CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#11

Post by cirno » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

Not to mention, CloudFlare has become synonymous with hosting and protecting the worst websites on the internet, with currently only two exceptions made, seemingly at the CEO's whim.

CloudFlare protects websites dedicated to doxing, stalking and harassing their victims. And when their victims complain, CloudFlare forwards all their personal information directly to said website owners while doing nothing about it. Websites that host content like the Christchurch massacre video and manifesto. Websites that have bullied people to the point of suicide.

I'm all for the importance of freedom of speech and being able to say offensive things on the internet, but CloudFlare is protecting sites that flagrantly violate the law.

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#12

Post by chairmanwow » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:50 AM UTC

These especially suck in China. It’s especially painful when you are finally free and clear of the great firewall only to be stopped by a mistuned fraud filter.

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#13

Post by tfha » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:50 AM UTC

ridgewell wrote: post #9

Is the situation improved by using the Privacy Pass add-on [1] from Cloudflare? Supposedly: >Privacy Pass is a Chrome/Firefox browser extension to make browsing Cloudflare-protected websites a better experience for users. In particular, if a user IP address is designated to have a poor reputation then the user may have to solve a Cloudflare CAPTCHA page before they can gain access to such websites. Privacy Pass uses…

Should we be building the internet such that a single website can make it effectively unusable for any user at their arbitrary whim?

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#14

Post by cnst » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:51 AM UTC

unityByFreedom wrote: post #8

OP lives in Southeast Asia and suggests website owners choose a different CDN and fails to propose an alternative. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There are two complaints, (1) cloudflare requires a captcha for visitors from some regions (like SouthEast Asia) (2) cloudflare does not have enough nodes in SouthEast Asia, and OP feels being rerouted to another node defeats the purpose of a CDN. Yet, Cloudflare does (1) because they often see…

> Getting rid of the CDN is not a solution.

Why not? The whole everyone-needs-Cloudflare is a made up problem, which depends on many false narratives.

And why do we as website visitors have never heard of Akamai, yet it's hard to find anyone who's never seen these captchas from Cloudflare and Incapsula?

> Is there a better free CDN for that region?

You can only find free mice in mousetraps.

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#15

Post by faitswulff » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

ridgewell wrote: post #9

Is the situation improved by using the Privacy Pass add-on [1] from Cloudflare? Supposedly: >Privacy Pass is a Chrome/Firefox browser extension to make browsing Cloudflare-protected websites a better experience for users. In particular, if a user IP address is designated to have a poor reputation then the user may have to solve a Cloudflare CAPTCHA page before they can gain access to such websites. Privacy Pass uses…

The author runs an ISP. Is this extension for the end user or can it be used at the ISP level for all affected IP addresses?

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#16

Post by superasn » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

Not to mention that it's not just a matter of filling some random words anymore but more like a "neverending" cycle of identifying buses and traffic lights which can last 5+ minutes. I must have identified more buses for Google than I've actually seen irl :(

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#17

Post by unityByFreedom » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

tfha wrote: post #13

ridgewell wrote: post #9

Is the situation improved by using the Privacy Pass add-on [1] from Cloudflare? Supposedly: >Privacy Pass is a Chrome/Firefox browser extension to make browsing Cloudflare-protected websites a better experience for users. In particular, if a user IP address is designated to have a poor reputation then the user may have to solve a Cloudflare CAPTCHA page before they can gain access to such websites. Privacy Pass uses…

Should we be building the internet such that a single website can make it effectively unusable for any user at their arbitrary whim?

> a single website can make it effectively unusable for any user at their arbitrary whim

CF is a free service. Websites can choose to use it or not, and it certainly does not dictate the nature of the internet.

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#18

Post by pjkundert » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:57 AM UTC

tfha wrote: post #13

ridgewell wrote: post #9

Is the situation improved by using the Privacy Pass add-on [1] from Cloudflare? Supposedly: >Privacy Pass is a Chrome/Firefox browser extension to make browsing Cloudflare-protected websites a better experience for users. In particular, if a user IP address is designated to have a poor reputation then the user may have to solve a Cloudflare CAPTCHA page before they can gain access to such websites. Privacy Pass uses…

Should we be building the internet such that a single website can make it effectively unusable for any user at their arbitrary whim?

You mean, the internet that allows web property owners to elect to protect themselves from vandalism?

That sounds like a powerful use of personal choice to me -- allowed by an internet that (still) allows individuals to make choices in their own best interests.

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#19

Post by skrebbel » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:57 AM UTC

ridgewell wrote: post #9

Is the situation improved by using the Privacy Pass add-on [1] from Cloudflare? Supposedly: >Privacy Pass is a Chrome/Firefox browser extension to make browsing Cloudflare-protected websites a better experience for users. In particular, if a user IP address is designated to have a poor reputation then the user may have to solve a Cloudflare CAPTCHA page before they can gain access to such websites. Privacy Pass uses…

So wait, "we shipped a bug, so we made a browser extension that lets you circumvent the bug". That's cloudflare's answer? I'm not impressed.

EDIT: people seem to be confused as to what bug cloudflare shipped. The bug is not having people solve captchas because their IP has a bad reputation. It's having them solve it over and over again.

You can put it however you want it, but if my app's UX is fine without cloudflare and it's shit with cloudflare, for a small but significant percentage of my users, then CF has a bug.

Re: CloudFlare is ruining the internet for me (2016)

#20

Post by cracker_jacks » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

What is the alternative solution here? How do you effectively protect access to websites while simultaneously making sure you never get false positives?

I really don't think going back to not having Cloudflare-like services is a step forward. Is there another way?