New Nexus readers keep skipping the browser update prompt

in the last month or so · readers

The update prompt in Tor Browser is being clicked away by new readers, and the strange behaviour they see afterwards on Nexus is being pinned on Nexus.

How it read before

The update prompt used to be an event. It sat above the tab strip, it changed colour, and readers treated it as the sort of thing you do first and browse after. A newer version installed, the browser restarted, and then the market opened. If something looked odd on the market after that, the reader trusted the browser and blamed the market. That was usually the right call, because the browser had just been refreshed.

The update was also less frequent. When it came, it arrived as its own moment. There was no muscle memory to click it away.

How it reads now

A new reader arriving with the browser they installed a while ago sees the update prompt inline with the page they were opening. They click it away because they wanted to see the page, not restart. They then see the market load with layout that looks broken. Menus that do not open. A captcha that does not draw. A cart button that does nothing. The reader concludes the market is broken; often, the market is fine and the browser is on an old rendering engine that the current market front end has moved past.

The market itself has shifted while this was happening. Recent changes such as product thumbnails on Nexus shrank and their captions moved and the search filter sidebar collapses by default now both assume a current browser. An older engine paints them differently or not at all, so the reader sees a market that looks broken and unfamiliar, and blames the wrong thing.

The mismatch also feeds a second problem. A reader whose browser cannot draw the current captcha will retry, fail, and eventually be blocked on that address for a short window. The block is the market's expected response to a lot of failed captchas from one circuit. The reader reads it as a ban. It is not a ban. It is the front end doing what it is supposed to do when something on the other side cannot solve a captcha, and it will lift on its own.

Why this probably shifted

The most likely reading has three parts. Readers are more mobile now, in the sense that they open the browser on more different devices. The update on any single device is one they see less often. The update prompt itself now sits above content the reader was actively trying to look at, so dismissing it has cost. And the community help pages the reader may consult when things go wrong more often show current-browser screenshots, so the mismatch with what the reader is seeing does not read as "your browser is old", it reads as "the market looks nothing like this now".

What to change on your side

Split the update from the browsing session cleanly, and keep the two apart.

When the browser offers an update, take it before you open the market. Not after. If you have the market open already, close it, take the update, and open the market again.
If Nexus is behaving strangely for you and other readers describe it as fine, check the browser version first. Anything that reads like a layout bug is almost always the render, not the market.
The recent interface changes (the login page went from noisy to quiet among them) all assume a current browser. If yours is old they will not look the way the notebook describes them.
When you see a captcha fail to draw, treat it as the same kind of signal as a page that does not load. Update, then retry.

What this entry is not claiming

The entry does not claim that every strange Nexus behaviour is the browser. Sometimes the market really has changed. The point is that new readers on old browsers have started attributing the browser side of the problem to the market side of it, and the noise from that misattribution is loud enough to be worth naming. See also how this notebook works for how the notebook treats browser-side shifts differently from market-side ones.