Poor communication from Twitch has led to confusion after the announce service that Chrome, Edge and Firefox are currently the only web browsers officially supported by the popular streaming platform. No context was given in the announcement, although it appears the restrictions are temporary and have been placed on alternative browsers so that Twitch can locate and close access points is used to create masses of bot accounts.
The problems started when users started experiencing errors when logging into the service. Twitch Support then resolved the situation by asking users to sign in from an up-to-date version of the three supported web browsers, announcing that “a help article to resolve the issues will be coming soon.”
Twitch CPO Tom Verrillic things clarified later on Twitter, saying that the browser restrictions are just a temporary measure to combat botnets used in hate attacks. “Unfortunately, this is what the work of making Twitch safe entails. People today need to use a browser they don’t prefer to stop tomorrow’s Hate Raid,” said Verrilli.
Opera GX has assured Twitch users on Twitter that they can still access the streaming platform through the browser, provided they update to the latest version. I tested three of the major alternative browsers myself — Safari, Brave, and Opera GX — and found that I still had login access to all three, as well as the functionality to both watch videos and start a stream.
Those using unsupported browsers may still be able to access Twitch
Despite the outcry in Twitch Support’s comments criticizing the decision to drop official support for other browsers, using an unsupported browser doesn’t seem to completely block all access to the streaming service. However, some users report issues as being can’t make purchases on Twitch with an unsupported browser, and even streamers using one of the supported browsers are experiencing login errors.
