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Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

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Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#281

Post by j16sdiz »

embedding-shape wrote: post #46
esseph wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data scraping. If anything else, the AI machine wants near constant streams of new data, even if it already checked with you 30ms ago. A CDN helps immensely. Also keeps you from getting DDoS'd if you did something like run it off your home connection.

Your webserver most likely have "rate limiting" built in already, which you can configure to act based on lots of variables typically. Set a limit of 1 req/s or whatever, and you've stopped 99% of all DDoS you'll encounter on the public web. If your visitors get cranky, up it to 10 req/s and you still are preventing most of the "abusive traffic", granted your backend/website isn't completely upside down when it comes…

Rate limit never work like that in large volume.

Keeping connection alive take memory.

Rate limit by bytes/sec would hold the connection longer, taking more resources.

Rate limit by ip don't work with sudden surge demand, ddos, etc

Rate limit by user basically means you need to process the request and CPU bound

In very large scale DDoS, incoming SYN alone can cog your down pipe. You need to upgrade the connection just for that (Or something on your upstream to block by ip)

You can do lots of these without using cdn, yes. But it is easier with cdn and it is cheaper than paying for extra capacity "just in case"

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#282

Post by airstrike »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #166
jillesvangurp wrote: post #58

It's seriously good value for small websites. Basically, there is no cost aside from the domain. And for registering and managing domains, they are pretty much the most affordable option as well. And they have a few other things that aren't half bad to use with pretty generous freemium layers. We used Google's CDN for the last six years or so but it's pretty annoying to deal with and you have to pay for a load balanc…

Re: complexity. I used to find AWS unusable, then I realized I can just tell Claude Code or Codex to manage it. This makes it into an entirely different product, where "Cloudflare is easier" doesn't really matter. Now price is the only barrier.

Cloudflare can also be managed by Claude Code or Codex, so for those instances in which you will personally have to go into the console to make edits, Cloudflare is still easier.

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#283

Post by strictnein »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #273
strictnein wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA couldn't care less about you and your customers, nor do they have any interest whatsoever in the megaton of worthless internet traffic that goes through Cloudflare. This article, from over a decade ago now, explains how they actually operate. Gobbling up all the traffic is a 20+ year old idea that never bore any fruit and is amazingly pointless. Instead, they might drop an implant in the SSD firmware of devic…

If I was the director of an agency of the size of the NSA and was evaluating the options purely from that perspective, I'd aim at creating a file on every living citizen on earth, including their social network topology and their activities. Basically a Google search engine that includes information not publicly accessible. I'd create much larger files for persons of interest and authorize targeted surveillance of th…

Yeah, I'm sure some system like that exists, although I'd assume that would be more in the CIA's purview. I'd be surprised if they kept a broad swath of data for most people though as the tech companies already do it and it's constantly up to date. If needed, a fed lawyer can work through the FISA court and the tech companies are obliged to provide the records.

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#284

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

8by3 wrote: post #186

When someone says cloudflare is too good / cheap to be true... maybe think about it. They have shareholders, who wouldn't allow them to provide value for free, its just not obvious to you how they are extracting that value. Maybe its by capturing a huge % of unencrypted https traffic because if you let them do your certs it means they can read all your real traffic.

> They have shareholders, who wouldn't allow them to provide value for free, its just not obvious to you how they are extracting that value. Maybe its by capturing a huge % of unencrypted https traffic because if you let them do your certs it means they can read all your real traffic.

If it is "not obvious to you how they extract the value", you can just look for NET (their ticker) earning reports and SEC fillings since they are a publicly traded company instead of spreading conspiracy theories...

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#285

Post by sinsterizme »

el1s7 wrote: post #243
jillesvangurp wrote: post #58

It's seriously good value for small websites. Basically, there is no cost aside from the domain. And for registering and managing domains, they are pretty much the most affordable option as well. And they have a few other things that aren't half bad to use with pretty generous freemium layers. We used Google's CDN for the last six years or so but it's pretty annoying to deal with and you have to pay for a load balanc…

Google Cloud and AWS are complex because they're meant for hosting complex apps and infrastructure, they're not really worth it for simple static websites.

I'd argue it's even more worth it for static sites, where CDNs and buckets will vastly out-perform hosting a static site on an instance yourself because of replication, caching, and geographic routing

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#286

Post by 8by3 »

smw wrote: post #215
8by3 wrote: post #186

When someone says cloudflare is too good / cheap to be true... maybe think about it. They have shareholders, who wouldn't allow them to provide value for free, its just not obvious to you how they are extracting that value. Maybe its by capturing a huge % of unencrypted https traffic because if you let them do your certs it means they can read all your real traffic.

There are lots of companies that provide low end services for free to attract people who may now or in the future be decision makers at large companies.

indeed, typically by using their huge cash piles to build a moat around them, so no small new player has a dream of competing.

This is why I refuse to give any money to AWS/GCP/Azure or anyone who runs on them.

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#287

Post by tmtvl »

CommanderData wrote: post #23
Havoc wrote: post #2

Bunny.net is a good alternative - they don’t have CF depth of offerings but are getting there

They don't have Cloudflare Tunnels which is almost too good to pass up. I don't particularly understand how CF makes money on it, with the many high traffic sites I have used that I know don't pay CF a dime. Tunnels adds so much more overhead in compute on both ends more than their normal CDN/proxy would.

If you're not paying, you're not the customer; you're the product.

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#288

Post by OptionX »

aivisol wrote: post #144
shevy-java wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not living in Europe, right? Because while I agree that China is a problem, the USA is a much, much bigger problem for Europeans than China is right now. It's mostly the USA that wants to depict China as the main problem when in reality the USA behaves in a hugely aggressive colonial manner. Trump just makes this more obvious, but that has been the case way before Trump already.

Please speak for yourself. Not everyone in Europe thinks US is bigger problem than China. For many China is far bigger geopolitical threat since they openly support Russia in its current war.

Between China and the US which have laid claim to Greenland and have in no uncertain terms said they would use military force to acquire it?

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#289

Post by jillesvangurp »

dizhn wrote: post #102
jillesvangurp wrote: post #58

It's seriously good value for small websites. Basically, there is no cost aside from the domain. And for registering and managing domains, they are pretty much the most affordable option as well. And they have a few other things that aren't half bad to use with pretty generous freemium layers. We used Google's CDN for the last six years or so but it's pretty annoying to deal with and you have to pay for a load balanc…

> Basically, there is no cost aside from the domain. And for registering and managing domains, they are pretty much the most affordable option as well. You don't need to register your domain with them. Only make their DNS servers your domain name servers.

To be clear, we migrated our domains to them after moving our websites there, not before. Our old registrar charged more.

Re: Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare

#290

Post by pjc50 »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #244
pjc50 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does actually matter that the US president is continually deriding Europe and making weird threats in English language social media where we can see it, while the Chinese leadership is politely selling us discounted cars. (When is the first war going to be started purely downstream of social media beef? Was it arguably the Iran war?)

That's like complaining that the police are mean while your heroin dealer is so nice to you.

Well, yes, that's a huge structural problem in many American cities. When people perceive the police as more of a threat than crime, the situation deteriorates. Somehow "make the police trustworthy" isn't considered an option.
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