get the image of the other thread anymore, so far, but I can click on Login several times and get the same basic page, with different filler.
I was clicking the login in the near extreme upper right, happy days. Clicked the other one that came up, auger crash to the ground.
SIGH
Restarting the reinstall dance of earlier… (MAKE IT STOP! )
EDIT: But neither extension is installed or enabled. Um…
Same exact thing on my Windows 11 system, looping through the login screen. Enter login ID and click login, enter login ID and click login, enter login ID and click login, enter login ID and click login, etc…
But it works for me in Firefox and windows 11. So maybe it’s some setting you’ve got in your Firefox profile or something.
Make sure you clear your entire cache after every time you trigger a problem.
If this is happening without any extensions turned on, then it’s something to report to Strava and/or Firefox. If you can link it to a particular extension, then contact its developer.
-If you’ve been trying a lot in a short time, you might be throttled or blocked by Strava to avoid password brute-forcing
-If you have anything filtering your Internet (work firewall, kid-safe filters, pi-hole) that could be a factor
-Your reinstall may not be getting rid of all old files and settings. Try using incognito mode instead, as that should forget everything over to close the tab
(MAKE IT STOP! 
)