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I just had a jaw-dropping experience with the DMV that I thought some of you would get a kick out of...
I needed to renew my car's registration, so after getting it smog-tested, I hopped onto the Vivaldi Web Browser on my phone and tried to log into the DMV website, only to land on a screen informing me: “Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”
I typed my old one into the Old Password box, then a new one into the two New Password boxes, and hit enter.
“Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”
I tried again, being extra careful to make sure I wasn't typing it wrong.
“Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”
I double-checked to be sure I was following the rules (at least 4 letters + 4 numbers or symbols, total of 8-20 characters), then came up with something different.
“Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”
Figuring that it doesn't like Vivaldi or that its ad-blocking is the problem, I opened Chrome and tried yet again.
“Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”.
At that point, I assumed that the DMV's website simply doesn't work with mobile browsers and hopped onto my desktop.
Vivaldi: “Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”
Chrome: “Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”
Firefox: “Your password has expired. Please pick a new one.”
Exasperated and annoyed at the thought that I might have to waste the afternoon sitting at the damn understaffed DMV, I put my old password into all three boxes...and voilá, it worked!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday August 31 2022, @08:42PM (5 children)
I've been using Vivaldi on Windoze for several years. Mostly really good experience. Recently they baked in much stronger ad and tracker blocking and turn it on by default. You can access it easily just to the left of the URL- a little shield icon.
About 2 months ago I started having problems using PayPal. I could log in to the account, browse, download, etc. But could not make payments on ebay. It would churn and eventually a popup would say something to the effect of: "we couldn't verify it's you".
Many hours wasted on chat "help", voice phone, etc. I got many different opinions, pretty much all were condescending and insulting, including telling me I had "unusual activity". That makes my blood boil. I hate auto things, and these supposed auto security systems don't like me changing IP addresses (WTF?), using different computers, clearing cache and cookies, etc. But the PayPal idiots couldn't connect the dots. In fact one thing they kept insisting was that I provide a phone number, despite their system saying you don't have to provide one. (I'm big on privacy, and my number is likely to change soon, and I don't consider a phone any kind of a "security" thing- anything but.)
Also many agents kept telling me I needed to "provide alternate funding sources" (WTF?)
Best I can tell- by accident I discovered the tracker and ad blocker, turned them off, and PayPal transactions go through now.
Bottom line: if I try to use more security, PayPal (and probably many others) say they can't verify it's me. Something doesn't smell right...
So maybe your Vivaldi app has the blockers on by default?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @09:05PM (4 children)
Yeah, a lot of sites put their main content in pop-up windows now to defeat the blockers. I hope sandboxing them in a virtual machine keeps them out of way
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday September 01 2022, @12:27AM (3 children)
You'd be stunned with what disabling javascript does to the popups. They grunt and groan and push and struggle and somehow they just stay hidden.
Sarcasm aside, it irks me beyond words that things like popups, "onmouseover", etc., were put into javascript functionality. I'd love a browser that would let me selectively remove some of those functions. I know, I can download source code and hack away and compile away. Easier to use Old Opera with javascript globally off (or ON for a few select sites in per-site settings). Vivaldi also has the ability to disable javascript globally and configure per-site settings. The UI isn't as convenient as Old Opera though (Old Opera: right-click, choose "Edit Site Preferences...").
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday September 01 2022, @02:09AM (2 children)
The one that pisses me off is disabling right-click menus. Doesn't happen often because I run eMatrix, but occasionally I need to enable js for some site and then you can't even right-click-back or right-click-bookmark.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday September 01 2022, @06:42AM (1 child)
Yes yes, I almost forgot about those sites. I've only experienced a couple like that. Maybe some kind of online test / assessments or some such. One that I remember would pop up something if you did right-click, something telling you that you can't. A few spots in ebay do something interesting- I think it's in messages- you right-click and you don't get the normal context menu- you get their programmed menu that does include opening the link in a new tab, and a few other useful things. But it bugs me that they are able to take over such fundamental functionality.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @07:12AM
But, just saying, has there been unusual aristarchus activity on your phone? If so, janrinok really wants to know. Text him now, at DMVjanrinok@soylentscam.org. For real.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday September 01 2022, @12:01PM
Yeah, that's quite the impressive bungle...
Being a government system, you can be sure someone was paid a small fortune for that whole borked process... (sigh)