this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Cloudflare's pretty cool, actually! This is a case of the bearer of bad news getting shot.
Normally a site using Cloudflare shouldn't show a page like this at all, it'll just load normally. But, then, let's say there's a giant traffic spike or some script kiddie pays for a botnet-provided DDoS attack.
Without Cloudflare (or the like): You see: The server is overwhelmed and the site doesn't load, except maybe very rarely. You think: The site is crap and they can't keep their servers up! But you should blame: the botnet or the lack of server capacity
With Cloudflare (or the like): You see: an (admittedly annoying) interstitial, and then the site loads (probably) You think: Cloudflare is garbage! It's making me wait to access this page! But you should blame: the botnet or the lack of server capacity
So, yeah, it's annoying, but less so than not being able to access the site. Also, Cloudflare is a big fan of net neutrality and helps certain sites at times, too.
I get cloudflare every time i visit some websites
The site owner can configure how often it should show, or maybe Cloudflare just considers you risky.
Jokes and whinging aside, you've touched on the real complaint, or mine anyway. They should toss me a cookie or whatever. OK cloudflare, my request is coming from a nasty network; but you declared ☑ my browser to be fine and me to be human and our "connection secure" two minutes ago. Remember my browser, pretty please?
The 'Challenge Passage' is another site owner configurable setting and it ranges from 5 minutes to a year (I believe the default is 30 minutes).
Basically Cloudflare has heaps of settings for everything they do, most of the things people complain about are on the site owner, usually not Cloudflare.
There's also Privacy Pass, which stores the result of your CAPTCHA for the next 30 CAPTCHAs IIRC, but as you might guess, the site owner can disable it.