(and the link from there appears to be to a random Wordpress site with essentially no content; but that’s not the fault of the admins of this site)
Presumably this is because meta.discourse.org have already upgraded to a later version of Discourse and have banned older browsers from interacting with the site already.
Can a message about which browsers are actually supported (and what functionality is required, but not present in older browsers) be stored on this site, where people can read it and ask about it? Obviously it makes sense to follow Discourse upstream upgrades as they deliver new features, but things that users must take because of them need to be explained somewhere that they can actually read.
** Yes, version “FF 115.14.0esr” is positively antique and I I’m sure that I can figure out how to get a later version of a sane browser on this 10-year-old PC, but there will I suspect be other users (e.g. on iOS 15) who can’t. Yes, sources such as https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iOS/majorSystemVersions/ suggest <1% for iOS 15 but that absolutely does not match my $dayjob experience (part of which involves telling people that they need to upgrade from OS version X to Y and why!).
Edit: Debian 13 (“stable”) came out recently, so 12 is “oldstable”, not 11.
It’s a very old Chromebook, and Crouton was used there to get Linux installed as a “guest OS”. Modern Chromebooks support Linux natively, and Crouton is (for very obvious reasons) not supported any more.
The “obvious version” to upgrade to when I last did was Debian 11 (that might have been the most recent option at the time - I can’t remember). Debian’s “stable” versions are very stable - unlike web developers :) they don’t include new functionality just because they can. Personally I think this is a good idea - I have a map server running Debian 12, and the changed libraries there between 12 and 13 mean that upgrading is non-trivial.
Interesting, I cannot reproduce this in my even older Debian 11 (Bullseye) i386 KVM snapshot with even older Firefox 115.5.0esr-1~deb11u1 - it opens the https://meta.discourse.org/t/358131 (with that warning about unsupported browser that you mention at the top, but content below still loads normally - with post from Sam Saffron about “Dropping iOS 15 & other old browsers in July 2025” ).
If I understad correctly, that post from Sam does not load for you?
Also the “your browser is unusupported” link (leading to https://discourse.org/about#browser) and “switch to supported browser” link (leading to https://browsehappy.com) of that open normally.
Do you perhaps some plugin installed (like uBlockOrigin?) which might be interfering? Or is the bug present if you start firefox --safe-mode ?
BTW official designation for Bookworm now is “oldoldstable” (no, really)
Also, Bookworm should have (except on mips64el arch) firefox-esr 128.14.0esr-1~deb12u1 (note 128 - not 115 which you mention) if you’ve been doing your apt-get update; apt-get upgrade mantra (and your /etc/apt/sources.list is not broken).
What I said was “… where people can read it and ask about it”. I get a flat HTML page, but I can’t login there and ask about it (for example, why the change was functionally necessary for Discourse).
Yes, that would be the “random Wordpress site with essentially no content” that I referred to above. It is completely unhelpful here; it doesn’t explain the problem (e.g. explain why “Using an outdated browser makes your computer unsafe”) or how to fix it in a way that will (a) work reliably or (b) actually fix the problem**.
The Discourse developers are going to continue doing their their thing; we’re using Discourse here not because it is good at everything but because it the least worst option. That’s why I asked at the top of this thread “Can a message about which browsers are actually supported (and what functionality is required, but not present in older browsers) be stored on this site”, so that they don’t have to try and fail to interact with meta.discourse.com.
** For example, upgrading a browser on iOS 15 on an iPhone that can’t run a newer version will not fix the problems in the OS that are fixed in later versions that make using it “unsafe” (FSVO unsafe).
You’re preaching to the choir here. I’m not even in “discourse is least worse” camp (for me, only thing I regularly using that is not worse in Discourse compared to mailing lists is reactions to posts instead of “+1” ML posts).
I misunderstood then, I thought that “be stored on this site, where people can read it and ask about it” refered to c.osm.org, not meta.discourse.org. I mean, if new version of Discourse is broken and you can’t use it to read/post, then how would you do that?
Or do you mean that in c.osm.org which claims browser is unsupported everything works for you, but meta.discourse.org which also claims browser is unsupported doesn’t work?
You’re preaching to the choir here. I’m not even in “discourse is least worse” camp (for me, only thing I regularly using that is not worse in Discourse compared to mailing lists is reactions to posts instead of “+1” ML posts).
If you’re still getting the browser unsupported message on meta.discourse.org can you provide a screenshot and precise browser version or your user-agent?
The feedback on meta.discourse.org is that people with old browsers can still see the content
Yeah just confirming what @moin has demonstrated: as with any Discourse topic, the recent browser-support announcement is available to view in any browser. There will be an ‘unsupported browser’ banner at the top, but the content should still be there.
@pnorman if your community member is unable to read the content, please could you ask them for a screenshot, and precise browser version, so we can investigate?
I’ve now also been banned from the forum on my main computer, which is running a very old macOS 10.14.6 (which I’m still using because of older 32-bit software like Adobe Creative Suite 6). I’m using Firefox v115.32.0esr (and it doesn’t work with Safari v14.1.2 either). This is a real shame and sad … I can only resort to my mobile phone now (Android 16, Firefox) – which is where I’m writing this post. The forum was working for me with macOS 10.14 and Firefox v115 not too long ago.
The link “your browser is unsupported.” takes me to What is Discourse? | Discourse - Civilized Discussion, which only tells me that the last stable version of Firefox is supported (which is pretty obvious and not very helpful). The link “switch to a supported browser” takes me to https://browsehappy.com/ (which is fine, but doesn’t help me either).
I even tried the latest Google Chrome version that runs on macOS 10.14 (v116.0.5845.187) – but that didn’t work either.
I strongly suspect there’s nothing that can be done about it… I just wanted to share it here. I know I’m probably in a very small group. And at some point (soon?) I’ll probably have to say goodbye to macOS 10.14…
I don’t like how an up-to-date browser is required for the modern web. The unfortunate reality is that site developers will use features that are two+ years old and widely available.
The other problem is that it is unsafe to browse the web with a browser that old. There are vulnerabilities in older browsers that are actively being exploited. Being careful where you browse doesn’t make you safe. In general, an internet-connected computer which can’t get security updates will eventually become a node in a botnet, get malware, or have other problems.
Like I said, I don’t like it, but it’s the way things are now.
